Doctor Who is back. We love to see romps through space and time with the Doctor, his companion(s), and the TARDIS, and this season will certainly give us all of that. But that’s not the only reason we are happy about season 1. Ncuti Gatwa, who is one of the most stylish men on Earth, is playing our beloved Doctor and he’s not shy about using the TARDIS closet. We’ve already seen quite a few photos of Fifteen and Ruby Sunday in some sweet threads. So, in honor of his impeccable fashion sense, here’s every single outfit that Ncuti Gatwa wears in Doctor Who. 

“The Giggle” 

Like many Doctors, the first outfit we see Ncuti Gatwa in is his predecessor’s clothing. But, unlike previous Doctors, their bigeneration means he is only wearing the top half of the outfit. Fifteen wants to know what the hell is going on while wearing a white shirt, a patterned tie, white undies, and hi-top Chuck Taylors. He doesn’t even bother to change clothes before he pops off for new adventures.

“The Church on Ruby Road” 

At the beginning of the episode, we see Ncuti Gatwa’s Doctor wearing that brown jacket and the striped shirt (with some chest peeking out) from several promo pics. It’s a shot from the waist up, so we don’t get the full outfit until later in the episode, which also includes blue trousers and his very cool trainers (sneakers for us American folks). Even as his outfits change, he wears an assortment of necklaces and rings to really accent things. Ncuti told us that Ralph Lauren’s HBCU line as well as his own style will influence the Doctor’s looks, which is very cool. 

The Doctor wears a few outfits while keeping an eye on Ruby before their first proper meeting. His yellow undershirt and kilt are truly a vibe as he twirls on the dance floor. Ruby stares at him and, honestly, we were staring too. When he steps outside, we get to see his black leather jacket and boots that really complete the outfit. 

We also see him watching her play the piano while wearing a brown and black plaid suit, an orange sweater, and a cowboy hat. We need him to bring that look back and put Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter on his jukebox right now.

At the end of the episode, he’s changed his shirt to a grey zipup sweater with colorful stripes! Still looking fly.

“Space Babies”

There’s no costume changes for this one. He keeps the look from the end of the Christmas special for their first space adventure. 

“The Devil’s Chord”

This Doctor Who episode starts with Ncuti Gatwa wearing a very casual street outfit: an orange short sleeved button down shirt, Levi Jeans, his trainers, and a blue belt.

But, Ruby brings up the very valid point of them changing clothes and he makes a change. That blue pinstriped suit is the business. It’s giving Temptations! Also, is the Doctor wearing a wig and faux sideburns with that suit? Yes, he is.

“Boom”

“Boom” is quite the explosive episode, even with the Doctor mostly stuck on a landmine. But, at least Ncuti Gatwa’s Doctor Who outfits continue to be on point. He’s wearing a black jacket over a white shirt with a nice pair of tan trousers. His boots are also the business. Love to see it.

“73 Yards”

The Fifteenth Doctor was only in this episode for a matter of minutes. (Here’s an explanation of why.) But whew is Ncuti Gatwa’s Doctor Who outfit so good in this one. The orange coat, striped shirt, and the reddish orange beanie are all a vibe.

“Dot and Bubble”

We don’t physically see the Doctor much in this episode but he does a repeat of his orange sweater and brown plaid suit. When he appears on Lindy’s screen, he loses the jacket for a better look at his sweater.

“Rogue”

Now this is the outfit of all Ncuti Gatwa Doctor Who outfits. The Regency era drip is unmatched and he is too dapper for words!

“The Legend of Ruby Sunday”

Even as the world is ending, the Doctor knows how to look good. He keeps it simple with a white T-shirt, black leather jacket, jeans, and boots as he faces Sutekh alongside Ruby and our favorite mad auntie Mel.

“Empire of Death”

The Doctor gets in one more outfit change before going back to a previous look at the very end. He keeps his white shirt but trades out the jeans for a lighter linen. Simple but Ncuti makes everything look good!

Originally published May 10, 2024.

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“The Church on Ruby Road” gave us a really cute Christmas special starring the Fifteenth Doctor and Ruby Sunday. We met Ruby’s delightful family, including her loving adoptive mum Carla and her witty gran Cherry. Her neighborhood is also delightful, including her neighbor Mrs. Flood, played by Anita Dobson. The special teases an ongoing mystery about Ruby’s biological family but something strange is also going on with Mrs. Flood, too. She breaks the fourth wall at the end and it makes us all wonder what’s going on with her. Who is Mrs. Flood in Doctor Who? Let’s dig into how she appears throughout season one.

Near the beginning of the Christmas episode, Ruby Sunday comes home with two handfuls of groceries. We watch her neighbor Mrs. Flood argue with Abdul, another neighbor, about a large object that she’s sure he put on the sidewalk. That object is none other than the TARDIS. Abdul insists he knows nothing about this blue box. Ruby comes up and Mrs. Flood, who calls her Rubes, complains to her as Ruby looks at the box with lots of curiosity. She asks Mrs. Flood what it is and her neighbor says it is a police box. She admits she hasn’t seen one on the streets of London in around 50 years… and doesn’t want to see one now. 

Later in the episode, Mrs. Flood is walking home when she witnesses the TARDIS dematerializing. Of course, she’s in shock and drops her shopping bags. After the Doctor returns from saving baby Ruby in the past, he parks the TARDIS on the other side of the street. Mrs. Flood is rather chipper and waves hello to him. When he comes back out, they have a short conversation, including Mrs. Flood asking who he is. Predictably, the Fifteenth Doctor just says he’s passing through and she tells him to take care. At the end, Ruby comes out to inquire about the Doctor and Mrs. Flood points her to the TARDIS. Strangely, she calls her Ruby and wishes her good luck. Mrs. Flood is even nice to Abdul, who is shocked to see the TARDIS disappear. She then turns directly to the camera and says “Never seen a TARDIS before?”

Further along in the season, we see Mrs. Flood in “73 Yards.” Ruby returns home after the Doctor’s disappearance and devises a plan with her mom to figure out who the mysterious lady is and why she’s following Ruby around. Mrs. Flood comes out of the house, asking Ruby if she’s “having a good time” and questioning why she’s standing in the street talking to her mom on the phone. She says “nothing to do with me” and then scurries away. Again, she doesn’t seem to be perturbed by anything weird going on around her.

Her last appearances in the final two episodes are even stranger. Mrs. Flood volunteers to look after Ruby’s grandmum while Carla goes with her to UNIT to figure out more about Ruby’s birth mom. While there, she’s quirky until everyone leaves. Then, she goes dark, saying that she will not be getting Ruby’s grandmum a cup of tea. She tells Mrs. Sunday that she’d be very careful because there’s a storm coming in. She breaks the fourth wall again and says “he waits no more,” which we now know is Sutekh.

As they disintegrate, Mrs. Flood says that she has been hiding away and had “plans.” What kind of plans?!

Does Mrs. Flood Have a Connection to Clara Oswald or Others Like the Rani in Doctor Who?

When Fifteen saves everyone, she calls him a “clever boy,” which is a phrase that fans recognize from back when Clara Oswald was his companion. She called him a clever boy and that’s interesting considering Mrs. Flood’s wardrobe with sweaters and collared shirts looks a lot like what Clara would wear. Quite a few fans are picking up on this.

What Is Going on with Mrs. Flood in Doctor Who?

In the very final scene of the finale, she turns into a narrator of sorts, saying Ruby was having a happy ending but the Doctor’s end would be full of absolute terror. She’s wearing a white fur jacket with a hood and gives us a menacing “night night” before the episode ends. This outfit looks a lot like what Romana, a Fourth Doctor companion who was a Time Lady, wore before. Mrs. Flood hints that she’s been hiding herself away. Is she the Rani (an anagram of “rain,” which can cause a flood)? She’s been hinting at hiding herself away and the Rani, a renegade Time Lady and nemesis of the Doctor, hasn’t been seen in a long time.

So, what’s up with this lady? Is Mrs. Flood is a villain? Maybe. She could be yet another god that this Doctor must face. And that would make Ruby’s story all the more interesting considering a great threat lived next door to her. Who knows what Russell T Davies has in store.

Will Mrs. Flood Return to Doctor Who?

Either way, it seems we will get more Mrs. Flood in the future. Dobson recently told Radio Times that answers about Mrs. Flood would come in Doctor Who season two. “In fact, this particular series, season 2, which we’re [filming] at the moment, you do actually find out quite a lot about her,” she said. “That’ll be interesting, to see what people think.”

Let’s see what next season brings us.

Originally published December 25, 2023.

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There’s something strange about Ruby Sunday. We met the Fifteenth Doctor’s companion during the Christmas special “The Church on Ruby Road” and her story set off our spidey senses. She, like the Doctor, is an orphan who doesn’t know the full extent of her past. A woman left her at the episode’s titular church but, thankfully, she was taken in and later adopted. After learning the episode titles for Doctor Who season one, we knew that Ruby’s mysterious background would come into play. “Space Babies” is a heartfelt yet very unserious romp with a literal Boogeyman (like…a man made out of boogers) but it also gives us some curious breadcrumbs about Ruby Sunday and her past. We get another taste of that and some hints about her birth day in the second episode, “The Devil’s Chord.”

In “Space Babies”, Ruby Sunday and the Doctor find themselves on a space station that operates as a baby farm in the distant future. Due to pesky budget cuts, the crew—except for a hidden nanny-like figure named Nan-E/Jocelyn—is gone. Left behind are a group of talking babies who are mostly surviving on their own. But, there’s a weird and gross creature lurking just beneath them. A lot of the episode is quippy one-liners, running, a hallway full of snot, and a wild plan to get these refugees to a safe place.

Things get serious halfway through the action when the Doctor notes that Ruby, like the babies, were abandoned. He says that’s a strange connection. He also asks if she knows anything about her birth parents at all and she confirms she was just left in the snow at a church. The Doctor then goes into his memory of her mother walking away, which we saw in the Christmas episode. However, the woman/figure that we assume is Ruby’s mom turns around and points at him menacingly.

Who Is Ruby Sunday’s Mother in Doctor Who?

Right now, we still don’t know who Ruby Sunday’s mother is in the series. We also don’t know why the Doctor’s memory of seeing her walk away from the church is different. But we do know that he’s going to poke as far as he can to find out the truth. For whatever reason, he cannot return to that night to figure out the truth. He’s nearly in tears when Ruby brings him back to the current space to note it is snowing. He says she brought a memory through from her birth day and says this has never happened before. Ruby asks what it means and he says he doesn’t know. Fifteen laughs it off and gives her a hug but Nan-E interrupts them. 

Is Ruby Sunday a Human in Doctor Who? 

At the end of the episode, Ruby runs to greet her mum Carla while Fifteen hangs out in the TARDIS. We see he’s run a scan on her body to figure out more information. It affirms she’s 19 years and 3 days old and that she is a Homo sapien, and that seems to be the case by the finale. We discover that Ruby Sunday’s mom was a teen who left her at the church because she had an abusive childhood. She works as a nurse and was only seen as important because so many people thought she was special. Ruby’s father is also going to come into her life between season one and two, so there’s a chance that there’s something weird going on.

Who Else Was There on Ruby Sunday’s Birth Night? Who Is “the Oldest One” and “the One Who Waits” in Doctor Who?

In “The Devil’s Chord,” Fifteen and Ruby Sunday find themselves battling the Maestro (played by Jinkx Monsoon), the child of Neil Patrick Harris’ Toymaker. At the end of the 60th anniversary special, the Toymaker hinted a legion was coming for the Doctor. This episode gave us a taste of that. At one point, Ruby is caught up in the musical notes of the Maestro, who wants to consume the music left in her heart. Maestro’s tuning fork brings forth Ruby’s hidden song, which is “Shepherd’s Bell Carol,” the Christmas song playing the night she was born. The same snowfall that they saw on the space station begins to fall in that room. Maestro then says, “How can a song have so much power? And power like him?” The Doctor questions who “him” is and Maestro says it is “the oldest one.”

Maestro questions how the oldest one could have been there and why. The Doctor once again wants to know who, but Maestro doesn’t give him an answer. When Maestro is defeated at the end of the episode, they warn the Doctor and Ruby that “the one who waits is almost here.”

What does all of that mean? What does all of this have to do with Ruby Sunday’s past? It is Sutekh who is apparently “the oldest one” and “the one who waits,” as he’s the main villain for this series. To read more about him, check out this post.

What Is Up With Ruby Sunday and the Recurring Snow?

We keep seeing snow over and over again. It appears once again in “Boom” as Ruby Sunday is clinging on to life. It is not certain how she’s able to conjure up that snow nor what it means for her, even at the end of the season. It seems her emotional connection to her birthday and overall hope is so strong that it is what makes it happen. But the show doesn’t make it clear.

There’s also the ongoing mystery behind Ruby’s neighbor Mrs. Flood. The season is over so we will have to wait and see what else happens with Ruby Sunday in Doctor Who season two. 

Originally published May 10, 2024.

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Doctor Who’s season finale is here already and it ended with Ruby Sunday getting answers to questions that she’d been asking her whole life. In the finale, the Doctor and Ruby face Sutekh as this god of death sweeps through the universe. Sutekh wants to not only kill every living being, but he also wants to know the secret about Ruby’s birth mom, too. When he landed outside the TARDIS in 2004, the sight of Ruby’s mother was beyond his comprehension and he cannot see this mysterious woman. Of course, the Doctor and Ruby Sunday use that curiosity to defeat Sutekh, but they also get a legitimate answer about who her biological mother is.

After pretty much all things turn to dust, they travel to 2046 when Roger ap Gwilliam requires everyone to get DNA tested. They go there and use the technology, along with Ruby’s blood and the sonic screwdriver, to find out her parentage. Sutekh appears and wants the answer and it seems Ruby will give it to him. But, it is simply a trap so the Doctor can take control of the TARDIS, drag Sutekh back through the time vortex to undo all the death, and then sentence the god of death to his demise.

Who Is Ruby Sunday’s Biological Mother and Father?

Afterward, UNIT, the Doctor, and Ruby Sunday take a look at her DNA results and there is an answer about her birth mother, whose name is Louise Allison Miller. She’s 35 years old and had Ruby when she was only 15 years old. Louise was living with a stepfather who was “trouble,” which explains why she left Ruby at the church. Three years later, she moved to Coventry and got her degree, moving on with her life as a nurse. The Doctor said she was important because they thought she was important, making her existence super important. The pointing at the Doctor wasn’t at him but at the lamppost that said “Ruby Road,” which was her naming Ruby. (Does this make sense? I don’t think so.) 

Louise seems to be an ordinary person …at least, for now. Doctor Who is always cooking up something weird.

Ruby’s father is William Benjamin Garnet, who was also fifteen. We don’t see him in the episode but we know that Ruby goes off to find him, leaving the Doctor for now. (More on that in a bit.) The Doctor and Ruby Sunday do go and find her mother. While he thinks they should respect her choice to not look for Ruby, she decides to go into the coffee shop and thank her mother for keeping her safe. Ruby brings Louise to meet her mum Carla and grandmum and they all share a meal together. Louise says she wanted to look for Ruby but wasn’t sure if her daughter would be angry with her. The Doctor encourages Ruby to go on this new adventure of getting to know her birth parents. 

What Does the Reveal About Ruby Sunday’s Mom Mean for Doctor Who Season Two?

We do know that Ruby Sunday will continue to travel with the Doctor in season two. We can assume that the Doctor will meet his new companion, played by Varada Sethu, and may even spend some time with her before Ruby comes back into the mix. But showrunner Russell T Davies himself said that Ruby Sunday is very important to what happens in season two. If her story truly does tie into the Timeless Child arc, then we may discover that Ruby Sunday’s biological mom Louise Miller may not be so ordinary after all. For now, Ruby is off and spending time with her biological parents and seems happy with her personal life.

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The first season of the Ncuti Gatwa era of Doctor Who has felt incredibly short. There’s a reason for that; it is incredibly short. Even so, the season-long mystery has been right at the forefront of every episode. Who is the lady played by Susan Twist who keeps appearing briefly? Why is she in so many times, places, and circumstances? And why did it take the Doctor and Ruby so long to realize it? Well, the penultimate episode, “The Legend of Ruby Sunday,” finally answered at least a few of these enigmas. We now know who the villain is! And it may require a bit of explanation.

There’s Always a Twist at the End

It may have taken you a little bit to notice, but Susan Twist played a small character in each of the previous episodes. She’s the old hippie who requests a song from Ruby’s band at Christmas. She played a nurse in “Space Babies” and a dinner lady in “The Devil’s Chord.” Infamously she was the face of the ambulance in “Boom!” and the hiker in Wales in “73 Yards.” Susan Twist even played Lindy Pepper-Bean’s mom in “Dot and Bubble” and was the portrait of the duchess in “Rogue.” As the song at the end of “The Devil’s Chord” proclaimed, “there’s always a twist at the end.”

This is Russell T Davies’ most shrewd season arc, because it gave the audience double and even triple bluffs. The actress is Susan Twist, and for decades fans have speculated that we’d eventually see the Doctor’s granddaughter Susan return. Could Susan Twist be the “Susan twist?” This episode tackles it head on.

S. Triad

While the Doctor, Ruby, and UNIT discuss who the mystery lady could be, the UNIT folks know right away. It’s Susan Triad, the famous tech developer who at that moment prepares to announce her biggest public offering yet. So there it is: Susan. The Susan twist must be that Susan Twist is Susan…TWIST! In addition, her name is Susan Triad. S. Triad is an anagram of TARDIS, which the crew rightly points out. This is too much! Susan Triad must have knowledge of the TARDIS and in fact is Susan, the Doctor’s granddaughter.

One interesting wrinkle the show offers is that, while the Doctor has a granddaughter, he doesn’t have a son or daughter…at least not yet. The series has never discussed the Doctor’s children, or even really alluded to them existing, but he still has a grandchild. Ergo, through time and wime, he can raise a granddaughter before he has children…or whatever.

Sue Technologies

Ah, names. As Mel (Bonnie Langford) learns while undercover working for Susan Triad, she prefers to be called “Sue.” This was our first clue Susan Triad maybe wasn’t Susan TARDIS after all. As the rest of the episode explores Ruby’s past and whatever evil entity emanates through time and space, using the TARDIS as an entry point, we maybe forget what Susan Triad could directly be involved.

Alas, she is. And, for whatever reason, Susan Triad has been a sleeper agent the whole time. In fact, the real words we ought to have paid attention to were “Sue” and “Tech,” because in actuality, she is the reborn embodiment of Sutekh, the ancient evil that begat the ancient Egyptian god Set. Set, traditionally, is the god of deserts, storms, disorder, violence, and foreigners. (Foreigners?! The hell, Ancient Egypt?)

The episode closes with the entity of Sutekh, as embodied by a giant dog-headed cloud, and the skeletal face of Susan Triad, claiming victory. Also Harriett Arbinger, a member of UNIT, was annoying the “harbinger” of doom. H. Arbinger. Dumb.

Who Is Doctor Who‘s Sutekh?

Sutekh only appeared in a single televised Doctor Who serial. That was “Pyramids of Mars,” a Fourth Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith story from 1975. In it, the Doctor and Sarah end up in 1911 where English archaeologists (some might save tomb raiders, but po-tay-to, po-tah-to) unearth the burial chamber of Sutekh, the alien Osiran, whose race came to Earth and formed the basis for the pantheon of Ancient Egyptian deities.

Sutekh waged war against his kind, and 740 Osirans under the leadership of Horus managed to defeat and imprison Sutekh on Earth. Keeping him at bay is a beam emanating from a pyramid on Mars. Damn Edwardians and their obsession with digging up shit. The excavator, Professor Marcus Scarman, falls under Sutekh’s thrall and, using Sutekh’s robot mummies as muscle, attempts to fire a missile at Mars to destroy the pyramid. Naturally, the Doctor has to stop this, but not before he and Sarah have to beat the many obstacles and traps in the pyramid.

Actor Gabriel Woolf who voiced Sutekh in “Pyramids of Mars” reprises his role in “The Legend of Ruby Sunday.”

Has Sutekh Ever Shown Up Again?

As with just about every villain in the classic era of Doctor Who, Sutekh appeared in several novels and audio dramas as part of the show’s spinoff media. The series does namedrop Sutekh a fair amount, usually in relation to powerful, Lovecraftian gods who may or may not be the basis for the devil.

So Wait, Is Nobody Susan?

So here is where I think RTD is pulling yet another Susan twist. Given we’ve seen her a couple of times, and she has a very weird—possibly unearthly—quality to her, I think it’s much more likely Mrs. Flood (Anita Dobson) is actually Susan. She knows what a TARDIS is, and she definitely behaved incredibly strangely when Cherry Sunday (Angela Winter) asked for some tea.

I’m not saying she definitely is, but if anyone we’ve seen thus far seems like they could be the Doctor’s granddaughter in disguise, it’d be Mrs. Flood.

We’ll just have to wait and see how it all shakes out when “Empire of Death,” the finale of season one, premieres June 22 on Disney+.

Kyle Anderson is the Senior Editor for Nerdist. He hosts the weekly pop culture deep-dive podcast Laser Focus. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Instagram and Letterboxd.

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Companions don’t stick around forever, but few of Doctor Who‘s costars feel as “we hardly knew ye” as Melanie Bush, played by Bonnie Langford. Initially appearing on the show, in a timey-wimey way, after she’d already met the Doctor, Mel only stuck around for six stories, a total of 20 episodes, from 1986-1987. But no one’s ever really gone in the Whoniverse, and the accomplished stage actor returned to the series 35 years later with a brief appearance in “The Power of the Doctor.” Little did we know, Mel would get bumped up to proper costar in “The Giggle.”

Now, Melanie returns for “The Legend of Ruby Sunday,” the first part of Ncuti Gatwa’s first season finale. Nerdist spoke to the delightful Bonnie Langford about getting to continue Mel’s story, joining UNIT, and being present for the game-changing “bi-generation.”

Nerdist: At what point did you learn that you would not only come back for “The Giggle,” but you’d be coming back for multiple episodes?

Bonnie Langford: Well, let me think. [Showrunner] Russell [T Davies] just sent me the scripts and I just moved everything to be able to do it. It was very exciting. In fact, actually I was doing another show at the time. I was doing a musical, Anything Goes, and so I had to duck out of it for a couple of weeks. But yes, so Russell said, oh, we want you in the season finale of the Ncuti season, which is terribly exciting because we felt that we’d set up this whole UNIT thing as well.

