'Doctor Who' series 12 will return on New Year's Day

The new series of Doctor Who will land on New Year's Day, it's been confirmed.

The 12th series (of the revived era of the show) will premiere with the first part of a 'blockbusting' two-part episode called Spyfall in January 1, 2020.

Episodes will then air every Sunday after that.

Though the plot remains under wraps, guest stars include Stephen Fry, Sir Lenny Henry, Robert Glenister and Goran Višnjić.

Read more: Epic trailer for Doctor Who series 12

Fry and Henry were spotted in the brief trailer for the series, which landed last weekend and also featured the return of mercenary rhino-headed aliens humanoids the Judoon, and a glimpse of the Cybermen.

The latter were last seen in the 2017 episode The Doctor Falls, with previous Doctor Peter Capaldi.

13th Doctor Jodie Whittaker will be back piloting the Tardis for a second series, joined by her pals Ryan, (Tosin Cole), Yaz (Mandip Gill) and retired bus driver Graham (Bradley Walsh).

Spyfall has been penned by showrunner Chris Chibnell himself, who wrote or co-wrote all but three of the episodes from series 11, Whittaker's debut.

Read more: Doctor Who series 12 wraps

Chibnell has called it the 'biggest episode in the show's history'.

He told Metro: “This year it’s like, look at everything we’ve got in the toy box of Doctor Who. It was always the plan to have more old monsters. There’s a lovely balance, we’ve got some quite scary new monsters, because you want the people whether they’re five or 25 or 55 who joined us last year and hadn’t watched the show before, to show them all the treats Doctor Who can provide.”

From the brief snippet we saw last week, this series features vineyards, robot arachnids, wartime Paris, Lenny Henry shooting a gleaming pistol from a moving car and bats. Lots of bats.