This year's highly-anticipated Doctor Who Christmas special may feature the return of another prominent figure from the Doctor's past. And in many ways, this year's Christmas Special will be the end of an era for the entire Doctor Who series. Not only will the episode feature Peter Capaldi's 12th Doctor regenerating, but it will also be the final Doctor Who episode penned by Steven Moffat, who will be passing on his showrunner duties to Chris Chibnall, after taking over for Russell T. Davies in the fifth season back in 2010. As a result, the entire 10th season of the show has been building steadily towards Capaldi's regeneration at the end of this year.

To his credit, Moffat managed to craft an exciting and heartbreaking final stretch of episodes for the season, culminating in a finale that appeared to feature the final farewells of both Bill (Pearl Mackie) and Nardole (Matt Lucas). And in case that wasn't enough, the episode also ended with the previously rumored return of the 1st Doctor, originally played by William Hartnell, but who is being played by David Bradley now, in a last-minute twist that managed to perfectly set up this year's Christmas Special.

Now, the Mirror is reporting that Bradley won't be the only familiar face making an appearance in the Christmas Special. In fact, following some previous rumors, the outlet is reporting that Jenna Coleman has agreed to return in the episode as Clara Oswald for a small return appearance, after spending such a long period of time with Capaldi's Doctor before her departure at the end of the show's ninth season. In addition, the outlet claims that both Mackie and Lucas will be returning in some form as Nardole and Bill, though, it's unclear how they will exactly, or what role they may play in the episode's story.

Now, it'll be interesting to see Clara return in the sequel, especially since the last time fans saw her, she was taking the chance to travel through all of time and space in her own TARDIS, alongside Maisie Williams' Ashildr/Me, before finally facing her death once and for all. While that felt like a proper ending for Clara, that also, of course, left the open the possibility for her to cross paths with Capaldi's Doctor again, though, with his memories of her still erased, how exactly their reunion will go is another mystery altogether.

This news doesn't come as much of a surprise either, since it's become a bit of a tradition for each iteration of the Doctor's companions to return for their regeneration: Billie Piper returned in David Tennant's final episode, while Karen Gillan's Amy Pond was there to say farewell to Matt Smith's Doctor. The Christmas Special has previously been touted as not only having an emotional regeneration sequence for Capaldi's Doctor, but a much "different" one than fans might think. And fortunately, fans only have a few more months to wait before they can finally know what exactly that means for Clara, Bill, and Nardole when the 12th Doctor finally says his last farewell.

MORE: How Doctor Who Finale Connects To Christmas Special

Doctor Who will return to BBC America for Christmas 2017.

Source: Mirror