Mel had been given a little bit of a slight backstory, but not too much. But now she has a job, she has a purpose, she has a place, and to be able to revisit it again [was great]. We had such a good time on “The Giggle.” I was really thrilled to be able to go back and she’s quite intrinsic to the plot, which is a gift that every actor dreams of.

You said around the time “The Giggle” came out that you were just excited that Mel got a job.

I had a computer job, a job that she actually could be doing, something that was supposedly her skills because she’d never been given that before.

You obviously played Mel again in audio form over the years. Did you have an idea in your own mind before this, what Mel would’ve been up to?

You never really knew. But it was great to be able to do the audio dramas and sort of develop those different avenues as well. And to keep in touch with her, really. It was a bit like sending postcards. I could do those things. So when it came to, they asked me to do a little tiny scene in “The Power of the Doctor” with Jodie Whittaker. It was as if, oh yeah, this is nice. I wonder what she’d looked like. And we moved her on a little bit. And then the same with “The Giggle,” and she found her place. She’s still rooted in the past. She’s got all that wealth of experience, but she’s very much up with the generation, the current generation, and wanting to look to the future.

So yeah, I think it was nice to revisit her, to be able to help her grow. She’s grown. Not as sort of perky and irritating as perhaps she was before. And she’s not a scaredy cat, she’s much more calm, much more grounded. And yet she still has this joy and dedication and devotion really, to the Doctor.

I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but I checked to make sure, but I believe Mel is the only companion who is present at multiple Regenerations. Yeah, that adds Mel to the history books, I guess.

(Delighted gasp) I love that. That’s great. Yeah, no, at one point I thought Mel was the one who sounds terrible being with most Doctors, but I don’t think she is at the moment. But you never know, because I was, I’ve worked with, well with Colin and Sylvester, obviously with Jodie, although I wasn’t in a scene with her, with David, with Ncuti. And I did a one-off special for Children in Need with Jon Pertwee. So six is quite a lot. She gets around too much.

Well that’s the headline.

You might call her flighty.

What was it like in “The Giggle” shooting the big bi-generation, pulling the Doctors apart along with Catherine Tate?

Wild. It was wild. I’m so grateful to have been present. It was very exciting. A lot of people were there. Suddenly Russell was there and everyone, Ncuti was very excited and anxious as well. But he brought such great energy and he and David just got on like an absolute house on fire. They were talking a lot. They both trained at the same drama school in Scotland. So they were talking all about that. They had that in common.

It was a very jolly celebratory atmosphere because I suppose it wasn’t really the ending that it normally would be. A new beginning, but it wasn’t final for anybody else. It wasn’t like, oh, you are leaving, bye. It was all still, oh, there’s so much hope here. And we had a lot of fun. Sun was shining all those days. We did quite a few days on it as well.

What was your impression of Ncuti and the new production during those first scenes?

It felt like the show was going to be in great hands going forward, and it seemed very exciting. Ncuti and I really just connected from the word go. So that was brilliant. I’d never met him before, but I was a great fan of his work. It just kind of came out of nowhere. And I think there was a lot more laughter than was expected. I think that brought such an extra beautiful dimension to that whole scene was that there was this fear, there was this wonder, there was this fear of the unknown, but then at the same time, suddenly, oh wow, this is exciting. This is jolly. We just laughed a lot because it was the unexpected. Yeah, it was great.

After being there for Ncuti’s first day on set, what was it like coming back and seeing how he had grown as the Doctor for the finale of the season?

Well, I mean, he certainly got his feet under the table. It’s very difficult. You take over a part or you start re-create a part and everyone’s saying, well, whatcha going to do? Whatcha going to do? And you think, ‘I dunno till I get there.’ It was great to see that he’d found different styles. I love the fact that he blends, he embraces wherever he’s going to be. He doesn’t wear just one costume. It’s going to be difficult for the fans with all the cosplay. It’ll cost a fortune! But he definitely is a person who wants to blend in with whatever environment that he’s with, that he’s the Doctor that wants to be part of that world, literally as they would say in The Little Mermaid. But he, and yet he still is very much this larger than life, beautiful spirit.

Last question: you have obviously spent a lot of time with many Doctors. Do you think there is something that Ncuti has that they all have had in terms of what it means to be The Doctor?

Yeah, I think it’s a sincerity. It’s sincerity and authenticity and in whatever form. And also inclusivity in a world where lots of the time people are not seen or heard. And it’s a way of, I think there was a beautiful line in one of the first episodes, I think it was of this season where he says, people aren’t monsters. I shouldn’t be frightened of anyone. It’s just someone I haven’t met. There’s a lot to learn from this. It’s very poetic. The show has always been about trying to help us to be better people, those that watch it, that you sort of might take something in that you go, oh, hadn’t thought of life that way before. And he is very much an advocate of it being a show for everyone, but also to learn from everyone and to embrace everyone.

And we can still be our own individual self. So we embrace our individuality, but we also embrace everybody else’s as well. And yeah, I think it’s, what he brings to it is this wonderful spirit of inclusion of all generations too. And that’s different about the show is that it has that legacy that is from the past. So it goes back to the past because we are here because of what happened in the past, whether that be good, bad, or indifferent. And maybe we can change that in the future going ahead. Sometimes we have to revisit that past to be able to deal with it, to put it to bed, or to change ourselves going forward, pay it forward differently. And that is very much suit and it’s very much part of this show, and I’m really proud to be part of all that.

Doctor Who drops at 7pm ET on Disney+.

Kyle Anderson is the Senior Editor for Nerdist. He hosts the weekly pop culture deep-dive podcast Laser Focus. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Instagram and Letterboxd.

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Doctor Who at one time had a seemingly very concrete canon and continuity. That has gone out the window, essentially for the last 10 years. The 50th anniversary special, “The Day of the Doctor,” introduced a Doctor, the War Doctor, from the middle of the Doctor’s life that the audience never knew about. Since then, radical departures and additions to lore have been commonplace. The Fugitive Doctor, plus a series of other pre-First Doctor incarnations, debuted a few years ago. Now, once and current showrunner Russell T Davies has ostensibly made another once-non-canonical Doctor canon.

In “Rogue,” the sixth episode of the first Disney+ season, we see a familiar beat. The current Doctor, in an effort to prove he’s a Time Lord rather than the shapeshifting villain, projects a rotating circle of former selves around him. We see all the ones you’d expect, plus the Fugitive Doctor. But you might say “wait a minute, is that Richard E. Grant? From Loki? Was he ever a Doctor?” Yes. And no.

In 2003, prior to RTD and company rebooting the series with Christopher Eccleston in the lead role, BBCi, or the BBC’s internet arm, commissioned a six-part story from writer Paul Cornell as a Flash animation story for the Doctor Who website. This story, “Scream of the Shalka,” cast long-ballyhooed Richard E. Grant to play a vampirish-looking Doctor opposite Sophie Okonedo as companion Alison Cheney and Derek Jacobi as the Master. David Tennant also had a small role. Grant also played one of the Doctors in the 1999 Comic Relief special “Curse of Fatal Death,” written by Steven Moffat.

Due to the live-action series announcement, “Scream of the Shalka” almost didn’t come out at all but eventually aired in late 2003. Ultimately the series wasn’t part of the continuity, despite that being the idea at the time. Obviously Tennant went on to play the Doctor after Eccleston. Okonedo would play Liz 10 in “The Beast Below,” Jacobi would indeed play the Master in “Utopia,” and even Grant himself would play the Series 7 recurring villain, the Great Intelligence.

Seeing Grant in the wheel of Doctors is a fun nod to this animated anomaly. RTD himself said not favorable things about Grant’s portrayal in the role, but that was 20 years ago. Things change. Whether we ever see Grant full-bodied on screen certainly remains to be seen, but I guess we can expect a Peter Cushing picture at some point soon too?

Kyle Anderson is the Senior Editor for Nerdist. He hosts the weekly pop culture deep-dive podcast Laser Focus. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Instagram and Letterboxd.

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Doctor Who’s latest episode takes us back into the Regency era and “Oh, my Bridgerton!” is it a fun romp in the past. Ruby and Fifteen head back to 1813 for a little fun at a ball. Things get rather spicy with some human scandals, the villainous Chuldur’s plans to take over bodies for evil cosplay fun, and the Doctor’s interactions with Rogue, played by guest star Jonathan Groff. Many fans were curious about Groff’s Doctor Who character and how he would play into this universe. And boy, does this episode shake the show up in a way we haven’t seen before. 

The Doctor encounters Rogue, a space bounty hunter from the future who accosts him after a very funny meet-cute. Rogue believes the Doctor is a Chuldur, a shapeshifter that he’s been hired to find and chuck into some incinerator to a death sentence. Rogue brings the Doctor to his ship and the latter can’t help but act, well, like the Doctor. He’s making jokes about the inferior vessel (nothing is better than the TARDIS) and Rogue getting his name from Dungeons & Dragons.

The funniest part is when he pokes fun at Rogue by turning up his music. Guess what song is playing? Kylie Minogue’s “Can’t Get You Out of My Head.” (Fun fact: Kylie was in the 2007 Christmas special Doctor Who episode “Voyage of the Damned.”) Rogue is clearly annoyed by the Doctor and his little screwdriver at first but that soon fades away after a scan reveals that the Doctor is not Chuldur. The duo end up liking each other. And I mean liiikkiiinnnngggg each other, nearly kissing in the TARDIS before the ongoing mystery interrupts. 

While Ruby is off being nosy and having a good time, Rogue essentially becomes The Doctor’s companion. They work together to devise a plan to send the Chuldur to a random barren dimension so they cannot kill everyone on Earth. They also cannot help but flirt throughout their plan to lure the Chuldur. This includes dancing “scandalously” in front of a crowd and (fake) arguing like a real couple.

Ruby ends up on the transporter after she has to pretend to be a Chuldur to stay alive. Rogue kisses the Doctor and takes Ruby’s place, instructing the Doctor to find him. The Doctor is obviously heartbroken but he quickly pushes his emotions aside and moves on with Ruby. 

Give me Rogue and Fifteen fanfic please. We don’t know if we will ever see Rogue again. (Probably not.) But perhaps his barren dimension adventures will come to Big Finish one day. Until then, we can smile about the Doctor finding love with someone who feels like his equal, even if it is only for one night.

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On the surface, traveling with the Doctor seems like a dream. As the Fifteenth Doctor said, you don’t have to worry about a job, boss, bills, or anything else that stresses the average human. You can fill your life with adventures and go practically anywhere in the TARDIS. But, as fans of the show know, life as a companion can get really complicated and downright sad. In the show’s more recent seasons, we’ve seen several companions go through the wringer in different ways. Sometimes, it is permanent, like Bill Potts’ sad ending. But even when it doesn’t last, seeing bad things happen to the Doctor’s friends is distressing. 

The Doctor’s current companion, Ruby Sunday, went through a timeline where she lost everyone she loved and spent 65 years being stalked by an older version of herself. We watched her go through an entire lifetime trying to solve a mystery without the Doctor. The worst part is, this isn’t the first time that a Doctor Who companion got left (or separated) from the Doctor and got older while waiting for their return. Here are a couple other companions who went through a similar experience. 

Amy Pond – “The Girl Who Waited”

Eleventh Doctor companion Amy Pond has a rather unique relationship with the Doctor. She met him as a child and grew up talking about her imaginary friend in the blue box who promised to come back soon. He did return, but it was years later when she was an adult and preparing to marry Rory Williams (who became a companion, too), and they began to travel.

Later on, in “The Girl Who Waited,” she got separated from the Doctor and Rory in a quarantine facility on a foreign planet. Time passed much quicker there, leading to her being there for 36 years. We meet an older Amy and the Doctor has to leave her behind to save younger Amy to avoid a paradox. Once again, Amy (or at least a version of her) had to wait a long time for the Doctor’s return.

Amy and Rory eventually leave the TARDIS after a Weeping Angel sends them back in time. The Doctor cannot reach them and we learn that they die of old age, together. What a wild journey.

Rory Williams – “The Doctor’s Wife” and “The Angels Take Manhattan”

Speaking of Rory and those Weeping Angels, we do get to see an older Rory in “The Angels Take Manhattan.” Before it all ends, Rory ends up in Winter Quay, a hotel full of aging people who are being used by the Weeping Angels to zap their time energy. Amy and Rory go through extreme measures to free Rory from this imprisonment but we do see him in there in old age.

Before all of this, “The Doctor’s Wife” shows poor Rory getting trapped in a TARDIS maze where his timeline speeds up quickly while trying to escape. Amy finds him and he is older and hysterical. Thankfully, this time conundrum works itself out as the episode progresses.

Clara Oswald – “Last Christmas”

We love a weird Christmas episode. “Last Christmas” is a dream-within-a-dream-within-a-dream type of story. It is, well, about crabs that latch onto your face and force you into dreams while they devour your brain. Fantastic. This happens to the Twelfth Doctor’s companion Clara Oswald, who ends up with a crab on her face so long that she appears elderly. She says 62 years have passed. Of course, the Doctor gets Clara back as a young person and she decides to continue traveling with him. 

Sarah Jane Smith – “School Reunion”

Now this one is quite different. Instead of everything happening in an episode or two, this legitimately takes decades. Sarah Jane Smith is one of the most beloved Classic Who companions who spent time with the Third and Fourth Doctors. In the 1976 serial “The Hand of Fear,” The Fourth Doctor is summoned to his home planet of Gallifrey and says she cannot go with him. He drops her off on Earth (in the wrong place) and goes off in the TARDIS. Sarah makes an appearance in an anniversary story in 1983. But, because of timey wimey things, Sarah ends up going back to her life investigating weird things on Earth with K9, a robot dog.

Thirty years after her initial exit, Sarah Jane crosses paths with the Tenth Doctor. It is a reunion that causes tension between her and his current companion Rose Tyler. Sarah Jane is upset that he never came back for her all those years. Rose is upset that the Doctor could be so close to someone and just leave them. And the Doctor is stuck in the middle. For Sarah Jane, there was no timeline reversal or different versions of her. It was simply having to wait and wonder for years and years while getting older. 

Sometimes, traveling with the Doctor can lead to years of heartbreak, pain, and longing, indeed.

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Doctor Who’s latest episode, “73 Yards,” is probably a bit confusing if you’re a new fan. The wild timeline shenanigans that aren’t supposed to make a ton of sense aside, a lot of people are probably wondering why the Fifteenth Doctor was barely in the latest Who adventure. The answer is rather simple: it is what we call a “Doctor-lite” episode. Doctor Who occasionally does episodes that either focus heavily on the companion (Doctor-lite) or on the Doctor (companion-lite). There’s a couple of reasons why the show would put the Doctor or a companion on the temporary backburner. 

Doctor Who Has Doctor-Lite Episodes for Production Reasons

The main one is, of course, for production purposes. In the show’s classic era (1963-1989), many stories were told in a serial format that could take 4+ episodes to complete. That’s a lot of shooting for actors and, well, they need time off. So, Doctor Who did episodes that either didn’t have the Doctor or companion in them at all or, if they were there, it was for very short amounts of time. For example, part three and four of the serial “The Keys of Marinus” did not have the First Doctor in them because William Hartnell was on vacation. 

A Doctor-lite Episode Can Help Develop (or Complete) a Companion’s Arc

Sometimes, there’s a storytelling/character development purpose. In the modern era (2005 and onwards), there are episodes like “Turn Left,” which focused on Donna Noble instead of the Tenth Doctor. This episode set up a major plot point that began to close out Donna Noble’s ongoing arc, so this focus was necessary.

This is similar to “73 Yards,” which gives us a chance to get to know Ruby and how she can figure out and handle a crisis without the Doctor’s help. Now, we truly know that she is a capable companion. In return, “Midnight” takes Donna Noble out of the game and gives the Doctor a roster of people on a train to work with in a crisis.

One extremely popular standalone episode, “Blink,” is actually both Doctor and companion-lite and focuses on a new character entirely. We barely see the Tenth Doctor and his companion Martha Jones in the episode at all. It is actually based on a short story that Steven Moffat wrote about a character named Sally Sparrow in the Doctor Who universe. And, from a production standpoint, actors David Tennant and Freema Agyeman were able to simultaneously film another episode. 

Why Wasn’t Ncuti Gatwa in Doctor Who‘s Latest Episode Much?

A production overlap (or a vacation) could have affected Ncuti Gatwa’s availability for this episode. Or, as previously stated, it could have been an intentional way to get the audience bonded with Ruby Sunday. She did spend much of “Boom” nearly dying, so that was sort of companion-lite and allowed us to see Fifteen shine on his own. Either way, there’s no need to fear. This TARDIS team will have plenty of time to go on more adventures together.  

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We knew that UNIT and its fearless leader Kate Lethbridge-Stewart would continue to play a role in Doctor Who’s universe. The show featured them heavily in its 60th anniversary specials, where Donna became yet another former companion to join its ranks. There’s even a UNIT spinoff in the works at Disney+. This season’s trailer showed the Fifteenth Doctor and Ruby at UNIT headquarters. But we surprisingly got a cameo with Kate Lethbridge-Stewart and UNIT in this week’s Doctor Who adventure. “73 Yards” focuses heavily on Ruby’s quest to figure out why a mysterious (and creepy) old woman is following her. The problem is, the Doctor has disappeared and she must figure it out on her own. 

A year into her ordeal, Ruby is left cold and broken with no family and no Doctor. Oh, and this woman is still following her from 73 yards away. She finally links up with Kate, who meets her in a public place with a plan for her UNIT soldiers to capture the woman. Their conversation is brief with Kate wondering why Ruby didn’t contact her earlier. Kate believes that the Doctor went silent for some reason and wants Ruby to take her to the TARDIS. It seems she wants to offer Ruby a place at UNIT but that never manifests. When the soldiers get close to her, all their shielding tech fails. They, like everyone else, hear her say something and run away, as does Kate, who is wearing an earpiece. 

We don’t see Kate nor UNIT anymore, so Ruby is left to live with the lady for a whopping 65 years. At the end, she’s an old lady who finally embraces the woman, who turns out to be her. Time resets and Old Ruby tells present Ruby to tell the Doctor not to step into that circle. We can assume that all is well once again. And we know we will see Kate and UNIT in the future.

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The newest era of Doctor Who is welcoming new fans with open arms as they hop into the TARDIS with the Fifteenth Doctor and Ruby Sunday. The long-running series somehow feels fresh once again, infusing season one’s first few stories with humor, heart, and cheeky musical numbers. But Doctor Who’s latest episode, “Boom,” turns the series on its head with an extremely tense story that tackles death, faith, and the dangers of traveling across space and time. What happens when the Doctor is stuck on a landmine and has to spend the entire episode in one place? “Boom” marks the triumphant return of former Doctor Who showrunner and writer Steven Moffat, who returns to the series after seven years. We sat down with this Whoniverse creative legend to talk about the episode’s themes, why he returned now, and raising the stakes for the Doctor. 

Nerdist: Where did the inspiration or idea for “Boom” come from? 

Steven Moffat: Episode one of “Genesis of the Daleks” in which the Doctor steps on a landmine and is stuck there for two minutes. I always loved that little bit, even when I was a kid. And I just thought I wanted the idea of a tension-based episode that sort of strands the Doctor and makes him unable to do all his normal stuff. So we have the Doctor on a knife-edge throughout. Doctor Who rarely does tension, it mostly does action adventure or romance or comedy or musicals these days, but the one thing it doesn’t touch on much is suspense… the Doctor on a landmine for an entire episode was all my childhood dreams come true.

This episode absolutely gives us prolonged tension in a way that we don’t often get in the show. As you were writing and formulating the script, what were some changes that you had to make to really keep that tension and those elevated emotions throughout it?

Moffat: Do you know what? There was one big change. I got about 15 pages in when I was writing it, and then I threw those 15 pages away because it wasn’t working! I needed to get him on the landmine quicker and the tension needed to kick in sooner, and I was just faffing about having them chat. So that was a big gear change for me… I [knew I’d have] to set it up and make sure that I didn’t just put him on a landmine, but moment by moment, he’s got to have the worst day you could have on a landmine… if his day just gets worse and worse, that monitors your mood state, that was what I was looking for.

Indeed. You know, we’re pretty early in the 15th Doctor’s era, and “Boom” gave us, for the first time, a different side of him. We got to see him in a much more serious and really vulnerable light. I’m really curious about what kind of conversations you had with Ncuti and/or Russell about conveying the emotional weight of this episode.

Moffat: It was quite early on in Ncuti’s filming of the Doctor, so it was quite early for him… I remember at the very beginning, I had a long chat with Russell about how far do we push him? I mean, how far into despair, how raw must the emotion be? And he was keen that the Doctor stay, because he’s a new doctor, magnificently in control. And I was keen that no, we push him a bit past that. We get him a bit more helpless. So I think we got between the two of us, to the right place, the Doctor facing absolute defeat and then saved by a means that he initiates but doesn’t understand what he’s done.

So it’s a tough judgment and it’s always difficult if it’s a new Doctor. I mean, if this was the third season with Ncuti, you’d know what [his Doctor] was like. You’d know all these things and you could do something slightly different with it, and you always do. But this audience is still getting to know him. And what they get to know here is, that actually, if push comes to shove, you can still see that Peter Capaldi’s Doctor is still in there. William Hartnell’s still in there. Tom Baker’s still in there, the glowering monolith that he becomes. He’s been dancing and fun and it’s all been great, and then suddenly, he’s the towering monolith who can scare people with these eyes. You need to see that side of him. Heroes have to be dangerous. They’re just dangerous in a nice direction.

Absolutely. There were so many great themes that played into this episode. Two things that really resonated with me was faith and how it was approached as well as reframing how we view death. Why did you want to lean into those themes specifically, and what was it like trying to intersperse them in with the usual beats of a Doctor Who episode?

Moffat: It’s not me making some great meditation on faith. I don’t have one, but the Doctor is interesting when it comes to faith. ‘Cause he’s always, as he was in “The Time of Angels” with Father Octavian, quite disparaging of it, except he’s got faith in so many things. He has faith that there’s order to the universe, that truth and beauty are the same thing, that it will all make sense in the end. He has faith in those things. So when he disparages faith, he’s a complete hypocrite. 

