The BBC yesterday released a new trailer for the upcoming eighth series of Doctor Who, and eagle-eyed watchers have noticed that one character seen in it bears more than a passing resemblance to Mass Effect‘s Garrus Vakarian.

As pointed out by Eurogamer, the Garrus look-alike can be seen for a brief moment at the 27-second mark in the video below. The character in question appears to be some sort of robot–whereas Garrus is a turian, one of the many alien races in the Mass Effect universe–but otherwise looks a great deal like one of Commander Shepard’s most popular squadmates.

We don’t yet know when the episode(s) with the character in question will show up in, so we’ll have to wait until at least August 23–the debut of the new Doctor Who series–to see if these similarities hold up to closer examination.

Eurogamer notes that executive producer and former Doctor Who actor Matt Smith were seen playing around with an omni-tool (a sort of futuristic multi-tool from the Mass Effect games) at last year’s Comic-Con. As such, it’s possible this could be a case of Moffat subtly referencing Mass Effect rather than Garrus’ design being ripped off. Of course, it could also merely be a coincidence, but where’s the fun in that?

With Mass Effect 3 wrapping up Shepard’s story, future entries in the series will leave much of the existing series behind–including characters like Garrus, who is arguably the series’ best character. (Mordin is the only other acceptable answer in that debate, if you ask me.)

We’ll be learning more about BioWare’s thought process behind the next Mass Effect later next week, when several of its developers discuss the project at San Diego Comic-Con on Saturday, July 26.

What do you think of this mystery character–is it a Garrus reference or not? Let us know in the comments.

Chris Pereira is a freelance writer for GameSpot, and you can follow him on Twitter @TheSmokingManX
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