Equally, when he disparages soldiers for their profession, he conveniently forgets he’s the finest warrior in the universe. As I keep saying, all loathing is self-loathing. So he’s interesting in that subject. He comes to love Mundy, of course, and he actually respects her faith. I’m worried when people ask [why faith is a part of the episode], that they think I’m disparaging it. I’m not disparaging at all.

I don’t think the Doctor is right about everything, I don’t think he is. I think he’s crazy. And he’s got a slight fantasy about himself. He always says, “I just wander and explore,” and you want to say, “No, you look at the nearest fight, run into the middle of it and decide who should win. That’s who you are. You’re not just looking at the fairy lights.” So I think it’s interesting to place him in that world. It also allows Ruby to see he’s nuts and he’s a terrifying man. And you need to know that about the Doctor if you’re going to be his best friend.

That’s such an important part of when you have a new companion come on, right? They need to see all those sides of the Doctor because you’re drawn in as a human by the wonder and the magic of it all, and you get to travel and go to all these exotic places. But there are real stakes that come with that, and there’s a real possibility of people getting hurt or worse. And so this episode was kind of really her wake-up call to, “This is dangerous business I’m into.”

Moffat: That’s right. That’s exactly what it is. We did a good scene in “Thin Ice” with Bill Potts when she asked [the Doctor], “Have you ever killed anyone?” And he has to answer that question. You need moments like that. You realize, “Whoa, this guy is something else. He’s not just cuddly.” He is cuddly and he is lovely, but my God, he’s dangerous.

Right, yeah. You know, another thing I liked about this episode was how it approaches the “evil.” Sometimes in Doctor Who, you have these very scary baddies, like the Weeping Angels and the Daleks, but you don’t have that here. How do you think shifting away from that classic “villain” changes the dynamic of everything that’s happening?

Moffat: It’s a good demonstration of how he really works. I mean, you’ve got the Doctor Who stories, of which I’ve written many, where there’s an implacable evil like the Daleks, Weeping Angels, and many others. And then you’ve got other stories like “The Empty Child,” where he figures out, no, it’s not what he thinks it is… I like stories like this because the Doctor can solve the mystery and he can actually say, “If you just look at it from another angle, it’s not so scary. It’s this.” And it is a horrible one that he reveals in “Boom,” which you must not reveal in advance. There is no one here, it’s your own hardware. I like that kind of story. I think it’s a useful kind.

It definitely challenges the Doctor in a specific way. I think so many fans are excited for your return to Doctor Who. Why did you decide to do it after so many years? 

Moffat: I don’t know. It makes no sense at all. I’ve done it again! It was [returning showrunner] Russell [T Davies] going back, and I was sort of bemused. I ended up unwisely talking to him and saying, “Why are you doing that? Why are you going back? You always said you’d never go back.” And so we ended up just chatting away on the phone and by email, and I was just asking him, “What are your plans?” And he was saying, “Would you ever write one?” And I was saying, “No, I think I’ve done everything.” 

I didn’t mean everything that I’m capable of. I thought, “Well, actually, suspenseful tension, I haven’t done that.” And suddenly I think, “Actually, I could write that.” And Russell was so instantly, so wildly enthusiastic about the idea. I mean, instantly. I sent him the email and I think he responded like 30 seconds later. He said, “Yeah, write that.” So I thought, “Well, what does it matter? I’ll do one more.”

We are so glad you did. “Boom” is going to thrill the fandom for sure because it is an excellent episode. 

Moffat: I’m happy to hear that! I’m pleased. I really am so pleased.

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Sixty years after its TV debut, Doctor Who is still going strong and heading into yet another era. Ncuti Gatwa, who will portray the Fifteenth Doctor, has taken over the TARDIS with Russell T Davies leading the way once again as a showrunner.  This era doesn’t have an official name yet—we are calling it the Bad Wolf era for now—but Davies is setting it apart from the modern era’s 13 seasons by dubbing it season one. (It will not reboot nor ignore previous events.) What can we expect from this fresh slate of stories across time and space?

Well, we do know that Steven Moffat is in the mix. His episode, titled “Boom,” is highly-anticipated among fans and he confirmed that he also penned the 2024 Christmas special titled “Joy to the World.”

Here’s what we know about Doctor Who season one, which is not season 14 after all.

Doctor Who Season One’s Plot 

Doctor Who always teeters between a season-long arc and weekly adventures. Who knows what will happen in Ncuti Gatwa’s first season as the Doctor?! We know there will be lots of villains, time-traveling, and tough decisions made by The Doctor. This season will have eight episodes and here are the titles:

Ruby Sunday’s mysterious background, which was established in the Christmas special, will play a major role this season. In an Entertainment Weekly interview, Russell T Davies revealed that the inspiration behind her character’s arc comes from the Doctor’s rather controversial “Timeless Child” revelation during Thirteen’s era. In that, we discover the Doctor is an orphan who was not born on Gallifrey and came from an unknown planet. Could this mean that Ruby Sunday is not from Earth? It is possible.

This wonderful Doctor Who Season 1 trailer gives us a glimpse into the upcoming adventures of the Doctor and Ruby Sunday. Thankfully, we won’t have to wait long to see them because the new series will air in May 2024!

There’s also the new Doctor Who title sequence, which we first saw during the 60th Anniversary specials, has Ncuti Gatwa and Millie Gibson’s names. It’s truly an exciting time to be a fan.

Behind the Scenes

As previously stated, Russell T Davies is back as the showrunner for Doctor Who. The list of directors include Dylan Holmes Williams, Mark Tonderai, Julie Anne Robinson, Ben Chessell, and Jamie Donoghue. Composer Murray Gold also returns to the show as a composer. Doctor Who also confirmed that Steven Moffat will return to pen an episode of Ncuti Gatwa’s first season. We don’t know many details yet but Julie Ann Robinson is directing. According to a release, Robinson says the episode will have Hitchcockian vibes. Interesting. Bad Wolf Studios (named after the Rose/Nine story arc) is now a co-producer of the series. Doctor Who season one wrapped filming in July 2023 and is already working on season two.

In fact, Ruby and Fifteen will get a new traveling friend in season two, coming in 2025. Varada Sethu will be the new companion at that time. Hopefully, Gatwa will get his chance to face the Daleks. “I’ve heard chats about me not ever facing a Dalek,” he told Entertainment Weekly. “I’d be so angry if that’s the case! By the time that I’m done with Doctor Who, I better have faced a Dalek… What on earth would be the point of me being Doctor Who without facing a Dalek!” 

Davies is already teasing a set from the 2024 Christmas special titled “Joy to the World.” It will be interesting to see where Fifteen and Ruby’s friendship is by this point and if the new companion will make her debut.

Doctor Who Season One’s Cast

Millie Gibson will co-star alongside Gatwa’s Doctor as Ruby Sunday. It will be exciting to see their relationship unfold because they make quite the stylish pair. The Christmas special cast includes Davina McCall, a popular British TV personality who will be playing herself. Michelle Greenidge will play Ruby’s mother Carla, Angela Wynter is Ruby’s grandmother Cherry, and Anita Dobson portrays Mrs. Flood.

Now, for the remainder of the season. Bonnie Langford will reprise her role as Sixth/Seventh Doctor companion Mel Bush and Jemma Redgrave is coming back as UNIT boss Kate Stewart. There are quite a few new faces coming to Doctor Who, including Lenny Rush as Morris, Aneurin Barnard as Roger ap Gwilliam, and Indira Varma as the Duchess. Jonathan Groff and Jinx Monsoon are also joining the cast in roles that have yet to be fully defined. Monsoon will portray “the Doctor’s most powerful enemy yet,” while Groff will appear in a historical episode. Golda Rosheuvel will portray Jocelyn in “Space Babies.”

Doctor Who Season One’s Release Date

Doctor Who season one will hit Disney+ on May 10, 2024 with its first two episodes at 7PM ET. The season will be 10 episodes with the others releasing weekly.

Originally published on November 28, 2023.

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Spoilers ahead for the first two episodes (following the Christmas special) of Doctor Who season 1.

Doctor Who season 1 is ushering in a new era of adventures with the Fifteenth Doctor and Ruby Sunday. There are fun places in the universe to explore and so many places in time to touch. The Doctor has lots of fun and friends but this character also has an endless list of enemies. The latest one is Jinkx Monsoon’s delightfully campy and musically inclined Doctor Who villain Maestro (pronouns: they/them). Let’s get into this character and their potential future in the Whoniverse. 

Jinkx Monsoon’s Maestro Is the Child of the Toymaker in Doctor Who

In this season’s second episode, aptly titled “The Devil’s Chord,” we finally see Jinkx Monsoon in deliciously evil action. People speculated that Monsoon could be playing anyone from the Rani to another version of the Master to a somehow regenerated version of the Toymaker. It turns out that final theory wasn’t too far off base. At the end of the 60th anniversary episode, the Toymaker warned the Doctor(s) that a legion would head their way.

In “The Devil’s Chord,” Maestro reveals that they are the child of the Toymaker. While the Toymaker’s jam was playing deadly games as a living game himself (of sorts), Maestro is the essence of music. Maestro is happy that the Doctor (whom they oddly refer to as the Lord Temporal) trapped their father so they can truly play.

Is Jinkx Monsoon’s Maestro Really the Toymaker’s Child or Are They the Master?

Well, we can only assume that Maestro is being truthful about their origins. Interestingly, when you Google search “Doctor Who Maestro,” the results reveal that Maestro is a word that can also mean master. The word literally means a master of art, particularly music, which is true in this episode. It seems like more of a clever ode to the Doctor’s enduring enemy so that’s what we will believe for now. Jinkx Monsoon isn’t playing a new version of the Master as far as we can tell.

What Does the Villain Maestro Want in Doctor Who? 

At the beginning of the episode, we see Maestro invade 1925 and suck the musical life out of a prolific composer. It’s not clear what that means until the Doctor takes Ruby Sunday to 1963 to hear The Beatles record their first album. They are all decked out in ‘60s gear and ready to witness music history but they soon discover that the songs, well, suck because Maestro is sucking music out of humanity. (Now that’s a clever way to have the Beatles in the show and work around music licensing issues.) 

The Doctor knows that something is amiss, so he takes Ruby to the rooftop of the recording studio to play the piano. When she does, Maestro literally pops out of the piano and begins to wreak havoc. Later on, Ruby asks why Maestro is doing this. Beside the obvious answer that they are the child of an agent of chaos, Maestro likes to hear the sweet music of a nuclear winter. They call it the purest music of all because it is “Aeolian tones,” which means music without the need of people. Every song that goes unsung feeds Maestro, who wants to get stronger so they can steal the music of the entire universe so it will stop turning and “keen in a minor key.” Maestro plans to “go solo” and have this be their greatest symphony of all. This is a wild plan, indeed. 

What Does Maestro Know that the Doctor and Ruby Sunday Don’t Know? 

Maestro is a being of many mysteries and secrets. The biggest one comes later in the episode. Ruby is caught up in Maestro’s musical chains. They want to consume the music left in her heart. Maestro unveils Ruby’s hidden song, which is “Shepherd’s Bell Carol,” the Christmas song playing the night she was born. Similar to the space station, snowfall begins to fall in that room. Maestro says, “How can a song have so much power? And power like him?” The Doctor questions who “him” is and Maestro says it is “the oldest one.”

Maestro questions how the oldest one could have been there on Ruby’s birth day and why. They almost get the upper hand on Ruby and the Doctor but two of the Beatles—Lennon and McCartney—come together to play the right chord to defeat Maestro. Upon banishment, Maestro warns the Doctor and Ruby that “the one who waits is almost here.” 

Will Jinkx Monsoon Return as Maestro in Doctor Who?

We don’t know what any of that means at this point. But we are pretty certain that this won’t be the last of Maestro. Doctor Who said that this character was one of the Doctor’s greatest foes yet. And, with Maestro and Toymaker’s stories setting the foundation for Fifteen’s arc, it would be odd to only have the former in one episode. We will see how Maestro affects Doctor Who’s future.

The post Who Is Jinkx Monsoon’s Maestro in DOCTOR WHO? The Musical Villain, Explained appeared first on Nerdist.

Spoilers ahead for Doctor Who’s “Space Babies” episode.

The Fifteenth Doctor and Ruby Sunday are officially off towards great adventures. “Space Babies” picks right up where the Christmas special left off. After a quick foray into the past with dinosaurs, the duo end up on a strange space station full of babies. It’s quite the odd adventure, to say the least, that shows how this Doctor and companion will stand out for their predecessors. However, Doctor Who season one tips its hat at the Ninth Doctor and Rose in a couple of sweet ways. 

These odes to Nine and Rose aren’t shocking considering the parallels between them and the Fifteen/Ruby pairing. Nine and Rose’s first season (also known as season/series one) began a fresh slate and era for the show for new fans to enjoy while referencing the show’s rich history. Fifteen and Ruby’s era is doing the same thing, obviously.

Ruby is slightly reminiscent of Rose. They are both 19-year-old blonde girls from working class neighborhoods who seem to be down on their personal luck when they begin traveling with the Doctor. The Ninth and Fifteenth Doctors are coming off some pretty dark eras but know that they don’t want to be alone. Their first adventures are on Earth while the second one takes place on a space station. So, it’s only right for Doctor Who to callback to Nine and Rose. 

Much like Rose when she was billions of years in the future, Ruby is excited but also sad about the realization that her mom is dead at that time. The Fifteenth Doctor takes Ruby’s phone and boosts the signal so she can call her mom on the spot, thereby easing her anxiety. This is a direct callback to “The End of the World” when Nine does the same thing for Rose. 

The end of the episode also gives us another Nine and Rose ode. The Doctor takes Ruby to spend Christmas with her mum and grandmum. She invites him to come and say hello and he says, “tell your mom not to slap me.” Of course, this references “Aliens of London.” In that episode, Nine brings Rose back to her mom only to discover that an entire year has passed. Jackie is angry and slaps him really, really hard in response. Thankfully, Ruby was gone a very short time but her mum probably wanted to slap him for landing in her kitchen.

We will see if Fifteen and Ruby’s journey mirrors Nine and Rose’s adventures in the future.

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The TARDIS is truly a living spaceship of beauty. It is bigger on the inside and, like the Doctor, frequently changes its appearance, although to a lesser degree. Throughout the show’s history, the box’s broken chameleon circuit means it always looks like a blue ‘60s era police box. But, even then, the outside often goes through some subtle tweaks. The biggest TARDIS changes really come from its interior, often reflecting the personality of the Doctor’s current incarnation. Ncuti Gatwa’s Fifteenth Doctor has quite the marvelous TARDIS with some new features and we are keeping an eye on it all season long. 

The Fifteenth Doctor’s TARDIS Unique Origin Story 

We first saw the Fifteenth Doctor’s TARDIS in the final 2023 anniversary special “The Giggle.” Fifteen brilliantly realizes that he and Fourteen’s game against the Toymaker left them with a prize—an additional TARDIS. Their TARDISes look almost identical. Both are stark white with those lovely round things on the wall that the Doctor loves. And while previous versions of the TARDIS had balcony areas, this one is delightfully full of ramps. The Fourteenth Doctor gets to keep his and go on occasional small adventures while Fifteen sets out in the universe. 

Is the New TARDIS the Real TARDIS?

Yes, according to showrunner Russell T Davies. If anyone has the duplicate, it is the Fourteenth Doctor. It is likely we will get confirmation about this sometime during season one. Ncuti’s Doctor is THE Doctor and this TARDIS is THE TARDIS. Period. Moving on…

The TARDIS’ Console Room, Special Features, and Other Interior Places 

One thing that sets Fifteen’s TARDIS apart from his predecessor’s machine (and anyone else’s) is the inclusion of a jukebox. It seems music will play a large role in this Doctor’s arc, considering his bouts with singing goblins, the Toymaker and his melodic laugh track, and Maestro’s musical mayhem. We haven’t heard him play a tune on it yet but surely it will come into play.

Quite a few tunnels lead to other areas, which the Doctor can seal off if he desires. In “Space Babies,” Ruby accidentally steps on a butterfly and changes her personal history, which the Doctor is able to fix. The TARDIS apparently has a “butterfly compensation switch” that he can activate to prevent things like this from happening.  

So far, we haven’t seen anything outside of the console room. In “The Devil’s Chord,” we see Fifteen and Ruby go into one hallway on the lower deck and exit in the upper one, but that’s it. We do love the main room, though. Those round lights can actually change colors with some rainbow hues, which the Doctor can control with the snap of his fingers. We love mood lighting. And the console itself is a mix of past tech with a futuristic look. Overall, it truly looks and feels like something otherworldly and hopefully we can explore it more in the future. 

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RuPaul’s Drag Race alum Jinkx Monsoon is having a heck of a year. She’s currently playing Aubrey (the human one) in the Off Broadway production of Little Shop of Horrors. In Jun, she returns to the Broadway stage of Chicago to reprise her record-breaking performance as Matron Mama Morton. Plus, next February she’ll make her Carnegie Hall debut as a headliner.

If that wasn’t enough, she also found time to go toe to toe with Ncuti Gatwa’s Fifteenth Doctor in “The Devil’s Chord,” now available on Disney+ internationally and on BBC iPlayer in the UK. We sat down to discuss Jinkx’s villainous turn as Maestro on Doctor Who and her iconic stage work.

Nerdist: What does it feel like to get to upstage The Beatles?

Jinkx Monsoon: (laughs) Well, it’s all perspective, right? But honestly just everything about this episode, I don’t know how to sum it up better than just saying it was a character that every actor dreams of playing and should be so lucky to get to play in their lifetime. When you get to play a God, like an all-powerful being, you get to create the rules for this character. And what I love about Maestro is specifically they don’t operate by human standards for gender presentation or identity.  I love how not a big deal that is for Maestro. Because they’re too powerful to worry about petty things like gender constructs.

Yeah. I like how they kind of just casually dismiss it when the character, in the beginning, misgenders them.

Monsoon: Yeah. Yeah. And they know they’re more powerful. So it’s exciting to play someone who essentially belongs to a marginalized community but is not marginalized themselves. They’re the most powerful thing there.

You’re playing the first villain we’ve seen in this new era that exists as a true threat to Ncuti’s Doctor. His Doctor is scared of you.

Monsoon: It’s exciting because this character is not only powerful but nuanced. And a part of the overarching story. So this character carries a lot of weight, and to be trusted with that as a trans feminine performer, as a drag performer, it was just a huge honor and privilege to get to act opposite Ncuti and play someone that’s on level with him. That was exciting. And we both bring such fresh perspectives, I think.

We don’t see a ton of characters like Maestro. And when we do see them, they’re not always flattering and they’re not always played by the right performer and Ncuti is bringing such a new and fresh perspective to the Doctor. And [Russell T Davies] is just really leaning in this season with the inherent queerness that’s always been a part of Doctor Who. Because Russell has always been a part of Doctor Who.

Yeah. It’s tricky talking about queer coding, a lot of people think of that as inherently problematic, which I don’t think it is, especially when you look back at the history of the Hays Code. It prevented most onscreen depictions of queerness, so a lot of queer filmmakers hid their representation in monsters. So this felt like a nice extension of that. Queer actors playing these characters, chewing scenery, and breaking the fourth wall like this is such a celebration of that history.

Monsoon: I absolutely agree with you. I think it’s all context because it depends on who this character is in the hands of. I think we can see historically damaging representations of queer and trans people as villains. But since then, we have experienced a lot of progress and we have seen queer actors and queer characters be the central focus in a lot of things that I didn’t think in my lifetime we’d get to see. 

With the privilege of so much more representation these days, we get to go back to, okay, let us play any character because we can make the context, right? Where this character can be a villain and can be objectively evil, but we can love them for how freaking queer they are. And it’s just honoring what I think drag queens have always done.

I mean, I based my drag persona off of the larger than life female villains that I was obsessed with who probably were queer coded because they couldn’t cast a drag queen or a trans woman as this character. A cis woman was the only acceptable person to play this character. I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently with Audrey [in Little Shop of Horrors] because I just think there’s parts of Audrey where I’m like, this really feels so familiar that it makes me wonder if aspects of her were based on a trans woman or a drag queen that the author knew.

And so to think about the fact that I’ve derived my drag persona from these larger than life female villains, and then this character was written with me in mind, I got to take all of that back to where it all started, Disney villains.

Literally one of my next questions was, “Do you think having a trans femme actor play Audrey elevates a lot of the nuance of that character?” When I saw [Michaela Jaé Rodriguez] play Audrey a few years ago, that destroyed me.

Monsoon: Yeah. I think with good writing, you can cast anyone in the role and if the story is universal, then the demographic of the person doesn’t matter as much. I think that’s a sign of good writing. We’ve seen Audrey interpreted so many ways now. Specifically, this production has been running for five years and has had a wide array of Audreys. 

I think bringing fresh perspective to characters is how we reinvigorate storytelling. It’s how these stories survive for so long. It’s why Little Shop is still relevant today. 

If the actor and the direction do the work that they’re there to do, it doesn’t matter that Corbin Bleu is mixed race and I’m trans feminine. We are every bit Seymour and Audrey as the Seymour and Audreys who came before us. We just have a different perspective.

That’s the magic of live theater, too. You have a text that exists as a written script but then who you bring to it, who you collaborate with, how you direct it, how you produce it all creates such an entirely different experience. And it’s different every time you do that.

Monsoon: Well, and I will say candidly that it’s not like I set out to play Audrey as a trans feminine woman. I just set out to play Audrey and I really derived my understanding of the character from the text, which is different from the movie that I grew up with. The original show has different text from the Ellen Green movie that is ingrained in my psyche because it’s iconic and incredible. Her presentation of Audrey definitely makes me feel like Audrey was based off of someone very larger than life or based off of people who can pull off being larger than life. 

And then that informed my Audrey, and then I thought, well, what if Audrey was trans feminine? She would live on Skid Row in the ’60s. And we know that trans people have existed and we know that they existed in the ’60s and their life would not have been easy, though.

And that’s what we see in Audrey. So I guess in the end, what I wanted was to not necessarily play Audrey as trans, but to show you the what if, like if Audrey were trans. The story works either way. If you are seeing me playing Audrey like I’m just a performer playing a cis female character, it works. But if you are reading into the nuance of who I am as a performer, it still works. And that’s the beauty of the production, the beauty of the writing. And when you get the trust and respect to bring that to the character, that’s what you get to bring on stage.

Yeah, there’s a lot of conversation these days about whether trans actors should be playing just trans roles or also cis roles. And I feel like kind– going off what you said too, that’s the wrong conversation to have about it. As a trans performer myself, I feel like why do we have to define the character in the text as one or the other? Why can’t an actor just take the role, and play it? I think that defining a character as trans or cis really doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense in the context of it’s just a character. 

Monsoon: And if their gender journey is the story, Okay.

Yeah.

Monsoon: My first suggestion lately when people come to me asking, like would it be appropriate to ask a trans person to play this character because this character is a cisgender character? What’s appropriate? The first thing I say is, “Have you considered changing the gender of the character?” Because if you want this performer, what if the character was more like the performer? 

I really think context is everything. Because like I said, there are performances we’ve seen through history that have been damaging to the community, and there have been performances that have been celebratory. And it doesn’t matter the gender of the character. It doesn’t matter whether the character was the hero or the villain. What matters is the authenticity that the performer was allowed to bring to the character, I think.

Agreed, absolutely. My last question for you before I let you go. So you’re playing Audrey right now. You’re going to return to Matron Mama Morton [in Chicago] soon. You’re headlining Carnegie Hall next year. So what’s left on your stage musical bucket list?

Monsoon: Well, I’d really love to originate a role, and as much as it would be exciting to originate a role in a new musical, I’ve been having just a really fun time reinterpreting classic roles. And so there’s a part of me that would really, really love to originate another classic female role from a beloved musical and see what perspective I could bring to it and I’m open-minded to what that might be. Of course, my dream rule is Mrs. Lovett, but they just did that, so we’ll see. That’s down the line, whatever.

But I also like to say that I’m having a really good time with what I’m doing. So my bucket list kind of has been met, and then at the same time, I’m not upset about it. I don’t feel hampered by that. I definitely feel like there’s more for me to do and more places for me to go, but I’m not in a rush because I really like where I’m at. And I just hope that I keep getting to do more of this work because I really feel energized and alive. I really love my life and I love the job I’m allowed to do now.

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If you have a time machine, you’re gonna go to the past at some point. Since the very beginning, Doctor Who has made adventures in Earth’s history one of its staples. Like literally from the beginning. The very first TARDIS trip we see takes the new crew back to caveman times. For a few years, owing to the desire to make the family series educational as well as exciting, the BBC mandated the show’s historical serials take precedent over “googly eyed aliens.”

Even after the show stopped doing “pure” historicals and added science fiction to the mix, adventures in the past have been one of the hallmarks of the Doctor and their myriad of shenanigans. We have a separate piece about the modern series, but in terms of the classic series, here are the best. I’m going to attempt to include at least one from every Doctor, but be aware some Doctors have more than others, and some Doctors may have a few but only one good one…

“The Aztecs” (1964)

This is not the very first historical, but the first truly great one. The TARDIS crew land back in 15th century Mexico. As usual in these early stories, they attempt to blend in to the local society. However, many of the Aztec people suddenly believe forthright history teacher Barbara (Jacqueline Hill) is the embodiment of the god Yataxa. While she at first assures the Doctor she’d never do anything, upon hearing that a human sacrifice is forthcoming, she commands that they stop and quickly tries to enforce 20th century British values of human rights and onto the Aztec people.

This story also has some lighter moments—including the First Doctor accidentally marrying an older Aztec lady—but what makes it wonderful is how, in only the show’s sixth serial, the show contends with all the perils of time traveling and seeing the past as flawed. The Doctor emphatically tells Barbara, “you can’t change history, not one line!” which became a calling card for the series.

“The Romans” (1965)

Effectively, during the First Doctor era, every other story is a historical. A lot of them are, well, pretty boring, or at best enjoyable jaunts through a history book. That is, until, season two’s “The Romans.” It’s the first comedic story in Doctor Who, and moreover, it’s an out-and-out farce. The Doctor and companion Vicki end up in Emperor Nero’s court, the Doctor pretending to be a murdered lyre player. Meanwhile, teachers Ian and Barbara are sold into slavery; Ian an oarsman on a Mediterranean galley and Barbara a handmaiden to Nero’s wife Poppaea Sabina. Throughout the story, they all just barely miss running into each other until the very end, when the Doctor accidentally starts the Great Fire of Rome.

The story mixes real historical events with rampant silliness and even some darkly comedic moments. I love “The Romans” for all of that, but it definitely wasn’t everyone’s favorite in the ’60s. Still, it’s much closer to modern Who sensibilities these days.

“The Time Meddler” (1965)

Later in the same season, the same writer (Dennis Spooner) gave us the very first in what would soon become the norm for stories taking place in Earth’s history: The “pseudo-historical.” These are stories that may have real people from history, real places, real events, but with some sci-fi element added. Here, the Doctor, Vicki, and brand new companion Steven land in Britain in 1066, just as the Vikings were about to attack Harold Godwinson’s Saxon army. Though the Saxons won, it left them too tired and spent to fend off William of Normandy’s invasion at the Battle of Hastings.

Sounds like a pretty normal setup, yes? The Doctor thinks so, until he starts noticing anachronistic items, including gramophone music and power cables. Quickly we learn that a time traveler is about. This man, the Monk, is another member of the Doctor’s race and has his own TARDIS. While the Monk isn’t a villain per se, he does want to annihilate the Vikings with nuclear weapons so that the Saxons can defeat William’s Normans. And as we know, changing history is bad. This story is phenomenal and one of the most important in Whostory.

First Doctor’s Missing Historical Masterpieces

I should note that due to the BBC’s “junking” policy, many stories from the First and Second Doctor’s time are missing all or some of their episodes. While we can listen to them thanks to off-air audio recordings from the time, and some have been animated, many of these historicals remain unviewable. From the First Doctor’s time, several are among the best. “Marco Polo,” half of “The Crusade,” “The Myth-Makers,” and “The Massacre” are all pure-historicals we can no longer see. I recommend listening to the last two especially as they are truly some of the best of the ’60s.

“The Evil of the Daleks” (1967)

By the time of the Second Doctor, the pure historicals were largely gone. The only one of the bunch was “The Highlanders,” which is also missing entirely. There weren’t even that many pseudo-historicals. “The Evil of the Daleks” is really the only one that truly fits the bill. The Doctor and his companion Jamie McCrimmon, after bidding farewell to modern Londoners Ben and Polly, find themselves in 1866 where the Daleks,using their own time traveling tech, demand the Doctor’s help in isolating the “Human Factor” which has made them vulnerable to defeat for so long.

This is arguably in the top three Dalek stories of all time, and it finds the Doctor teaching the Daleks what it means to be human. For a brief moment, it’s joyful, it’s a triumph, the Daleks play and have fun. This didn’t last. Stupid Daleks. The fact that this takes place in the Victorian era is pretty secondary, however.

“The War Games” (1969) (Nice)

Okay …so this one’s an interesting case. It’s the Second Doctor’s final story, and one of my favorites of all-time. It introduces us to Time Lords in earnest and results in the Doctor’s exile to Earth. Now, how is it a historical? The Doctor and friends find themselves in 1917, on the frontlines of World War I. After some bureaucratic nightmares, the pompous British general believes them to be German spies and wants them executed. But this general, it appears, uses some kind of mind controlling technology. Before long, the heroes escape and find themselves looking headlong into an advancing Roman Legion.

The story is actually that a group of aliens from the future, in an effort to learn how to master warfare, have each recreated a specific period in Earth’s history and kidnapped real soldiers from those eras to take part in their endless war games, hence the title. So, while we see WWI, Ancient Rome, the American Civil War, and other wars from history, they’re all not real and are actually on another planet. But it counts in my book.

“The Time Warrior” (1973)

The Third Doctor’s five seasons are essentially their own thing. Set almost entirely on modern day Earth, the stories tended to be a lot more sci-fi James Bond and a lot less time traveling hobo. Once the Doctor started venturing in the TARDIS again, it was pretty much entirely to the future. There are only two instances where the Third Doctor went back in time: One, “The Time Monster,” sucks wad. The other, “The Time Warrior,” is excellent.

The Doctor and investigative reporter Sarah Jane Smith (this is her first story) find themselves back in medieval times where a local warlord named Irongron has teamed up with an explorer from far away…the Sontaran scout Linx. Naturally, just like always, the Doctor needs to stop future tech from messing up the past. We get some lovely banter, some excellent castle-set filming, and the first appearance of a Sontaran. It’s pretty great all around.

“Pyramids of Mars” (1975)

The Fourth Doctor’s second season consisted of many Gothic horror pastiches, and for most, the best of those is “Pyramids of Mars.” The Doctor and Sarah Jane head to 1911, at the height of the Egyptology craze, and some malevolent force seems to be behind some gnarly deaths. It appears like real Egyptian mummies are attacking. Turns out, the gods in the Egyptian pantheon were a race of Martians called the Osirans. Sutekh—the entity that became the Egyptian god Set—is unearthed and threatens to destroy all of Earth.

This isn’t my favorite, but it is a nice mix of plummy English Gothic/Hammer Horror iconography with Doctor Who science fantasy. It does represent Tom Baker and Elisabeth Sladen at their very best, which goes a long way with me.

“Horror of Fang Rock” (1977)

Unless I am completely missing an obvious one, “Horror of Fang Rock,” which began Tom Baker’s fourth of seven seasons in the lead role, is the very last historical he made. Several stories take place on alien worlds that resemble elements of Earth mythology, and even sort of act like historical Earth stories, but none of them actually do. At any rate, this story also happens to be outstanding and creepy in equal measure.

The Doctor and companion Leela find themselves on a lighthouse in the early-20th Century where someone or something is killing the wickies and the crew and passengers of a yacht which wrecked on the island. The Doctor is at his grumpy best here as he acts as Sherlock for this alien whodunnit. It’s also a semi-sequel to “The Time Warrior,” which is pretty cool in a roundabout way. Excellent stuff, cracking dialogue, superbly chilly atmosphere. It’s one of the Fourth Doctor’s best.

The Fifth Doctor Had No Good Historicals

There were exactly three historical stories during Fifth Doctor Peter Davison’s time on the show, a total of eight 25-minute episodes. I know they probably all have their defenders but I don’t think any are really worth your time unless you’re doing a full watch.

“The Visitation” has the Doctor and company end up in the 1600s where a race of vaguely reptilian aliens try to unleash a plague to take over the planet. The very next story, “Black Orchid,” is for some reason a pure historical, meaning no sci-fi element at all. It has the crew land in 1925 at a posh garden party where there’s a “monster” killing people and a girl who looks inexplicably like Nyssa. It’s only two episodes and is very boring.

The final historical of the era is “The King’s Demons” where the Doctor and crew end up in 1215 in the court of King John where the Master, posing as a Frenchman, tries to use a robotic duplicate named Kameleon to keep King John from signing Magna Carta. Dream bigger, the Master. Dream bigger.

“The Mark of the Rani” (1985)

I think the only story that gets close to being actually good in the Sixth Doctor’s brief tenure is “The Mark of the Rani,” his one and only historical. The Doctor and companion Peri find themselves in a 19th-century mining town where seemingly unmotivated attacks and riots are taking place. Turns out the Master and another renegade Time Lord known as the Rani are behind these. The Rani is an amoral scientist who is experimenting on the locals for her own research, and the Master wants to use the top minds of the Industrial Revolution to speed up Earth technology. Again, dream bigger, the Master.

This story is one of only two to feature the Rani and is by far the better of the two. She’s a fascinating Time Lord villain, not concerned with doing evil, but also not at all interested in the lives she destroys to further her research. The Master is silly in this, but the setting, the Rani, and most of the plot are all great.

“Remembrance of the Daleks” (1988)

To celebrate the 25th anniversary of Doctor Who, the Seventh Doctor went back to 1963 with his new companion Ace to foil a Dalek plot which we didn’t know at the time but was cooking offscreen during the show’s pilot. He needs to retrieve the Hand of Omega, a powerful Time Lord device which he needs to keep away from the Daleks at any cost.

It’s very fun that the series had been on long enough at this point that traveling within its existence counts as a historical. But it does! Ace, a modern-era teen, views some of the racial and social norms of the ’60s with disgust, and the story plays with the show’s history as well as the history of the UK. Possibly the best Dalek story since the mid-’70s, it’s also a fine example of using history for a purpose.

“The Curse of Fenric” (1989)

The final historical to air (the penultimate story of the classic era) is one of the Seventh Doctor’s very best. A true epic, it takes him and Ace to WWII where the ancient (we’re talking Lovecraftian) evil entity Fenric is using vampiric future-humans called Haemovores to destroy all life on Earth. The Doctor has to clash with Fenric in a battle of wills and wits that is thoroughly engrossing. It furthers the Seventh Doctor tenure’s penchant for making the Doctor a trickster god from the Before Times who fights against enormous malevolent machinations.

The story—all shot on location—also gives Ace a really nice turn as the Doctor forces her to contend with meeting the infant who will grow up to be the mother she hates. The story has a devastating impact on their friendship…for a hot minute, though the Doctor’s manipulation of Ace is fodder for a lot of the novels that came out post-series.

Kyle Anderson is the Senior Editor for Nerdist. He hosts the weekly pop culture deep-dive podcast Laser Focus. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Instagram and Letterboxd.

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Doctor Who‘s TARDIS is a spaceship full of marvels. Not only is it wildly bigger on the inside and basically alive, it can take you pretty much anywhere in space… and time. While it is always thrilling to witness the Doctor and their companion(s) heading to different worlds and days to come, the show often travels back in time to reimagine real-life events and bring historical figures into the fold. That look into the past for both educational and entertainment reasons is a foundational aspect of Doctor Who. It continues into the show’s modern era and, based on what we’ve seen, will keep going with Ncuti Gatwa’s Fifteenth Doctor. We think Doctor Who tends to nail it with most of the historical episodes. But a few stand out among the crowd. (If we listed ALL of the good ones, this list would be too long.)

Here are some the best Doctor Who historical episodes in the modern era and beyond.

“The Unquiet Dead” (Season 1 (2005), Episode 3)

This episode is the first foray into the past for the Ninth Doctor and Rose Tyler’s short-lived duo as well as fans who were new to the franchise. It encompasses many things fans love about Doctor Who: emotional heft, time-traveling jokes, lots of running, wonky special effects, clever ties to a larger arc, and using the TARDIS’ closet. In Victorian-era Cardiff in 1869, Rose and Nine encounter the gas-driven and body-snatching Gelth alongside Simon Callow’s very delightful Charles Dickens. From the clairvoyant Gwyneth’s utterances of a “bad wolf” to her morally controversial sacrifice, viewers get a taste of history and a larger understanding of how awful it can be traveling with the Doctor. 

“The Girl in the Fireplace” (Season 2, Episode 4)

Once again, Doctor Who introduces many fans to a real-life historical figure in their accurate time period with a sci-fi twist. The Tenth Doctor, Rose Tyler, and Mickey Smith find themselves on a 51st-century spaceship. Oddly, the ship has time windows to spy on Madame de Pompadour. Much of this episode’s appeal is the chemistry between David Tennant’s whimsical and flirtatious Doctor alongside Sophia Myles’ curious, brazen, and charming take on the infamous real-life mistress of King Louis XV. It’s a riveting love story and mystery with an effective villain. The ending is one of many examples of how this mostly silly sci-fi series can absolutely destroy you emotionally.

“Human Nature/Family of Blood” (Season 3, Episodes 8 and 9)

This is a problematic fave for many Doctor Who fans. There’s the obvious issues with having a Black companion stuck in this time period (and with Martha Jones’ treatment as a whole). Still, this two-part story as a whole is quite good. Watching the Doctor become as human as he will ever be in 1913 as his frequent alter ego John Smith while Martha works to both protect him and help him remember who he is adds up to a touching, at times frustrating, but consistently entertaining story. The Family of Blood is properly creepy and Martha continues to prove that she’s very capable all on her own. There’s a reason why these episodes often rank among fans as two of the best in Tennant’s era. 

“The Unicorn and the Wasp” (Season 4, Episode 7)

Reader, I have a confession. Season four of Doctor Who is absolutely one of my faves, so I couldn’t choose just one historical episode. “The Unicorn and the Wasp” takes us to 1926 on the eve of mystery author Agatha Christie’s disappearance. The reimagining of her real-life mystery with an ongoing whodunit story that gives serious Clue vibes. There’s a plethora of reference’s to Christie’s most famous works, an ensemble of memorable characters, a shapeshifting giant wasp, and one of the best TARDIS duos in the show’s recent history. You gotta love it. 

“The Fires of Pompeii” (Season 4, Episode 2)

Much like “The Unquiet Dead,” “The Fires of Pompeii” is a historical episode that also serves a few sobering warnings to the companion and, by extension, the viewer. Some terrible things are meant to happen and there’s nothing anyone—not even a godlike time-traveler—can do to fix it. While traveling with the Doctor seems exciting and glamorous on the surface, it will involve death and heartbreak. Ten and Donna end up in Pompeii the exact same day that Mount Vesuvius is set to erupt. Then-future Doctor Peter Capaldi’s turn as real historical figure Lucius Caecilius along with his family gives the viewer a more intimate view of what it meant to live during that time while also staying in line with the show’s fantasy elements. 

“Vincent and the Doctor” (Season 5, Episode 10)

You cannot talk about Doctor Who historical episodes without talking about “Vincent and the Doctor.” Despite being a well-known artist, Vincent van Gogh often feels nebulous as a human being. This episode brings him to life (thanks to Tony Curran’s stunning performance) in marvelous fashion. It depicts his mental health and self-image struggles with compassion and heart. It’s a history lesson and winding adventure all wrapped in one. I dare you to watch it and not feel all the feels at the end.

“Let’s Kill Hitler” (Season 6, Episode 8)

This title is certainly one that grabs your attention. The Eleventh Doctor, Amy, and Rory end up in 1938 Berlin where they accidentally save Hitler from torture at the hands of a time-traveling justice organization. (To be fair, it makes sense for that type of org to go after him.) It is quite the gamble to include such an awful person in a rather comedic story. But, thanks to great performances by Albert Welling and Alex Kingston as Hitler and River Song, respectively, it becomes a high-energy dive into the past. 

“The Doctor, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” – (Christmas Special 2011)

Okay so maybe this one is not as directly “historical” as some of the other episodes on this list. But, the Doctor’s encounter with a family with World War II as the backdrop is a delightful Christmas romp, so it is all good. The episode’s obvious ode to The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and getting to see a more domestic side of the Doctor are a special treat. 

“The Day of the Doctor” – (50th Anniversary Special)

Two Doctors in 1562 England? Sign me up. This anniversary special is a bombastic adventure that features none other than Queen Elizabeth I, the Tenth Doctor on horseback (again) and kissing the Queen, and moments that feel like a big hug for Who fans.

“Robot of Sherwood” – (Season 8, Episode 3)

It’s almost a given that a legendary figure like Robin Hood would appear in Doctor Who. The infamous outlaw who steals from the rich and gives to the poor certainly exhibits the kind of rogue behavior that the Doctor appreciates. “Robot of Sherwood” pits the Twelfth Doctor against Robin Hood for a fun battle before fighting against the gold-digging Sheriff Nottingham and his band of robot knights. A spaceship masquerading as a castle, Twelve’s doubts about whether Robin Hood is real, and some sweet costume designs bring this legendary story to life in a way that only Doctor Who can.

“Thin Ice” – (Season 10, Episode 3)

One of the best parts of watching a Doctor Who historical episode is diving into Britain’s past. “Thin Ice” takes us to a frost fair at the river Thames. These were real life events that started as early as the 7th century. People would enjoy food, music, ice skating on the frozen river, and much more. In the episode, Bill couldn’t wait to experience this with Twelve in 1814. Of course, their fun day is interrupted by the very plausible existence of a racist alongside the less plausible sea creature lurking beneath the ice. (Well, less plausible for the average person.) This is a very character driven and fun story that forces Bill to see and embrace the totality of the Doctor. 

“Rosa” – (Season 11, Episode 3)

When it comes to modern-era Doctors, Thirteen has some of the best historical episodes. One of them is “Rosa,” which brings the crew to America in 1955. It provides a serious examination of racism and sexism via Ryan and Yaz. The duo’s conversation about their shared and unique experiences is a shining gem in an overall great episode. Ryan specifically meets great Black figures like Martin Luther King, Jr. and, of course, Rosa Parks. The latter is on the cusp of her historic moment where she refuses to give up her seat to a white bus rider, sparking the Montgomery bus boycotts. There’s a time-traveling (and deeply racist) criminal set on preventing this fixed event from happening and the TARDIS team figures out a way to thwart him.

“Demons of the Punjab” – (Season 11, Episode 6)

Yaz’s family history is perfectly woven into events surrounding the partition of India, giving us a specific family to focus this historic moment around. “Demons of the Punjab” truly takes the series back to its original educational premise. It introduces many viewers to a pivotal event that they may not have learned about or fully explored in school. The episode also resonates with many of us who wish we could go back in time and meet our elders and ancestors to peel back the layers on their lives. Also, Thirteen’s speech about love is one of the best Doctor monologues.

“Nikola Tesla’s Night of Terror” – (Season 12, Episode 4)

Another season of Thirteen and the fam, another great historical episode. As the title indicates, we meet the now-famous inventor back in 1903 when he’s trying to get a break. Cloaked figures, demanding aliens, and Tesla’s infamous real-live rivalry with Thomas Edison (who was always causing mess) bring together this enjoyable episode that deserves more praise. 

“The Haunting of Villa Diodati” – (Season 12, Episode 8)

As a fan of Frankenstein author Mary Shelley, haunted house stories, and the Doctor putting rogue companions in their rightful place, “The Haunting of Villa Diodati” is my favorite Thirteenth Doctor story. I’d dare say it is one of my favorite Doctor Who episodes ever. It’s a good ole ghost story packed full of literary references and sharp dialogue. The story that depicts the weekend that Shelley, Lord Byron, Claire Clairmont, and other real-life figures spent three days together at the Villa Diodati mansion telling each other stories. This is when Frankenstein was born! Doctor Who puts a spin on it by using a lone, half-converted Cyberman to spark inspiration for the author. Written by Maxine Alderton and directed by Emma Sullivan, it is an absolutely stunning episode. 

Tai Gooden is a horror and sci-fi fan with a serious love for Doctor Who and Martha Jones. She’s been a fan of the show for over 10 years, often writing about it for several outlets and attending Gallifrey One with her Who crew.

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We’re only a month away from new Doctor Who. We got to know Ncuti Gatwa’s Fifteenth Doctor in “The Church on Ruby Road.” That 2023 Christmas special also introduced Millie Gibson as Ruby Sunday, his companion. The duo is set for all kinds of adventures in season one of Doctor Who. Before we even got to those adventures though, we heard rumors in early 2024 stating Millie Gibson had already departed the role ahead of the second season and that the Doctor would get a new companion. And on Friday afternoon, we got confirmation from Bad Wolf and BBC that Andor‘s Varada Sethu would be joining the series as the Doctor’s new companion in season two.

The news states Sethu’s joining the show “alongside current companion Ruby Sunday.” So, Gibson is not leaving the show after all. A photo from a season two table read shows Sethu with Gatwa and Gibson. We love that the Doctor will have two companions by his side throughout season two, and we can’t wait to see them all in action.

In a statement, Sethu said, “I feel like the luckiest person in the world. It is such an honour to be a part of the Whoniverse, and I’m so grateful to the whole Doctor Who family – because that is what they are – for welcoming me with open arms and making me feel so at home. I couldn’t ask for a better team than Ncuti and Millie to be on this adventure with. This is SO much fun!”

Showrunner Russell T Davies, who has worked with Sethu before, said, “Right now in the studio, shooting for 2025, we’ve got Ncuti, Millie and Varada fighting side by side—we need all three, because the stakes are higher than ever!”

Doctor Who season one will hit Disney+ on May 10, 2024 with its first two episodes. The second season is currently set to come our way in 2025.

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What’s this? Another new trailer? The Disney+-era—aka, Russell T Davies v. 2—of Doctor Who has only barely gotten underway and they aren’t wasting any time getting us hyped. So 10 days after the first trailer for Doctor Who season one (yes, that’s what they’re calling it), we get another! It’s got a lot more fun to pour over than the first. We see some guest stars, some monsters, and loads of Ncuti Gatwa’s Doctor looking fabulous. But more exciting than the trailer is the full slate of episode titles for Gatwa’s season of Doctor Who. Each of the titles came with its own flavor card, plus we know who wrote and directed each of them. Eek!

Doctor Who Season One Shares Episode Titles and Mini-Teasers

Those are super cool and give us a really interesting idea of what the upcoming episodes could be about. But for an even better idea, here’s the full list of Doctor Who‘s season one episode titles and the creatives involved.

• SPACE BABIES: Written by Russell T Davies, directed by Julie Anne Robinson
• THE DEVIL’S CHORD: Written by Russell T Davies, directed by Ben Chessell
• BOOM: Written by Steven Moffat, directed by Julie Anne Robinson
• 73 YARDS: Written by Russell T Davies, directed by Dylan Holmes Williams
• DOT AND BUBBLE: Written by Russell T Davies, directed by Dylan Holmes Williams
• ROGUE: Written by Kate Herron and Briony Redman, directed by Ben Chessell
• THE LEGEND OF RUBY SUNDAY: Written by Russell T Davies, directed by Jamie Donoughue
• EMPIRE OF DEATH: Written by Russell T Davies, directed by Jamie Donoughue

Of the eight episodes, six come from Davies’ pen. He always did write a lot of the episodes in his original run, but it stands out quite a bit here with fewer episodes. Not to mention, he already wrote all four of the previous Disney+ episodes.

The two episodes he didn’t write have big guest writers involved! Another former showrunner, Steven Moffat, returns to write this Doctor Who season’s third episode, “Boom,” which looks like a space adventure of some sort. “Rogue,” the sixth episode, comes to us from the writing team of Kate Herron and Briony Redman. Herron, you might know, directed all of Loki season one and several episodes of Sex Education. This one, given the title card, appears to be the Doctor Who episode that will feature Jonathan Groff and the Regency time period.

A few other things of note, via doctorwho.tv. First, “Space Babies” and “The Devil’s Chord” will drop on the same day (on May 10th). The former features Bridgerton‘s Golda Rosheuvel, the latter with Jinkx Monsoon. All the episodes from there on will debut weekly. So, we’ll only have seven weeks of new Doctor Who rather than eight.

Doctor Who Releases New Trailer for Ncuti Gatwa’s Season

Oh, and I guess we ought to get to the second trailer.

We see snippets of everything here, but one thing that really stands out is it looks like we’ll get yet another Doctor Who musical number. Both “The Giggle” and “The Church on Ruby Road” had musical numbers; “The Devil’s Chord” takes place in the 1960s as the Doctor and Ruby try to meet The Beatles, and this looks like it’ll have another such scene. Fascinating stuff.

We’ll have to wait and see what other excitement is in store when Doctor Who season one premieres May 10 on Disney+.

Kyle Anderson is the Senior Editor for Nerdist. He hosts the weekly pop culture deep-dive podcast Laser Focus. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Instagram and Letterboxd.

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Once Russell T Davies was announced as taking over Doctor Who again, wheels turned about what else might be in the pipeline. During RTD’s first regime (2005-2010), fans saw two successful Doctor Who spinoffs: the adult-oriented Torchwood and the kid-focused The Sarah Jane Adventures. And with a new Doctor, and a new distribution deal with Disney+, we wondered what other shows we’d see in the Whoniverse. Now, according to a report from Deadline, we have an idea. The latest Doctor Who spinoff will be a show focused on UNIT and star Jemma Redgrave as Kate Stewart.

Kate first debuted on screen in 2012’s “The Power of Three,” the daughter of fan-fave classic ally Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. She has acted as head of Doctor Who‘s UNIT, the Unified Intelligence Taskforce, in all of her appearances. Kate also appeared in “The Power of the Doctor,” Jodie Whittaker’s final story.

Most recently, Kate Stewart and UNIT were seen in “The Giggle,” the last of three 60th-anniversary specials starring David Tennant and Catherine Tate as the Fourteenth Doctor and Donna Noble, respectively. Stewart had recruited former companion Mel Bush to the UNIT team and, towards the end of the episode, offered Donna a position there, too.

A UNIT/Kate spinoff is perhaps the biggest no-brainer for a new Doctor Who show. It has the potential to do what Torchwood tried to do; that show couldn’t decide how adult it wanted to be. “The Power of the Doctor” introduced the idea that Kate had been recruiting past companions and she has two great ones under her belt. Plus, in the trailer for Doctor Who‘s upcoming season with Ncuti Gatwa, we see that Fifteen will return to UNIT. This season could be a bit of a backdoor pilot for the UNIT spinoff series.

It is highly likely that we will see Donna, Mel, Rose Noble, and others in the mix. Maybe, just maybe, Martha is done freelancing and will come to UNIT for an adventure, too. What a great way to have legacy characters pop in and out for various missions! Plus, we just love Redgrave! Yes, give her a show.

Kyle Anderson is the Senior Editor for Nerdist. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Instagram and Letterboxd.

Originally published on March 15, 2023.

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You’d be hard pressed to find a nerd who doesn’t enjoy at least one sweeping space saga. Some of us are devotees to The Doctor and the TARDIS, a cosmic joyride that can take us (almost) anywhere in space and time. Others pledge their allegiance to the Rebel Alliance and its ongoing drama in a galaxy far, far away. Exploring the final frontier in warp drive is also quite the epic adventure, too. Watching these expansive worlds in live-action is fantastic but there’s something special about a sci-fi/fantasy story in print. That anticipation of flipping to the next page and watching a universe slowly unfold sparks supreme joy, especially when the narrative hits several checkpoints that separate it from typical mainstream fare. That’s what Esmie Jikiemi-Pearson’s The Principle of Moments, the first book in her Order of Legends trilogy, does with ample heart. 

This book has a little something for everyone: a Regency-era queer romance, time traveling, an evil emperor to overthrow, and an unfolding prophecy, among other things. Better yet, the characters are culturally diverse and fuel this high-octane story with their distinct personas. Here’s a quick synopsis:

A century-spanning space fantasy novel that will take you on a whirlwind adventure, from a Regency Era love affair between a time-traveller and the prince waiting for him in the past, to a rescue mission in the 60th century, where a girl desperately races against time as she searches for the sister the emperor stole.

Nerdist caught up with Sunday Times Bestselling author to chat about this epic space opera, her recent Doctor Who novelization, and how fanfiction laid the foundation for her creative journey. 

Nerdist: What was your relationship with sci-fi and fantasy like during your childhood? 

Esmie Jikiemi-Pearson: I was always the biggest sci-fi and fantasy fan… I was actually born in Australia. And there was not that much fantasy and sci-fi TV. There wasn’t much TV at all. We had about five channels. So when I was growing up, I read a lot of books because Australia had a really amazing literary scene there, especially for children… My gateway into sci-fi was the book series called Animorphs by K.A. Applegate. And they’re the weirdest books ever! 

Animorphs is awesome! 

Jikiemi-Pearson: They’re amazing! And I’m so passionate about them.. those books were all about alien battles and aliens invading Earth and kids having to step up and become heroes. Something about that just engaged me from a really young age. 

The other big thing for me was Star Wars. My mum’s a huge Star Wars fan and she said when she was pregnant with me, she would watch the movies on repeat. I like to think that it somehow filtered through and turned me into a sci-fi baby. I love everything Star Wars…

When I came to the UK, I was about 10 years old. I started watching Doctor Who because it was on BBC iPlayer. I remember I was struggling to make friends and stuff in the UK. On the weekends and after school, my sister and I would watch Doctor Who, and we were obsessed with it. It was like nothing we’d ever seen before. In a big way, Doctor Who really got me into sci-fi and fantasy. I was into Harry Potter as well, but then I started reading a lot of Harry Potter fanfiction. And that was, again, a huge fantasy work… Those were my big influences and the things that really got me hooked.

Those are some heavy hitters! I especially love, and already knew, that you’re a Doctor Who fan like me. What was it specifically about that show that drew you? 

Jikiemi-Pearson: I think because I came to it as a child, it really appealed to my sense of wonder. It felt very much like an adult show with adult characters that doesn’t take itself seriously… except for when it does, and then you are crying and your heart’s broken! I love [the show] strikes that balance while retaining a sense of joy without ever feeling patronizing or like it is dumbing down any of the themes.

As a kid, it felt like I’d been let into the cool club of adult stuff, whilst also nurturing the most creative parts of me. I appreciated Doctor Who’s love ethos and the positive messages that it prides itself on. 

When I was watching it, I totally latched onto Martha as a companion. I was mesmerized by her. I remember when she was introduced and her first episode, the one with the hospital…

Yes, “Smith and Jones!” I love Martha.

Jikiemi-Pearson: Yes! I wasn’t fully aware of the idea of companions at that point. It was like, “Oh, yeah. Sometimes people come along for the ride.” I didn’t realize in that episode that Martha was being set up as a companion. I thought she was just going to be in that one episode… When I got towards the end, I was like, “Oh my God, I think she’s going to travel with The Doctor!” 

I was absolutely just overjoyed. And I remember watching their seasons and being a bit in love with her, really, because she was just so clever and funny. And she wasn’t afraid to put the Doctor in his place at all! I loved that… it was obviously amazing to see a strong, intelligent, funny Black woman in this show that I just absolutely adored. So, she was probably a bit of a role model to me as well.

She brought something to the partnership, because she’s obviously a fully qualified as a doctor. So, she had that pragmatic way about her. As an eldest child, I appreciate that pragmatism and the logic

I love that and I definitely share those same sentiments. When I started watching, I liked Rose well enough but once Martha came on board, I was like, “Okayyyy…”

Jikiemi-Pearson: …I can rock with this!

Yes, I can rock with this show! So, you mentioned that you were into reading fanfiction. Was writing fanfiction a part of your path towards becoming a novelist? 

Jikiemi-Pearson: Yeah, I did write fan fiction! My first full fanfiction was The Maze Runner fan fiction, which is the most random thing. I thought The Maze Runner was so cool at the time. It was mainly marketed as being the answer to The Hunger Games but for boys, so I wanted to be super cool as a girl. I also had a crush on Dylan O’Brien, as did many people, so I wasn’t unique there. I also wrote a little bit of Harry Potter fanfiction.

It was that sense of play with writing that was kind of like, “I’m just doing this for me, it’s not for anyone else. It’s not supposed to be this mega prestigious thing. It’s just like what makes me laugh? What makes me emotional? What do I want to explore within the existing themes of a work that I’ve really enjoyed?”

And how did that experience inform your original work, like The Principles of Moments?

Jikiemi-Pearson: It gave me the courage to explore themes that I find interesting, rather than trying to appeal to a historically white audience or a historically heteronormative audience. With fan fiction, there’s no limits, there’s no rules. It’s a bit of a free for all. And that’s very much how I approached writing The Principle of Moments. I’ve never thought of it like this, but you could call The Principle of Moments fanfiction of the sci-fi fantasy genre and fan fiction of the Regency genre. It takes all of the existing tropes and settings and character archetypes that we know and love. And then I just brought myself to it. I showed up and was like, “These are the things that I would do, that I would change. These are the kind of alternate universes that I would want to explore.”

That’s such a wonderful way to approach a story! Besides Doctor Who, what were some other influences on The Principle of Moments‘ settings and storylines? 

Jikiemi-Pearson: It’s definitely inspired by Star Wars, too. Especially things like Finn’s character. I felt like it was a missed opportunity in many ways… he actually had a great motivation for wanting to overthrow the Empire because he’s part of this abused underclass of stormtroopers who have no other way of life. I thought that was so compelling and something that just wasn’t touched upon enough. So I was interested in digging into that. 

At university, I studied classical civilization, a lot of Greek and Roman stuff. The Iliad, The Odyssey, Greek Ancient history, basically. The story beats of mythical myths, legends, and origin stories of heroes definitely influenced my work in a big way. So much of The Principle of Moments is about understanding what makes a hero and really interrogating the Chosen One trope. Sometimes I feel like we take it too lightly. 

It’s like, “Okay. There’s a prophecy and you’re the Chosen One.” And I remember as a kid, I was always like, “But, do you not think that would be scary?” Imagine if that happened to you, if you were suddenly in charge of saving the world. And then add the layer where you’re in charge of saving the world, but the world hasn’t treated you very kindly. How do you then feel about that?

That’s a good point, especially for people from marginalized groups. Why would we want to save the world?

Jikiemi-Pearson: Yeah. Exactly. And I think that’s definitely a question that’s been persistently on my mind, just as I’ve always been watching fantasy and sci-fi that has particularly had white protagonists, because it’s kind of like, “Of course they would want to save the world.”

Very true. Let’s go back into Doctor Who for a moment. You mentioned writing for Doctor Who and I love your novelization of “The Church on Ruby Road.” It’s such a fun and full circle moment for you as a fan. How did you land that opportunity and what was the collaborative process like? 

Jikiemi-Pearson: …I don’t know how I was put onto the radar of the BBC or Doctor Who as a whole. [The Principle of Moments] was announced in March of 2021, and that was prior to Ncuti Gatwa being cast as Doctor Who publicly. But, I think that when I announced my book, he had already potentially been cast, or they were in talks to cast him. My book deal was a big announcement within the sci-fi and fantasy community, especially among Black writers. It must’ve caught someone’s eye because it’s kind of similar to what Doctor Who was planning [with a Black Doctor] behind the scenes.

…I think the BBC was looking for people with newer perspectives, different perspectives. I believe I am the first Black person to write a novelization, which feels absolutely insane. Not to be naive, but I felt like we were almost over the thing of “the first Black person to do something.” We’re definitely not… I was happy to lend my voice and my writing to Doctor Who, because I’ve proved it can be done. 

I found the process such a joy and so fulfilling and welcoming. Everyone was so welcoming that I was like, “This is a fantastic opportunity. I really, really hope that more women, more women of color get to experience, and more black men get to write for Doctor Who!” 

I love that. Do you have any upcoming ventures that you can share with us?

Jikiemi-Pearson: Well, first of all, I need to finish this trilogy. I’m on deadline for the second book, and it’s kind of murdering me, but I want it to be done. I owe these characters a solid run in these three books. If I can finish these books to a high standard, no matter what turns my career takes, I’ll always be so proud to have produced a very solid, entertaining sci-fi fantasy saga, starring Black and gay characters. For that to exist on shelves, that will always probably be one of my biggest accomplishments…

The other thing that I’m really excited about is my next book, which is a little bit more literary sci-fi. I want it to be like if Emily St. John Mandel really wrote a romance story. I love her work, and I find it so eerie and spooky. I love how she deals with speculative elements in that sense. So, I want to write a romance. And then, I also have a fantasy book planned, which is about a young black girl who is working as a scullery maid in this very big English mansion in a magical society.

She basically gets an invitation letter to join the upcoming class at a prestigious witch university. I want to do a deep dive into what it’s like to be Black at a predominantly white institution, what it’s like to be navigating class, and almost like the different language that you have to then switch into when you’re in such an alien environment. And doing all of that with magic… Hopefully in a year you’ll be hearing me saying, “I’ve got a book deal. It’s going to be on a bookshelf.” 

That’s so exciting! I have a fun final question for you. If you could fancast your top three characters from The Principles of Moments, who would you choose to play the live-action versions of them?

Jikiemi-Pearson: I was thinking about this last night! These are the ones that have the clearest ideas of. So, Nicholas Galitzine would play the love interest, the British prince who’s very angsty and depressed and who goes on a mission with his boyfriend Obi’s dad. I’ve always fan-casted Obi’s dad Alaric as Idris Elba. I think those two would capture that awkwardness and the comedy quite well.

The actor of Obi would be… well, he’s a model. Mukasa Kakonge. He is just gorgeous and has a really nice smile, but he can also look quite mysterious and brooding. So, I think that’s perfect for Obi. Yeah. So those are my top three fan casts at the moment.

…For my female main character, Asha, honestly, I mourn the lack of diversity among young, Black female actresses. The only actress that I can think of that looks like Asha is too old to play her. I was talking to someone recently and they said they could see Ayo Edebiri playing her, which I thought was so fun. I know there are a lot of black actresses, but for some reason, Ayo is the only actress that I actually feel represented by, because she’s a bit awkward.

Those are some great answers! Here’s to hoping it happens one day!

Jikiemi-Pearson: That would be the dream!

Check out Esmie Jikiemi-Pearson’s The Principle of Moments novel and her Doctor Who novelization of “The Church on Ruby Road” today.

Author Bio: Esmie Jikiemi-Pearson is the Sunday Times Bestselling author of The Order of Legends trilogy. Inaugural winner of Future Worlds Prize Award in 2020, her debut novel, The Principle of Moments, was published in January 2024, by Gollancz. She holds a BA in English Literature and Classical Studies from the University of Exeter, where she enjoyed writing essays on Disney villains and reading Greek lyric poetry on the same day. As an author of Nigerian, Jamaican, and British-Australian heritage, her work primarily focuses on people who live at the intersection of identities, whether that’s here on Earth, or in far away galaxies of her own creation.

Tai Gooden is the Features Editor at Nerdist and a sci-fi fan who spends most of her free time watching the same Doctor Who episodes on a loop. She hopes the Doctor and the TARDIS will take her away from this very ridiculous planet soon.

The post Sci-Fi Author Esmie Jikiemi-Pearson on Writing DOCTOR WHO and Her Novel THE PRINCIPLE OF MOMENTS appeared first on Nerdist.

Doctor Who season 1 (NOT series 14) will give us a full slate of adventures with Ncuti Gatwa and Millie Gibson. It feels like forever since we saw the pair take on their first Earthly adventure in the 2023 Christmas special “The Church on Ruby Road.” After running into musical goblins and some time traveling magic, the pair were off for great adventures in the TARDIS. A previous teaser gave us a glimpse into all the upcoming action, but now we have a full trailer for Doctor Who season 1 with lots of Fifteenth Doctor and Ruby Sunday goodness. We are so glad that the Disney+ premiere date for the next Doctor Who season is almost here!

The Doctor Who trailer takes us into a few of Fifteen and Ruby’s really wacky adventures. There’s everything from dinosaurs to a lizard Ruby to a trip to the Regency era past. I truly love the “Oh my Bridgerton!” line from Ruby. Things start off very whimsical before they get a bit darker in spots, including a scene where Ruby weeps over a destroyed London. The Doctor also hits some level of frustration as he screams into the space void from the threshold of his TARDIS. Speaking of that fabulous vessel, I’m a little terrified at how its abandoned look towards the end of the clip.

We get a couple of glimpses of Jinkx Monsoon as the latest Doctor Who villain, but not much to chew on there. All in all, this is a great glimpse into the fun that’s coming.

Sidenote: Ruby and Fifteen are so fly and I want to be the third person in the TARDIS. Please, please come take me away from Earth. It’s very ghetto here. 

What Is the Premiere Date for Doctor Who season 1?

Doctor Who season 1 will bring Fifteen and Ruby to our screens on May 10. We will get the first two episodes on that date at 4PM PT/ 7PM ET. US fans can catch new episodes on Disney+.

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The third episode of Doctor Who’s 60th anniversary celebration, “The Giggle,” did something the show had never done before—a bigeneration! The Doctor always “regenerates” whenever one actor gives way to another, but it’s always a direct change, one to another. “The Giggle” split the Doctor into two, one David Tennant’s Fourteenth Doctor, and the other Ncuti Gatwa’s Fifteenth.

And as you can bet, fandom responded to this very rationally and with an open mind. Just kidding, they did the exact opposite. “But! The Doctor is the same person each time, there’s not two separate people! Time Lord biology doesn’t work that way! Why has this never happened before?! The Doctor’s regenerations are sacred and unchangeable.”

No, no they aren’t folks. In fact, I’m going to say something controversial: regeneration in Doctor Who has NEVER been the same, any of the times it happened. Why should now be any different? Let’s take out of the equation the fact that the show is fictional and Time Lords aren’t real to begin with, even within the context of the show it’s mainly suggestion based on what makes for good drama at the time. As long as Doctor Who has had regeneration rules, it’s looked for ways to break them.

Jump To: Doctor Who‘s First Regeneration // Doctor Who Regenerates Again // Regeneration in the ’70s // Tom Baker (Four)’s Regeneration // Regeneration Arrives in Modern Doctor Who // River Song and Regeneration // Doctor Who‘s 50th Anniversary Changed Regeneration Again // A New Cycle of Regenerations // Time Lord Regeneration Encompasses Race and Gender // Thirteen’s Regenerations // The Timeless Child // Bigeneration in Doctor Who // Doctor Who Regeneration Is Ever Changing

The First Regeneration on Doctor Who

Regeneration as a concept, only exists because William Hartnell, the actor playing the Doctor, was getting too old to remember the tome of lines the character had every week. And we’re talking 40-some episodes every season. Tons of episodes. But what to do when the character of the Doctor is the main focus of the series, and is seemingly unique? One idea in season three was to just…change the actor. Hey, he’s an alien, the show is science fiction! The story “The Celestial Toymaker” presented an opportunity for this godlike trickster to just make the Doctor look different for lolz. They didn’t do that, and good thing, too.

The replace-the-actor-in-continuity angle needed to be something replicable. Cut to “The Tenth Planet,” the story that introduced the Cybermen, and which Hartnell already sat out two full episodes. At the very end of the fourth episode, the Doctor wanders away from his companions, appearing in a lot of discomfort. He mutters something about his old body wearing thin. He then collapses on the floor of the TARDIS. What’s really interesting about William Hartnell’s transformation into Patrick Troughton is how sparse and inexplicable it is. The TARDIS groaning sounds play over it and the visuals flash in an out. It’s not entirely clear what’s even happening, or even that the TARDIS itself isn’t causing the transformation.

Doctor Who Regenerates Again

The Second Doctor, three seasons later, was also wearing thin. Mostly, this was just Troughton getting tired. At the end of season six, Troughton’s final season, the wheels were coming off the production cart a little bit. So much so that the final serial, “The War Games,” just kept ballooning as they were making it in lieu of any other usable scripts. It went from four episodes into the eventual 10 episodes, the second longest single serial in the show’s history.

Partway through the serial, the Doctor meets a character called “The War Chief,” who turns out to be another member of the Doctor’s race. We’d met other such characters before but with the War Chief, we learn for the first time the name of the Doctor’s race—the Time Lords. Despite running from them since the show began, things get so bad that the Doctor has no choice but to signal to the Time Lords to intervene, giving himself up in the process.

The Time Lords put him on trial for the horrible crime of helping people and so decide to exile him to Earth, removing his ability to fly the TARDIS, and forcing his face to change. The Time Lords don’t say “you’re going to regenerate, a thing we all do all the time.” Rather they say “your face has changed before, it will change again.” Unlike “The Tenth Planet,” we don’t actually see the Second Doctor turn into the Third Doctor. Once again it’s not clear if this is a thing that his body can do normally and they’re just forcing it, or if it’s a punishment that wouldn’t have happened otherwise.

Regeneration in the ’70s

Beginning with the Third Doctor, we get the word “regenerate” in relation to the Doctor changing shape. This would begin major lore creation for the series with regards to Time Lords. The Third Doctor’s change proved it was something Gallifreyans had the ability to do. However, it remained unclear whether this is something all Time Lords do or just something Time Lords can do.

That all changed during the Tom Baker era. In the now classic story “The Deadly Assassin,” the Fourth Doctor returns to Gallifrey in order to foil an assassination plot against the Time Lord president. Along the way, the Doctor discovers it’s the Master, decrepit and decaying at the end of his life cycles, trying to utilize the Gallifreyan citadel’s mystical Eye of Harmony to give him a new set of regenerations. One of the Doctor’s allies says “After a Time Lord’s twelfth regeneration, nothing can save them.”

This was, in no small way, massive. After 13 years on the air and three onscreen regenerations, the show slaps us with lore that, whether by nature or design, Time Lords can only regenerate 12 times, meaning 13 separate lives. Retroactively, the show tells us the first two Doctors did in fact properly regenerate, and moreover, they’d put a number on it.

Now, in fairness to writer and script-editor Robert Holmes, it seemed HIGHLY unlikely at the time the Doctor would ever need to worry about this. Since we live in the future, it saddled Doctor Who with storytelling limitations that future writers would have to try to figure out how to deal with.

Tom Baker’s Regeneration Had a Time Ghost

After a whopping seven seasons in the role, Tom Baker’s scarf began to unravel for the last time. His final story, “Logopolis” is about entropy and a planet run by math. I do not want to explain it further. Throughout the story, the Doctor and companions keep seeing this weird ghostly figure watching them. This thing just stands around and the Doctor seems to know what it is but won’t say.

As the story comes to a close, and the Doctor falls from a great height after defeating the Master, he says “it’s the end, but the moment has been prepared for.” The then gestures to the white alien thing who walks over and like, merges with the Doctor’s body which triggers the regeneration. Nyssa has the ADR’d line “The watcher…he was the Doctor all the time.”

Hang on. So this weird ghost was a spectre of the Doctor’s next incarnation? Like, tapping his watch? “Come on, curly, we’re burning daylight here.” Why does this happen? How does this happen? And how did Nyssa, who literally only showed back up an episode prior, know all about how Time Ghosts work?

Jump To: Doctor Who‘s First Regeneration // Doctor Who Regenerates Again // Regeneration in the ’70s // Tom Baker (Four)’s Regeneration // Regeneration Arrives in Modern Doctor Who // River Song and Regeneration // Doctor Who‘s 50th Anniversary Changed Regeneration Again // A New Cycle of Regenerations // Time Lord Regeneration Encompasses Race and Gender // Thirteen’s Regenerations // The Timeless Child // Bigeneration in Doctor Who // Doctor Who Regeneration Is Ever Changing

Doctor Who Made Regeneration a Rule…and Then Broke It

The next several regenerations were all weird in their own way. The Fifth turned into a guy he’d met before. Number Six regenerated from hitting his head on the TARDIS console. The Seventh Doctor was gunned down by Triad gangs in the 1996 TV movie on Fox. They bent the rules but never broke them. By time the series returned in 2005 under Russell T Davies, regeneration had been fully codified into Doctor Who‘s DNA.

However, following the Ninth Doctor’s regeneration into the Tenth, things got a bit more complicated. “The Christmas Invasion” finds the newly minted Tenth Doctor in bed for most of the adventure, cooking after regenerating. When he finally gets up, he runs his gob and has a sword fight with a bad alien skull had man. During the fight, the baddie cuts his hand off, but because he’s still in the first 12 hours of his regeneration cycle, he grows a new one.

In the cliffhanger to the previous episode, “The Stolen Earth,” a Dalek zaps the Doctor in the heart and he starts to regenerate. The viewing public knew David Tennant was leaving the show so it was a great and shocking surprise. However, the first seconds of “Journey’s End” has the Doctor heal his wounds with the regeneration energy and then shoot the rest off into his severed hand, which has been in the TARDIS in a water-filled specimen tank after Torchwood found out and Captain Jack Harkness brought it back to him.

This makes the hand grow into a separate version of the Doctor but—and this is a big thing—is a one-hearted, non-regeneratable human. All of this was basically to give Rose Tyler, who was full-on in love with the Doctor but got banished to another dimension, a boyfriend. It’s so weird. It’s SO weird. 

Fans call him “The Handy Doctor.” Presented without commentary.

The Wild Saga of River Song

Series 6 is a whole thing which is very complicated and deals with the origins of girl-out-of-time River Song. It turns out River is actually the daughter of the first married couple companions, Amy and Rory. We learn that she can regenerate and was kidnapped as a baby and programmed to be an assassin to kill the Doctor. Why can she regenerate? Well, the show tells us since she was conceived in the TARDIS while it was traveling through the time vortex, the baby was somehow fused with Time Lord DNA.

In the series’ eighth episode, “Let’s Kill Hitler,” we find that the Doctor is for-sure going to die but then River bestows upon him her remaining regenerations through a kiss. So she’s a regular ol’ human person now, but the Doctor is back to having the same exact amount of regenerations he was already up to.

Doctor Who‘s 50th Anniversary Changed Regeneration Again

The 50th anniversary was the first multi-Doctor story, really, since the ‘80s and brought back David Tennant to team up with Matt Smith, and folks, it’s so good. But, for our purposes, it also has some very particular things to say about regeneration.

At the end of the previous series, the Doctor and his companion Clara Oswald end up within the Doctor’s own time thread, and they see versions of all his previous selves. One of them is unknown to Clara, who had met all the ones we’ve talked about. The Doctor says “We don’t talk about that one,” whose name is apparently Bruno.

The cliffhanger shows John Hurt, and it says introducing John Hurt as the Doctor. And my dudes, people lost their damn mind. How can this be!? He’s not one of the canonical Doctors! The numbering! Think of the numbering!

This was all part of the wild mix of necessity and contractual requirements writer Steven Moffat had to contend with. The new series, and especially the Moffat era, had made sure to confirm in continuity that the Eleventh Doctor was, in fact, the Eleventh Doctor. But because the presumed Doctor to fight in the Time War—the Ninth Doctor—was played by an actor who did not want to return, Moffat had to figure something else out. Moffat created a new Doctor that fit in between the Eighth and Ninth, who didn’t count himself as a Doctor. The War Doctor.

What Regeneration Limit?

In the very next episode, “The Time of the Doctor,” Matt Smith’s Eleventh Doctor strands himself on the planet Trenzalore, protecting the town of Christmas for hundreds of years. He gets markedly ancient and then he explains to Clara that he’s out of regenerations. He counts them thusly: Each regen we see from 1-7, then Eighth Doctor to War, then War to Ninth, Ninth to Tenth, then Tenth to Handy Tenth, then Tenth to Eleventh. So he’s out of regenerations, apparently.

Lucky for him, he finds his home planet in a crack in time and through that, the Time Lords bestow on him a new cycle of regenerations. 

People were mad about this. That’s a get out of jail free card, a deus ex machina, a third trope that means the same thing. My response is: Yeah, of course it is. Do you want the show to be over? If you never change canon, if you never think of clever ways out of painting yourself in a corner, or a corner someone else painted you in 40 years prior, then you can’t keep a series going for 60 years. Feel free to stop watching and make your head canon that the Doctor died and we’re done. But we’re not done.

Jump To: Doctor Who‘s First Regeneration // Doctor Who Regenerates Again // Regeneration in the ’70s // Tom Baker (Four)’s Regeneration // Regeneration Arrives in Modern Doctor Who // River Song and Regeneration // Doctor Who‘s 50th Anniversary Changed Regeneration Again // A New Cycle of Regenerations // Time Lord Regeneration Encompasses Race and Gender // Thirteen’s Regenerations // The Timeless Child // Bigeneration in Doctor Who // Doctor Who Regeneration Is Ever Changing

Time Lord Regeneration Encompasses Race and Gender Too

After the Twelfth Doctor era, the Doctor changes genders for the first time on screen, going from Peter Capaldi to Jodie Whittaker. This was a pretty groundbreaking moment, however to quote a previous regen, “The moment had been prepared for.”

Earlier in the Eleventh Doctor era, we hear about a friend of his named the Corsair who had changed gender upon regeneration. Then there’s Missy, of course, a female-presenting version of the Master. And just for good measure, in the story “Hell Bent,” the Doctor shoots a Time Lord general who then regenerates from Ken Bone, and old white man, into T’Nia Miller, a younger Black woman.

Wild Thirteenth Doctor Shenanigans

In the episode “The Fugitive of the Judoon,” the Doctor works to protect a woman named Ruth played by Jo Martin from being unduly captured by the intergalactic rhino police guild, the Judoon. As the episode goes on, we eventually learn, along with the Doctor, that Ruth is a version of the Doctor in hiding who had used a chameleon arch to wipe her memory and make her human. Naturally the Doctor assumes this is a later incarnation, because she doesn’t remember this version, but the Ruth Doctor also doesn’t remember the Thirteenth Doctor. So, a mind-wiped future incarnation? NO.

We learn that Doctor Ruth (not the sex one) was a pre-Hartnell Doctor whom Division, which is basically the Time Lord CIA, the government of Gallifrey used to carry out clandestine murder missions. At some point, we’re further led to believe, the Doctor’s memory was fully wiped, given a full new set of regenerations, and as far as they were concerned, they were living their first life.

Now this is obviously a huge, huge revelation. If you thought the War Doctor mucking up the 1-11 numbering was a problem, try not even knowing what number this new one is! Is she Doctor Zero? Is she negative numbers Doctor?

The Timeless Child

The Thirteenth Doctor hardly gets time to wrap her head around this before she gets a whole new wallop of backstory. The Master, ever the thorn in the side of things, has wiped out the citadel on Gallifrey, because he learned a fact he couldn’t handle. Eons ago, a Gallifreyan scientist named Tecteun found a strange child that seems to have come out of nowhere. This child has the innate ability to turn into a new person on the genetic level whenever they die. And yes, a child dies on Doctor Who.

Tecteun then figures out a way to harness this energy and give it to other Gallifreyans to keep them alive for millennia longer than they otherwise would have been. Simultaneously they’d developed time travel, so couple with effective immortality, they became the Time Lords.

Time Lord government imposed the 12 regeneration limit, because who wants to live forever, as Freddie Mercury once said. The child, if you hadn’t figured it out yet, was the Doctor, who was not only exploited for their natural resource, but forced into servitude in the Time Lord CIA who basically used them as a Winter Soldier, mind-wiping and regenerating them after every mission.

The amount of rewriting to lore this creates is gargantuan, not to mention it brings into question all of the times throughout the years we’ve heard the Doctor muse about their childhood on Gallifrey. Did they turn the Doctor back into a child when Division was done with them? Because we know from the Twelfth Doctor episode “Listen” that the Doctor was a child living in a barn at one point. We also know they grew up and went to school with the Master, so again I ask, how and why?

One Face, Two Face, Old Face, New Face: Bi-Generation in Doctor Who

Eventually, the Thirteenth Doctor’s time arrived. She stands on a mountain and regenerates into…David Tennant?! Well, it’s not unprecedented at this point! It’s canonically a new Doctor, the Fourteenth, but he’s reusing the Tenth Doctor’s face a) because it’s for anniversary special reasons, and 2) so once and future showrunner Russell T Davies can right some wrongs with the character of Donna. And we already know revisiting faces is a thing.

Which brings us, finally, to “The Giggle,” the third of the three Doctor Who 60th anniversary specials.

The Toymaker, the trickster god from another plane of existence and who has powers of reality manipulation, zaps the Fourteenth Doctor and he starts to regenerate again. But no! He doesn’t regenerate, at least not quite. He asks Donna and returning Sixth and Seventh Doctor companion Mel Bush to pull on his arms and this splits him in two, with one remaining David Tennant and the other the trouserless Ncuti Gatwa, the Fifteenth Doctor.

The show makes a point of explaining this has never happened before, it’s new and unique due to the Toymaker’s reality manipulation. It’s not a re-generation, it’s a bi-generation. There are now two Doctors, the former of which seemingly mortal.

And you wanna know something? I love it. I think it’s genius. Why, why, why keep doing the same damn thing you’ve been doing for 60 years? Especially when, basically all of those previous examples were not “the same” in any way?

Jump To: Doctor Who‘s First Regeneration // Doctor Who Regenerates Again // Regeneration in the ’70s // Tom Baker (Four)’s Regeneration // Regeneration Arrives in Modern Doctor Who // River Song and Regeneration // Doctor Who‘s 50th Anniversary Changed Regeneration Again // A New Cycle of Regenerations // Time Lord Regeneration Encompasses Race and Gender // Thirteen’s Regenerations // The Timeless Child // Bigeneration in Doctor Who // Doctor Who Regeneration Is Ever Changing

Doctor Who Regeneration, Now and Forever

Regeneration was one of the most brilliant conceits a TV production ever dreamt up. You might be able to get away with recasting a character once and have the audience buy it. But only Doctor Who has built it into the fabric of the show. Change is the show’s key to longevity. Updating the cast every few years, bringing in not only new companions but a new Doctor who is the same Doctor but not, keeps the series fresh.

There’s a reason the first episode of a new Doctor is routinely the most watched of any era. People are excited about how the new person will be in the role. And that’s still what’s happening. Nothing is different on that front. We’re still getting brand new adventures with a new actor in the lead. So what if now they have no regeneration limit or the Doctor can split rather than fully change?

A younger me would have been annoyed by this but I also have changed with the times. As long as we’re still getting a show that’s willing to take weird risks and swing for the fences, even if they don’t make sense, I say go for it. If you can justify it and make it resonate with the characters, I’m here for it.

Kyle Anderson is the Senior Editor for Nerdist. He hosts the weekly pop culture deep-dive podcast Laser Focus. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Instagram and Letterboxd.

The post DOCTOR WHO’s Regenerations Have Never Been Normal appeared first on Nerdist.

Doctor Who’s Christmas special, “The Church on Ruby Road,” is truly the beginning of something new. The Fifteenth Doctor gets into a strange Earth adventure, complete with singing goblins and a new friend named Ruby Sunday. Fans have been (impatiently) waiting to see how this new TARDIS team would come together for a while. Now, we know how the Fifteenth Doctor and Ruby Sunday meet in Doctor Who.

The Fifteenth Doctor is in London, hitting up clubs and keeping an eye on a young woman with “bad luck.” The Doctor is certain something more sinister is going on involving her constant mishaps. Meanwhile, Ruby is on her own mission to find out information about her birth parents. She was named Ruby because she was left at a church on Ruby Road on a Sunday. Her adoptive mum Carla adores her but also supports her desire to know where she came from.

Ruby Sunday and the Fifteenth cross paths a couple times, including her watching him on the dance floor, before they meet in the most Doctor Who way possible. She chases a few hissing goblins to her rooftop in an attempt to retrieve her new foster baby sibling from their clutches. The intrepid Ruby jumps onto a hanging ladder of a ship without thinking (how Doctory of her) just as the Doctor appears. His tracking skills always lead him to the right place at the right time.

He’s running across the rooftops and yelling at her about jumping onto a random ladder. Of course, he joins her and, from that moment on, they are like peanut butter and jelly. They do a musical number on the fly, save the baby, and the Doctor even goes back in time to rescue baby Ruby. And those goblins? Well they feed off of a person’s luck as well as coincidence. The baby sharing a birthday with Ruby and arriving on her birthday? Yeah, that makes for a perfect meal. He doesn’t even give her an official invite to travel with him. The Doctor just knows that Ruby will piece it together and come into the TARDIS for answers. 

The Fifteenth Doctor and Ruby Sunday’s dynamic feels reminiscent of Ten and Donna in a sense. They deliver witty comebacks and boundless energy with ease. But we know that Ncuti Gatwa’s Doctor is not quite like any other before him, so this will be a unique union. Their connection over being abandoned as children and having a nebulous past is a nice anchor. And with the mystery surrounding Ruby’s birth mother and her strangely knowledgeable neighbor Mrs. Flood, the Doctor will have lots to unravel during their travels.  

The post How Did the Fifteenth Doctor and Ruby Sunday Meet in DOCTOR WHO’s Christmas Special? appeared first on Nerdist.

After meeting Ncuti Gatwa’s delightful (and beautiful and flirtatious) Fifteenth in the Doctor Who anniversary special “The Giggle,” fans were beyond ready for his first full on-screen adventure. (It’s me, I’m fans.) Thankfully, we got our wish on Christmas Day 2023 with “The Church on Ruby Road,” a holiday adventure with baby-eating and singing goblins, a companion with a mysterious past, and Fifteen hitting the club in a kilt. What more could any of us want? We caught up with Ncuti Gatwa to talk about this Doctor Who holiday special, the Fifteenth Doctor’s style, his chemistry with Millie Gibson, working with Russell T Davies, and that very fun musical number.

Nerdist: “The Church on Ruby Road” gave us more insight into who the Fifteenth Doctor is in terms of his personality, style, and how he approaches problems. How much input did you have when it came to formulating your Doctor’s unique identity and aesthetic?

Ncuti Gatwa: It’s tricky. I find that question hard to answer because it was an ongoing process that I would figure out throughout season one. When I initially was approaching crafting Fifteen, I had this idea that I was going to watch every single Doctor and take a little something from each single one. And by the time that I’ve done that, I’ll have an idea of the extra thing that I want to add on, and then I’ll be the “super Doctor.” 

But I then was like, “Oh, they all seem to encapsulate everything. They’re all completely different from one another. Completely unique, but all instantly identifiable as the Doctor.” So I guess what they’ve done is just be themselves. And so that is what I have to do. I have to let the script guide me. It’s all there in [showrunner Russell T Davies’] amazing scripts. And I have to let that guide me and just try my best to stand on the shoulders of each one of my predecessors and the foundation that they’ve built for the character. I can only be my beautiful Black self. That’s all I can do. 

In terms of his style, I found a line that Ralph Lauren did with Morehouse College. They did this collaboration with HBCUs and I loved it. I was like, “That’s going to be perfect for my Doctor. It’s heritage, it’s Black, it’s everything that I want for this character.” And the production team were like, “We can do that, but we can also do a lot more. We can do something different for each episode, and we’ve cast you for a reason. You will just take all your fashion loving-ness and put it into the character.” And so I work with Pam Downe, who is the costume designer, and she is an incredible visionary and she shows me her sketches and we pick which one we want.

I love that! Now, in this episode, the Doctor and Ruby Sunday got their own musical moment. It was such a delight. What was it like to prepare for and film that scene? 

Gatwa: There was no preparation. [laughs] Any production that I’ve done before, if you’re doing a song, you go to a recording studio, record it there, and then mime over what you did on the day [of filming]. And in anticipation of that scene coming up, I kept being like, “Oh, tomorrow will be the day that I go to the recording studio, or it’ll be tomorrow.” And then we kept getting closer to the day, and I was like, “Millie, we’ve not gone to the recording studio yet. When are we going to do that?” On the day of, they were like, “Here’s your mics, off you go.” 

Oh nooooo!

Gatwa: I was like, “Oh my God. You don’t even know if I can sing. What if I can’t?!”  But I guess they had trust and faith in us. What I love about working with Millie [Gibson] is how quick her mind is and that we’re able to bounce off each other. We’re both from the north of the UK and so we’ve got a similar banter and rapport with one another. And so we just instantly had to think on our feet and be like, “How do we make this…” The aim of the game is the Doctor and Ruby have landed in a situation that they don’t know and you need to think quickly on their feet to get themselves out of it. So it was a perfect inception moment.

It was brilliant. Your Doctor has this new lease of freedom and optimism about traveling, but he’s still kind of dealing with some residual pain from the past. How do you think that his newfound friendship with Ruby Sunday will help him heal and move forward?

Gatwa: Great question! I think that Ruby does what all the companions do—allow the Doctor to not be afraid of their feelings. They’re also like the vessel in which the Doctor replenishes themselves in a way… Because the Doctor has seen all of time and space and has been around forever, it’s a long, lonely road. And I think [the Doctors] keep themselves alive and fresh and curious about the universe and wanting to help and wanting to involve themselves through the eyes of this companion, through someone who’s never seen any of what he’s seen before. And within that he’s able to relive his youth in a way. Ruby is so instrumental in the Doctor’s journey this season in helping him step out of his comfort zone of being like a lone wanderer or wolf.

That’s amazing. I could be wrong, but I’d imagine that playing the Doctor would open the door for improvisation. Did you get a chance to do that, or even want to, during the holiday special? 

Gatwa: No, which was cool. I’m an actor who loves to improvise and that was my specialty at drama school. That was the class that I excelled in. Loved it. But that’s not the way that Russell works. It’s allowed for, and if it works, it works. But Russell is such a great writer and he sits with these scripts for months and months, maybe years. Some of these concepts that have come into his head have maybe been in there for years and have been stewing and cooking before they come out into the perfect puff pastry that they are. And so he’s got a really clear idea of how things should sound and how it should flow.

I’ve said it before, but working with Russell is a little bit like whenever I did Shakespeare when I was doing theater back in the day. There’s such a specificity to the flow of it. It is almost like there’s an iambic pentameter within his monologues and within his speeches. There’s a rhythm to it, and it just works. And that was quite interesting for me being like, “Oh, I’m going to try and improv this.” And he’d be like, “Really?” And I’d be like, “Yeah, I’m going to try…” And then I’ll be like, “It doesn’t quite work.” It has to be what is on the page. The words are there for a reason, and it’s a real joy to honor them. Specificity as well as fun is the name of the game, I think, when tackling his script.

That is awesome. And you did a beautiful job. “The Church on Ruby Road” is a fun ride and I am grateful that the Doctor is you and looks like you. Your Doctor already means so much to so many fans.

Gatwa: Thank you. It’s an honor to hear that. Honor to chat with you.

The post DOCTOR WHO Star Ncuti Gatwa on His First Christmas Special and Fifteen’s Stylish Wardrobe appeared first on Nerdist.

There’s always something exciting about a new companion coming to Doctor Who. Whether we love or hate their predecessor, the next TARDIS traveler ushers in new energy, hope, and perspectives. This is certainly the case with Ruby Sunday, who meets the Doctor in this year’s Christmas special “The Church on Ruby Road.” She inadvertently ends up on a goblin ship with the Fifteenth Doctor and her life will never, ever be the same again. We caught up with actress Millie Gibson to talk about Ruby Sunday’s effervescent personality, her favorite filming moments, what to expect next season, and so much more. 

Nerdist: Ruby Sunday is absolutely delightful in “The Church on Ruby Road.” I can’t wait to see where she goes next! When it came to crafting her persona, how much input did you have?

Millie Gibson: When I first auditioned, I guessed [about her personality] because with an audition, they really barely give you anything. I think the words used to sum her up were “charismatic, bubbly, and craving adventure.” But I was like, “Isn’t that like every companion?”

I think as the process went along, [showrunner] Russell [T Davies] helped me by giving me a few pointers. She’s very positive and that there’s always an underlying mystery about her, however, it doesn’t get her down. She’s just onto the next thing. I remember him telling me, “She’s a person that never rolls her eyes to something and there can’t be any hint of sarcasm about her.” That’s really hard for me because I think when I act, I’m just dying to put a sarcastic twist on it and obviously that’s not Ruby. It was a really cool contrast because the last character I played, Kelly Neelan on Coronation Street, was just an absolute wreck, bless her, and she wasn’t a very nice person. She was a lot more negative than Ruby. So this has been such a breath of fresh air to take on and portray.

That’s lovely. You mentioned a bit about the mystery surrounding Ruby. We get her background story in the holiday special and now know that there’s something going on with her mom. It’s quite interesting. I know you can’t spoil anything, but can fans expect to learn more about Ruby’s life as the show progresses?

Gibson: Yes, and I think Ruby learns more about her life as the show progresses. That’s what’s great about being the companion because you are the audience, you’re the eyes of what’s going on in the Doctor’s world. Things will begin to unfold. I’m excited to see fans’ theories of what it might be.

The Doctor Who fandom loves a good theory.

Gibson: I know, I know!

You know, the Doctor always helps a lot of people but only a few are chosen to be a companion. What do you think that the Doctor saw in Ruby Sunday that made him say, “I want her to be my new friend and my traveling companion.”?

Gibson: They connected when he realized she was abandoned too and were both foundlings in a way. They were both lost souls. I think as soon as he put Ruby to the test to see how she’d survive in a goblin ship, and I think she passed the test, and he must’ve just thought, “Actually, this girl’s quite fun.” 

But I think it’s her courage as well. They meet properly when she’s in the sky on a ladder, so I think he just thought, “She’s a bit of me.” …their personalities bounce so well off each other. 

Absolutely. The ladder scene is one of my favorites, by the way! Was that super challenging to film? 

Gibson: Yeah! I’d never worked on wires before. Russell purposely wrote a line in just so I could put the jacket on so we could hide the wires under the costume. I think it’s when I’m like, “Oh, I’ll go to the shops,” …and then I just kept my jacket on… I’d never done anything like that before, it’s a good thing I’m not scared of heights! I loved it, I will say. I felt like a superwoman hero. But yeah, it was a super fun scene to film. 

That sounds like a blast. My second favorite scene is, of course, when you and the Doctor start singing. What was it like filming that scene and how did you get ready for it?

Gibson: You know what? [Ncuti Gatwa and I] didn’t get ourselves ready! Genuinely, we both were under the impression we’d be filming it in post-production in a studio with a nice cup of tea. And they just went, “Okay, action.” And it was like, “Oh, right, we’re doing live? We’re singing live?” …We didn’t expect to sing it in the flesh but it worked… it all turned out great in the end with a bit of auto-tuning.

It was delightful! Now, how did it feel to step onto the TARDIS set for the first time?

Gibson: The whole scene outside, when I’m walking around the TARDIS being like, “How is it bigger on the inside?” That was actually my favorite scene to film. I remember it was a bit of a rush. We were losing daylight and we did it in one or two takes, I think. It was such an easy thing to film for me because as an actor, it was so surreal doing that reveal scene because it’s so iconic, the moment the companion realizes the TARDIS is bigger on the inside than the outside for the first time. I loved walking around it and just playing with my reactions. And then having Mrs. Flood say, “Good luck, Ruby!” was just such a heartwarming moment. It gives me goosebumps every time.

Seeing the TARDIS in the flesh was insane. I’m used to seeing David Tennant or Matt Smith’s type of brown rustic, really home living TARDIS. So when I saw this one, it was more like, “Oh my God.” It really fits our season. I think it really speaks for our show.

In what way does it fit the season?

Gibson: Like the jukebox, that’s so Ruby and the Doctor. Just boogying and deciding where else we want to go and things like that… I love our TARDIS even though it’s very clean.

Sounds like fun! If you could describe the adventures of this upcoming season in three words, which ones would you use?

Gibson: Dark. It does go quite dark. Musical and snow.

Interesting. Musical will be a delight. So many shows are going that route and I love it.

Gibson: Going with the times!

The post DOCTOR WHO’s Millie Gibson on Ruby Sunday’s Personality, a Dark Future, and Filming Fun appeared first on Nerdist.

Doctor Who is back in full force. The TV show just celebrated 60 years of time and space adventures with a trio of wonderful anniversary specials. There’s a new Doctor in the TARDIS and he’s ready to give us more action in the next era. To celebrate all of this goodness, Magic: The Gathering is giving fans a slate of new Doctor Who cards to add to their existing ones. Secret Lair x Doctor Who: Regeneration celebrates the show’s most recent Doctors as well as other characters with a new deck. 

After releasing several decks in late Fall 2023, players noticed that David Tennant’s Fourteen and Ncuti Gatwa’s Fifteen were not a part of the lineup. It was only a matter of time (and perfect timing) that they would get their own cards. Secret Lair x Doctor Who: Regeneration features the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Doctors, Rose Noble, the Beep of all the Meeps, and the Toymaker. Of course, the artwork is absolutely stunning and captures the essence of everyone. Well, sort of. The Meep looks adorable but we all know he’s not above showing sharp teeth and shooting his enemies. He is truly a villainous cutie and we love him. Get a closer look at the cards below:

Click To View Gallery

The Doctor Who Magic: The Gathering regeneration deck comes with two options: foil cards for $49.99 or non-foil cards for $39.99. Right now, both decks are available for preorder. But fans will have to wait a while before they can add these cards into the mix. Secret Lair x Doctor Who: Regeneration will not release until April 2, 2024. Hmmm.

We know that the next season of Doctor Who is coming sometime in 2024. Perhaps this means that Fifteen and Ruby Sunday’s first season will land sometime in April, too. Either way, it’s time to bring these legendary creatures into your gaming fun. 

The post SECRET LAIR X DOCTOR WHO: REGENERATION Celebrates Anniversary with New MAGIC Deck appeared first on Nerdist.

A new Doctor always calls for some fun changes. There’s the obvious wardrobe upgrade, including whatever look will become that Doctor’s “signature” outfit. Sometimes, the TARDIS also redecorates its console room with some new flair. One thing many fans really love about a fresh Doctor is yet another sonic screwdriver to collect. Each one of them has unique details and features that reflect the time period and, in some cases, the Doctor’s persona. But the sonic screwdriver for the Fifteenth Doctor may be the most unique looking one yet. We cannot wait to see him use it in season one.

In the above video, Ncuti Gatwa talks about his Doctor’s flashy new sonic, which looks less like a tube and more like a cylinder-ish gadget. The series honors Gatwa’s Rwandan roots with a proverb written in Gallifreyan on the sonic screwdriver. It translates to “the sharpness of the tongue defeats the sharpness of the warrior.” That’s a very befitting phrase for a character like the Doctor and a lovely way to celebrate Ncuti Gatwa’s groundbreaking turn in this role.

Our beloved Fifteenth Doctor demonstrates how to hold his sonic screwdriver and reveals that a crystal powers it. It even lights up, which will be helpful when the Doctor inevitably finds himself in some dark space. There’s also a piece that flips out and can connect to other technology, whether that technology is made by humans or an alien race. Of course, it does all the usual things like unlocking things and fusing items.

When and Where Can I Buy the Fifteenth Doctor’s Sonic Screwdriver?

This sonic screwdriver isn’t on sale yet. But we can bet that you’ll be able to buy it soon via the BBC Doctor Who shop and other major retailers. Until then, we are waiting patiently to see Fifteen and Ruby Sunday in this year’s Christmas special.

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Doctor Who is back, y’all! The first of three 60th anniversary specials, “The Star Beast,” kicked off a set of adventures with Fourteen and Donna Noble. We had the pleasure of meeting Doctor Who comic and audio characters Beep the Meep and the Wrarth Warriors. And, here at Nerdist, we also had the fun challenge of searching for Doctor Who Easter eggs, callbacks, and references to previous events in this episode. While some are expressly pointed out, others are not quite so obvious. Let’s take a look at what we have spotted so far.

Jump to: “The Star Beast” // “Wild Blue Yonder” // “The Giggle”

Doctor Who 60th Anniversary Special “The Star Beast” Easter Eggs and References

Once Upon a Time Lord 

“The Star Beast” starts with the Doctor and Donna Noble addressing us directly. The Doctor begins his story about traveling with Donna, saying “once upon a Time Lord.” It’s more than just a clever phrase. It is the name of a recent Doctor Who graphic novel by writer Dan Slott and artist Christopher Jones starring the Tenth Doctor and Martha Jones. In this story, the Pyromeths capture Martha. She distracts them by telling epic tales of the Tenth Doctor facing off against foes like the Daleks, Cybermen, Ice Warriors, and more. 

The Tenth Doctor and Donna Noble’s Greatest Hits, Recapped

At this point, Donna can’t recall her travels with the Doctor. And, to be honest, some fans have forgotten them too. It has been 15 years, after all. (We can help you with remembering Donna’s ending.) Thankfully, Doctor Who uses her opening dialogue to take us down memory lane with plenty of flashbacks. We see several images from their journey, including the Empress (a.k.a. the arachnid lady) from when they first met in 2006’s “The Runaway Bride.” 

We also get glimpses of a Sontaran from “The Sontaran Stratagem,” a skull in a spacesuit from “Silence in the Library,” the evil wasp from “The Unicorn and the Wasp,” the Pyrovile villain from “The Fires of Pompeii,” and the Adipose spaceship from “Partners in Crime.” But that’s not all! We see the eye of a Dalek from “The Stolen Earth/Journey’s End” and the planet Midnight from the episode of the same name. And of course we see a glimpse of the metacrisis event that led to the Tenth Doctor’s controversial decision to wipe Donna’s mind.

CyberDog 

The Doctor lands in the Camden Town section of London and begins to wander the streets. We see a place called CyberDog in the background. It doesn’t draw the attention of the Doctor but some fans would assume its an in-universe reference to the Cybermen. In actuality, CyberDog is a real clothing store in that area. As far as Easter eggs go, there’s a Doctor Who short story involving this store called “Dummy Massacre.” In it, a blogger was inside CyberDog in March 2005 when the Autons attacked. This is the same event we witnessed through Rose and the Ninth Doctor in “Rose.” The mysterious blogger took over the conspiracy theory website, Who Is Doctor Who?, from Clive Davis (RIP) and wrote about his harrowing experience.

Every Era Begins with a Rose… Sort Of

Rose Noble’s name is an obvious nod to Rose Tyler, the first companion of the modern era. We learn a lot about Rose in this episode, including why she chose that name and her connection to the Doctor. But, there’s more to this reference. We now have three different eras of Doctor Who: classic, modern, and the new Russell T Davies era that we are calling Bad Wolf for now. And each of those eras begin with a Rose… sort of.

The show’s first companion went by Susan Foreman; however, her real first name is apparently Arkytior, which means Rose in Gallifreyan. This is established in the 1994 Doctor Who short story “Roses.” (No, it did not inspire Rose Tyler’s name. Davies got that from his TV drama Bob & Rose.) Is it totally canon? Not really, considering it hasn’t come up on the show yet. But it’s fun anyway. Now, Rose Noble is ushering in yet another chapter in Doctor Who’s story. 

Donna Noble’s Theme Rises

As Donna and Rose leave the Doctor at the Camden Market, we can hear Donna’s theme music in the background. Remember when companions each had their own theme songs? It was truly an iconic time in Doctor Who history. 

Allons-y!

It’s been a long time since we’ve heard that catchphrase. The Doctor says it to Donna’s husband Shaun Temple as they prepare to drive off towards the spaceship crash landing site. 

Who the Hell Is Nerys?

While in the car with Shaun, the Doctor says he’s a friend of Donna’s old frenemy Nerys. We met her during “The Runaway Bride” as the jealous friend who tried to make a move on Donna’s then-fiancé Lance. We never learn a lot about her, but Donna and Nerys remained friends despite Nerys being shady. She is in attendance at Donna’s wedding to Shaun, which we witness from afar. But apparently things have gone south with their relationship. Later in “The Star Beast,” Donna calls Nerys a viper who can’t keep her mouth shut. We never see her in this episode, but we get the feeling she’s still lurking in the grass nearby. 

Donna and That Lottery Money

Despite Donna having her memories wiped by the Doctor, she ultimately ended up with a great life. In “The End of Time Part 2,” the Doctor left the Noble family a huge lottery ticket and she married the love of her life. However, we discover that Donna gave away all of her money because she was under the veil of memory suppression. Therefore, the “Doctory” parts of her pushed her to want to help the world versus helping herself. We appreciate the goodwill but girl, that was millions of pounds. 

Additional Doctor Who Easter egg: Shaun mentions that the ticket was a “triple rollover,” which references what Donna notes about the ticket when she receives it.

UNIT’s First Scientific Advisor 

During his investigation of the “crash” (technically landing) site, the Doctor encounters Shirley Anne Bingham. She certainly recognizes this version of him, even though he cleverly recalls when he was wearing a bowtie and, later on, a woman. The most interesting part of this is the Doctor saying he was UNIT’s first scientific advisor. This is a reference to the early days of the Third Doctor era when got into trouble with the Time Lords. They disabled his TARDIS and left him stuck on Earth. He took a job with UNIT and begrudgingly became their scientific advisor. 

Shirley Anne Honors Shirley Coward

Speaking of the fantastic Shirley Anne, her name itself is a fun Doctor Who Easter egg. It’s a nod to Shirley Coward, a vision mixer on the show during its first lead actor transition. The term/concept of regeneration wasn’t used on the show quite yet, but that’s exactly what happened when William Hartnell passed the torch to Second Doctor actor Patrick Troughton. Shirley expertly laid shots of both actors on top of each other and created a distortion effect that made this transition seamless, eerie, and iconic.

Beep the Meep and the Wrarth Warriors

This episode’s monsters and big villain both come from ‘80s era Doctor Who comics. If you’d like to read up more on their history, check out this post. Basically, the show closely sticks to their origin story, honoring a part of Who that some fans didn’t know about until now. 

The Shadow Proclamation Is Still Alive and Well, We Guess

Fourteen is completely over the shenanigans between Beep and the Wrarth Warriors. So he brings them together in a dingy garage, invoking a few sections of the Shadow Proclamation to stop the ongoing violence. He particularly calls out section 15, which Rose Tyler clumsily (and incorrectly) used in “The Christmas Invasion.” She was trying to take on the role of the Doctor while Ten was recovering from regeneration, but her words did not scare the Sycorax. Gotta love a fun Doctor Who callback, right? This rule means that murder is not a rule of war. And what does Beep do shortly after? Murder. 

Binary. Binary. Binary. 

With Donna’s permission, the Doctor unravels the failsafe and Donna regains her memories. She begins to say “binary” repeatedly, which was what she previously said when the Time Lord knowledge began to overwhelm her brain and cause her to stutter. 

Rose Noble’s Workshed and Villain Creatures

We discover that the metacrisis split itself between Donna and her daughter Rose. It was housed within Rose’s DNA all along. This explains why Rose chose her name along with the specific types of furry toys she made. The teen’s workshop shed door resembles the door of the TARDIS. And each of her creatures loosely resemble monsters that Ten and Donna encountered in the past. We see a stuffed Dalek, Judoon, Adipose, Cyberman, and Ood. There is a furry, brown doglike creature that could represent Cybershade, which were animal-like versions of Cybermen. Interestingly, the latter creature is from a Doctor-only story, “The Next Doctor.” Rose is basically a walking Doctor Who Easter egg and we love her.

Doctor Who 60th Anniversary Special “Wild Blue Yonder” Easter Eggs and References

The Doctor Meets Isaac Newton… Again 

At the beginning of “Wild Blue Yonder,” the TARDIS materializes and spins into an apple tree. It just so happens to be the tree that Isaac Newton is sitting under. No, he does not have the title “Sir” quite yet. The Doctor and Donna humorously introduces him to the word gravity, which he mishears as “mavity.” This interaction changes the future and we hear Fourteen and Donna use the word mavity instead. 

But this isn’t the first time that the Doctor has encountered Mr. Newton. In “The Pirate Planet,” the Fourth Doctor claimed that he dropped apples on Newton’s head and later explained gravity to him. 

The TARDIS Plays Wild Blue Yonder 

As the TARDIS arrives on that ill-fated spaceship, it plays a song called “Wild Blue Yonder.” This inspiration for the episode’s title is the colloquial title for the US Air Force’s theme song. As Donna notes in the episode, the song is actually a war cry, which means something wicked is coming their way. It’s a strange choice for a spaceship shaped like a British police box but the TARDIS is blue. 

HADS Saves the TARDIS

The Fourteenth Doctor explains why the TARDIS made a quick exit with his sonic screwdriver. He references the ship’s defense mechanism, known as the Hostile Action Displacement System (HADS). It is not the first time the series has referred to this system. HADS has been around since the Second Doctor’s era, although it didn’t use that specific name. In “The Krotons” the TARDIS exterior was under attack, so it dematerialized and rematerialized in a different (but nearby) location to remain safe. 

The HADS comes into play in “The Cold War” when the Eleventh Doctor enables it so the TARDIS can leave safely. It is supposed to land in a good spot at the North Pole but it goes to the South Pole instead. The Twelfth Doctor story “The Magician’s Apprentice” includes HADS activating to fool the Daleks into thinking the TARDIS was destroyed. Twelve rematerializes the ship with his sleek sonic shades. Interestingly, he calls it the Hostile Action Dispersal System, which is pretty much the same thing. 

The Fourteenth Doctor deactivated HADS after apparently getting stuck in orbit for three years. But Donna’s coffee spill and the Doctor’s fix activated the system once again. It is both useful and a pain in the butt, basically.

Licking Random Things to Discover the Truth

The Doctor tastes some weird goo to discover what it could be. This is very similar to how the Tenth Doctor tasted the pool of liquid (that was actually) blood in “The Christmas Invasion.”

Venom and Mass

After being chased by the not-thing versions of themselves, the Doctor and Donna try to figure out what’s going on. When they begin talking about the entities impossible mass, Donna makes a reference to how her husband complained about Venom getting much bigger than his human counterpart. He would wonder where the extra mass was coming from, which is a legit question. Of course, this refers to Tom Hardy’s Venom films.

The Flux Events Are Bothering the Doctor

Russell T Davies previously said that he would not change events of the past despite setting up his new era. He stood on this in “Wild Blue Yonder,” by referencing the events of the Flux. (Ahh the destruction of half the universe.) The (not real) Donna said she saw what happened in the Doctor’s last few years. And this is all the very recent past. Fourteen gets visibly upset by all of this, even punching a wall and screaming in frustration. The Doctor often runs forward and doesn’t look back too much, so it is interesting to see this character reconciling with the past. It’s not clear how the Flux could factor into the Fourteenth Doctor’s last foray nor if it will affect Fifteen in any way.

Salt Blocks Demons and Evil Entities 

The Doctor wasn’t just biding his time and trying to be funny when he said salt blocks demons, vamps, and other entities. Salt has been used to ward off evil spirits and negativity in many different religious practices for thousands of years. The episode suggests that it is all talk but many people swear by it. 

We Meet Again, Wilf

After 15 years, we finally see the Doctor and Wilf come together again. Wilf never gave up hope that he (and maybe Donna) would see the Doctor again. Why was Wilf randomly at that market by himself? Who knows. But the world is in complete disarray and Wilf is now in the TARDIS. Sadly, this is Bernard Cribbins last time on the show. He died in 2022 at the age of 93.

Doctor Who 60th Anniversary Special “The Giggle” Easter Eggs and References

John Logie Baird and Stooky Bill 

The inclusion of John Logie Baird and the (very unsettling) Stooky Bill are more than just Doctor Who sci-fi shenanigans. Baird is a father of television and his real-life story with Stooky Bill is worth diving into. Check out our history post about the first-ever TV image. 

Towing the TARDIS 

The Doctor, Donna, and the TARDIS all get a lift to UNIT headquarters. This isn’t the first time we have seen the TARDIS towed via helicopter in the show’s history. In “The Day of the Doctor,” the Eleventh Doctor and Clara are inside the TARDIS when a helicopter picks it up and takes it to UNIT under Kate’s authority. 

Hello Again, Mel Bush

What a lovely appearance! After briefly seeing Mel in a former companions’ support group in Thirteen’s swan song, she’s back and working with UNIT. She reunites with the Doctor and they dig into her past, which might be confusing for those who aren’t familiar with her Classic era story. Don’t worry, this post about Mel Bush’s Doctor Who history will totally get you up to speed.

The Giggle and Bach

The giggle that everyone recognizes is from Bach’s Prelude in C Major, which is used in quite a few recognizable tunes we all know.  

The Return of the Toymaker

The return of the Toymaker wasn’t shocking at all. However, there are just enough references to the past that you’ll want to read up on him to understand the history between the Doctor and this manic antagonist. The Doctor even mentions to him that they can play across the cosmos and be “celestial” versus the Toymaker destroying Earth. 

The Archangel Network 

A huge crux of the Toymaker’s plan was the world being hyper-connected and online. Kate notes this while Shirley counters that their current connection system, KOSAT, is clean and is nothing like the older Archangel Network with things hiding in the signal. The Archangel Network was a series of satellites around Earth that the Master used to mind control with a signal that encouraged them to vote for Saxon. Of course, this took place during the Tenth Doctor’s era and led to the final storyline of Martha Jones traveling the Earth to save everyone. 

A Hall of Horrors 

The Toymaker sets up a game at his shop by turning one door into many doors. This is awfully reminiscent of “The God Complex,” where the Eleventh Doctor, Amy, and Rory end up at an ‘80s hotel where the corridors change often and each room contains something sinister or frightening. 

Villain Name Drop 

Once again, we take a trip down Ten/Donna memory lane when Donna name drops a few villains from the past. Ood, Davros, the Adipose, and Daleks all get a mention. Oh, and that great big bomb mentioned about the latter is a reference to the reality bomb that Davros built for the Daleks to use and eliminate all non-Dalek matter in the universe. This was a major event in “Journey’s End.” 

The Tragedy of Past Companions 

The Toymaker decides to air the Doctor’s dirty laundry to Donna, one companion at a time. He goes through the sad and oft tragic ending that many of his traveling friends met. There are references to Amy Pond being touched by a Weeping Angel and dying (“The Angels Take Manhattan”), Clara being killed by a bird (“Face the Raven”), and Bill being turned into a Cyberwoman (“World Enough and Time/ “The Doctor Falls”). Ouch! The Toymaker pulled the Doctor’s card for sure. There’s also another mention of the Flux, of course, as a cherry on top.  

Sidenote: This makes Martha Jones’ ending even better because she walked away without a mountain of trauma (or worse) happening to her.

Spice Up Your Life 

“The Giggle” goes full musical with the Toymaker’s deadly yet wildly entertaining performance at UNIT. He whisks himself around the room while the Spice Girls’ “Spice Up Your Life” plays. It’s almost like he’s trying to trap Gen X and Millennials on purpose… and it is working. 

All the Past Doctor Trauma and Loves

The Fifteenth Doctor mentions they haven’t stopped moving for thousands of years. He goes back through a lot of things, including the Doctor’s exile (from the Third Doctor era). There’s also the Key to Time, when the Fourth Doctor is tasked to find six segments to this key, and Logopolis, a planet where the Doctor regenerated into the Fifth Doctor.

The deaths of Adric and River Song are mentioned along with the death of Sarah Jane Smith, which reflects actress Elisabeth Sladen’s real-life demise in 2011. And yes, the Doctor mentions that he loved Sarah and Rose both, which might be a loose reference to “School Reunion” when those companions met, famously fought, and eventually found common ground. 

That’s not all though. There’s the Time War (Ninth Doctor), Pandorica (Eleventh Doctor),the Gods of Ragnarok (Seventh Doctor antagonist) and Mavic Chen (a villain from the First Doctor era) mentions, too. 

The Jukebox 

The Fifteenth Doctor’s console room is just like the Fourteenth Doctor’s room but it has a jukebox. This music device pops up a lot throughout Who history, from the one inside Clara’s TARDIS (disguised as a diner) to the one that Cassandra wheels out in “The End of Time.” 

We loved all the Doctor Who Easter eggs, references, and callbacks will come up in these specials. Happy 60th Anniversary to the greatest sci-fi series of all-time.

Originally published on November 25, 2023.

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The Toymaker came, danced, and nearly conquered Earth in “The Giggle.” The return of this Doctor Who villain, played by Neil Patrick Harris, wasn’t a surprise to anyone who follows the show on social media. Still, there was curiosity about how the Toymaker would factor into Fourteen and Donna’s last adventure (at least, we thought it was final). What did he want from the Doctor? Why was he causing chaos on Earth? Here’s what happened with the Toymaker in Doctor Who, including that wild gold tooth revelation. 

First, a brief bit of Doctor Who history about the relationship between the Doctor and the Toymaker. The two first met in the First Doctor’s 1966 serial “The Celestial Toymaker.” Until now, only stills, fragments, and a plot synopsis of the story exist. The BBC is currently working on an animated reconstruction, much like they have done for several other Second Doctor stories. In the story, the Toymaker forces the Doctor’s companions to play childish games with very specific rules and boundaries. If they lose, he traps them in a little universe called the Celestial Toyroom and makes them his forever playthings. The Doctor eventually gets the upper hand and thinks he destroyed the Toymaker’s universe.

The Toymaker in Doctor Who’s 60th Anniversary Special “The Giggle”

When Fourteen and Donna Noble went on their previous adventure, the Doctor cast salt at the edge of the universe. It was meant to ward off demons and such, but, instead, it allowed the Toymaker to leave his realm of existence and travel to Earth. The Doctor and Donna arrive back to reunite with her family, only to be met by Wilf, who declares that everyone is losing their minds. The streets are indeed flush with people yelling at each other and fighting. 

In “The Giggle,” we meet a man running a Soho toy shop in 1925 who sells someone a dummy named Stooky Bill. This opening bit, which ties into real-life television history, doesn’t let us know much about Doctor Who‘s the Toymaker. But we know he’s clearly not a good being. We get back to Fourteen, Donna, and Wilf in the streets. UNIT takes Wilf in for protection and thus ends his story.

There’s one very strange man in a suit and tophat dancing around and seemingly enjoying the chaos. He grabs the Doctor for a very brief dance before later staring at him menacingly and smiling. After some investigation (and a Mel Bush reunion!), Fourteen and Donna end up at that same toy shop. It is the location where the first TV image (and the giggle) came from that essentially brainwashed humanity. The Doctor and Donna arrive to meet this odd fellow who plays a game of catch with the former. Eventually, the Doctor recognizes the Toymaker, and the game begins. The Toymaker opens up a hall of pain for the Doctor, revealing secrets that the Doctor would never share with Donna. He also shows us far too many teeth, including a gold tooth where he claims he put the Master after he won a series of games against him.

They escape from him; however, the Toymaker shows up at UNIT for a third and final game. He blasts Fourteen with a Galvanic Beam in hopes of playing the game with a new version of the Doctor. But he didn’t bet on a bi-generation happening and having to battle two Doctors in catch. The Doctors got the best of him in the “best of three,” and the Doctor banished him out of existence. The Toymaker folds in on himself and threatens that his legion is coming. Interestingly, the Toymaker leaves something behind that sets up a mystery for the Fifteenth Doctor’s first season of Doctor Who. 

What Is in the Toymaker’s Gold Tooth, and Who Picked It Up? 

As Donna and the Doctors leave the platform, we hear a resounding giggle. A woman’s hand reaches down to pick up a gold tooth left behind by the Toymaker. We know that a major Doctor Who villain, the Master, is in that tooth because the Toymaker confirmed it in dialogue earlier in the episode. The last time we saw the Master was in “The Power of the Doctor.” In that episode, the Master seems to die on a burning planet as Yaz carries a wounded (and ready to regenerate) Thirteenth Doctor into the TARDIS. It is truly anyone’s guess how the Toymaker got the Master into a tooth. Time is a winding road in this universe, after all, and the Toymaker indicated that he’d played around with the Doctor’s past. 

The hand picking up the gold tooth in this Doctor Who episode is more of a mystery. Some fans are speculating that it is the Rani picking up the tooth, but there’s no evidence to support that at this time. It isn’t impossible, but so far, we have no confirmation that Rani is returning to Doctor Who. Others think that the hand belongs to Kate Stewart, who was wearing red nail polish in this episode. But that doesn’t check out either because we saw Kate walk inside of UNIT before Donna, Fourteen, and Fifteen went in. She never came back out, so how did she get to the end of the platform?

The Doctor Who character who picked up the Toymaker’s gold tooth must be someone who can pop in and out quickly without being seen. It could be Jinx Monsoon’s not-yet-publicly-named character who will be a villain in the Fifteen Doctor era. We will have to wait and see who is a part of the Toymaker’s mysterious legion that is coming this way. 

Will We See the Toymaker Again on Doctor Who?

Toymaker could appear in the future. Doctor Who villains have a way of never staying dead. Neil Patrick Harris could reprise the role alongside whatever army he is sending and battle the Fifteenth Doctor again.

The post What Happened to the Toymaker in DOCTOR WHO? His Ending Sets up a Major Mystery appeared first on Nerdist.

It’s been a long time since Donna Noble ran (and verbally sparred) with the Doctor. She’s back and honestly better than ever in the three specials celebrating Doctor Who’s 60th anniversary. There were a lot of questions about how the Doctor and Donna would link up again considering Donna’s mind would “burn” if she remembered her TARDIS life. We got answers to that question and much more by the end of “The Giggle”. Let’s get into what happens to Donna Noble (not Temple) in Doctor Who’s anniversary specials.

How Does Donna Noble Reunite with the Doctor?

Donna and the Doctor’s reunion is actually rather chill. Fourteen arrives at a market and briefly wanders around before he sees someone carrying far too many boxes. He runs over to help and takes a couple of boxes only to reveal Donna’s face. Humorously, the Doctor stacks the boxes up and attempts to run away but Donna pulls him back in. To be fair, it was a rude move on the skinny man’s part. She says the boxes belong to Rose, which initially freaks the Doctor out until he discovers Rose is her daughter. 

As if on cue, a spaceship lands and everyone sees it except a briefly distracted Donna. That lady truly misses every damn thing. She doesn’t have a clue who the Doctor is at this point and no reason to be suspicious of his presence. 

Does the DoctorDonna Show Up in Doctor Who’s First Anniversary Special? 

The issue of Donna Noble having to forget the Doctor and all her time travels has been a sore point for fans for many years. The Doctor may have thought he was doing what was best for Donna but he never gave her a choice. In “The Star Beast,” Donna’s mom Sylvia and Fourteen try to keep Donna from remembering anything but it is to no avail. As the Doctor keeps showing up, Donna becomes more suspicious about why he cares for her and her family. She finds herself doing things automatically, like holding his sonic screwdriver while he mans a protective shield. It all comes to a head at the steel factory when Donna makes the choice to go help the Doctor versus running towards safety with her family. 

We are thankful she made that choice. The Doctor needed the DoctorDonna’s help with shutting down Beep the Meep’s operation. He’s resistant but Donna makes the choice to allow him to unlock her memories and resurrect the DoctorDonna. The energy is so great that it manifests in her as well as her daughter Rose, which saves her life. The trio come together to thwart Beep’s plan to use London as a fuel source. But the Doctor knows that Donna and Rose cannot keep such vast knowledge in their heads. This time, Donna and Rose call him out, saying that they know what a male-presenting Time Lord could never understand: that you can simply choose to release that power. This gives Donna the agency that she didn’t get years ago. 

What’s Up with Donna Noble’s Daughter Rose and Her Husband Shaun Temple?

In the final episodes of the Tenth Doctor’s era, we “met” her husband Shaun Temple. The Doctor never interacts with him but he does watch Donna with Shaun, including on their wedding day, from afar. Fifteen years later, Shaun Temple is still married to Donna, who hilariously didn’t take his last name because Noble Temple sounded weird together. Shaun and Donna have a daughter named Rose. At first, it seems this name is from Donna’s subconscious that still remembers Rose Tyler. And this is sort of true, except the metacrisis was passed down to Rose. Donna’s daughter is trans and chose the name Rose to better fit her identity! But she’s also a Noble, which Shaun doesn’t mind because he loves his girls. So sweet.

Rose also unknowingly made stuffed animals in the likeness of villains her mom faced with the Doctor in a shed that mimics the TARDIS. And, because she doesn’t fit neatly into a binary, she was able to embrace that Time Lord energy and make a choice to let it go. Rose once felt strange and lost but now she’s fully aware of who she is as a person. Love to see it.

Sooo, Is Donna Noble Still Rich From Her Winning Lottery Ticket?

Donna Noble is rich in love and family support but not with money. This is wild considering the Doctor gave her a winning lottery ticket so she would have a good life. But Donna, still heavily influenced by the Doctor unbeknownst to her, gave the money away to help others in the world. Outside of slick remarks by Sylvia, no one seems to blame her for her choice. The Doctor may not give her another lottery ticket but he is trying to get her a job with UNIT. Her interview will have to wait because, well, she spilled coffee on the TARDIS console and they ended up on an unintentional adventure. Good times. 

Does Donna Noble Die in the Doctor Who Anniversary Specials?

No, Donna doesn’t die in the anniversary specials. She does end up on a spaceship at the edge of the universe in “Wild Blue Yonder” and faces her doppelgänger self. And the Toymaker only toys with her a bit in “The Giggle,” instead focusing his malice on the rest of the world and the Doctor. In the end, the Fourteenth Doctor’s bi-generation means that he is able to park his TARDIS and live with Donna and her family. They come together along with Mel Bush for a lovely dinner and story time. Yes, the entire Noble family makes it out alive, thankfully. He’s happier than he’s ever been while the Fifteenth Doctor, now free from the past’s trauma, can travel the stars with fresh joy.

Will Donna Noble Work for UNIT?

The final scene doesn’t talk about UNIT but Donna did get offered a job making a lot of money with five weeks of paid leave. Right now, she may be taking time to simply spend with her family and the Fourteenth Doctor as he continues to heal. But we are certain that she will end up at UNIT at some point. There have been many rumors about Doctor Who branching off with a UNIT spinoff TV series, so we might see Donna Noble and the Fourteenth Doctor again in the future. If not, there’s always room for Big Finish audio adventures.

Originally published on November 25, 2023.

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Doctor Who’s final 60th Anniversary special set the show on a new course in more ways than one. Fans went into it knowing that Ncuti Gatwa would make his debut as the Fifteenth Doctor. However, everyone assumed that it would happen the way that all the other regenerations have gone since the show’s 2005 revival. The Doctor gets a fatal injury, starts glowing with regeneration energy, and then we get someone else’s face and body in their (usually tattered) clothing. Well, the regeneration from the Fourteenth Doctor to the Fifteenth Doctor changed the rules of Doctor Who regeneration with a new concept called bi-generation. What does that mean? And what happened to the Fourteenth Doctor in Doctor Who? It’s time to break it down. 

The Fourteenth Doctor and His Groundbreaking Bi-generation

Boom, we are at UNIT with Fourteen, former companion Mel Bush, Donna, Kate, Shirley, and a few soldiers. The Toymaker (wow, did Neil Patrick Harris crush this role!) takes the Galvanic Beam and lasers the Doctor right through the chest. He wants to play another game and beat yet another Doctor. Mel and Donna, who both understand the concept of regeneration, are there to hold Fourteen’s hand as he begins his transition. But things get weird when he asks them to pull his arms in opposite directions. Fourteen (and the entire viewing audience) is very confused as they pull and reveal Gatwa’s Fifteenth Doctor. Both of the Doctors seem delighted to see each other.

Now, this certainly isn’t the first time that we have seen two or more Doctors together, but that’s usually because of spaghetti timeline foolery. Kate questions what happened to the Doctor. Fifteen says it is “bi-generation,” which is supposed to be a myth… until now. The Doctor literally soothes and comforts his own pain, knowing that the Tennant-version of him is in need of rest. And that’s why the Doctor took the Tenth Doctor’s face once again. He needed to find Donna and come home with her. 

This strange occurrence, combined with the “prize” from winning against the Toymaker, also causes another version of the TARDIS to form. Fourteen takes one with him but chooses to stay on Earth and live the adventure of a normal life with Donna, her family, and Mel Bush. It’s quite lovely for the lonely god who kept running for thousands of years to have a family, including his niece, Rose Noble. So, yet, another Tenth Doctor companion gets a version of him to live with. (I guess they figured Martha is okay in the world and fighting aliens with her husband, Mickey.) Fifteen takes his TARDIS and heads towards the stars for more time and space adventures. 

What Is Bi-generation in Doctor Who and How Does It Work?

According to showrunner Russell T Davies, here’s what this new regeneration concept means on Doctor Who. “Bi-generation, we discover, is an ancient myth of the Time Lords where instead of a new body taking over from the old body, the new body separates from the old body, and both are left alive,” Davies reveals on Doctor Who Unleashed. He goes even further to say that the concept of bi-generation has created the “Doctorverse,” where every Doctor is now in separate existence somewhere in the universe. That part is not expressly stated in the episode, so we will see if Davies actually builds the Doctorverse concept into the show’s future.

This is certainly controversial, but it also could be an easy way to explain aging when previous Doctors return. So they are still essentially the same person as we have always known them to be, but the Doctor can now splinter himself. We assume that bi-generation will show up in Doctor Who‘s future when it’s time to say goodbye to Ncuti Gatwa. 

It is possible that the Fourteenth Doctor (and others) are not able to regenerate any longer. We can only assume they have two hearts, unlike the metacrisis Doctor, who only has one. So they will presumably grow old in real-time and eventually die. There are many questions that bi-generation opens up, indeed. But rest assured, Ncuti Gatwa’s Doctor is just as real as every Doctor before him, and we cannot wait to see how the Doctor makes good on this fresh start. With the pain of the past in the rearview, almost anything is possible for the future.

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The final episode of Doctor Who’s 60th anniversary specials, “The Giggle,” brings Neil Patrick Harris’ Toymaker into the mix. This character is new to many fans but not actually new to the Whoniverse. He previously appeared in the 1966 serial, aptly titled “The Celestial Toymaker.” It was mostly lost to time until recent efforts to animate it. In it, the Toymaker puts the Doctor’s companions through a series of deadly games that they must win, lest they want to be playthings forever. Of course, the Doctor gets the upper hand and wins the game while destroying the Toymaker’s world. But we now know that the Toymaker still exists and really loves the Spice Girls. While the Toymaker is fictional, the episode’s story about a dummy named Stooky Bill, the first TV image, and John Logie Baird are real.

How Does Doctor Who Tie the Toymaker Into Stooky Bill, John Logie Baird, and the First TV Image Ever?

In “The Giggle,” the Toymaker meets a man who comes in to purchase a doll in 1925. In their (very unsettling) conversation, the man reveals that he’s buying the dummy for his employer, John Logie Baird. The Toymaker recognizes Baird as a great inventor. The man reveals that his boss is creating some new thing called television. Baird says that they are about to make history with the doll. Apparently, the lights used to transmit the first TV image ever are far too hot for a human to stand, hence the dummy.

Stooky’s hair catches fire and his mouth drops open. This happens just as Baird claims he needs a moving image to prove that TV works. We hear the doll’s songlike chuckle and that sets up the later revelation that the Toymaker used Stooky’s image to control the world. (In case you are wondering how you know that tune, it is from Bach’s prelude in C major and used as a basis for many other songs.) He buried the image and every type of screen to sneak into humanity’s head. The Toymaker certainly plays the long game, right? Stooky’s puppet family later try to take Donna out but it is to no avail. It’s the classic Doctor Who way of marrying sci-fiction weirdness to real-life history by bringing in John Logie Baird, Stooky Bill, and that creepy first TV image. 

The Real Life History of John Logie Baird, Stooky Bill, and the First TV Image

Let’s start our history lesson with John Logie Baird. He was a Scottish inventor and electrical engineer who did in fact create the world’s first live TV system. He began his experiments after moving to England in 1923, putting together a cacophony of items to make the first TV set. We’re talking a hatbox, scissors, darning needles, bicycles lenses, sealing wax, and eventually the Nipkow disc, among other things. He went through his share of troubles. Some of them include electrocuting himself and allegedly being deemed a “lunatic” by a Daily Express editor. 

But Baird had the last, ahem, giggle on October 2, 1925 when he successfully transmitted the first TV image ever. It was a grayscale image of a dummy named Stooky Bill. (The name is sometimes spelled as Stookie Bill.) It’s not clear where he got the doll from but it made sense to use one versus a human. Stooky Bill’s brightly painted face had a higher contrast that would show up better on the screen. And if something went wrong, a person wouldn’t get hurt or worse.

Unlike the episode, Stooky didn’t do anything that Baird didn’t make him do nor did he catch fire. The following year, Baird took his system to the public and later invented the first color TV system. He is indeed the father of modern television, setting up the Baird Television Development Company Ltd. that transmitted some of the first BBC programs. 

As far as Stooky Bill, the Bradford National Science and Media Museum featured him in a 2023 Halloween exhibit. We can assume that this doll head is the original one used by Baird for his experiments. The transmission image that Doctor Who’s episode uses of Stooky Bill is likely similar to what John Logie Baird saw decades ago in that first TV image.  

Doctor Who weaving the Toymaker’s story into real-life history once again proves just how clever, and important, this series is to TV.

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The final David Tennant special of Doctor Who saw the proper return of one of the Doctor’s former companions. Though she had appeared in “The Power of the Doctor” as part of the companion support group, Melanie “Mel” Bush (played by stage star Bonnie Langford) had a major role in “The Giggle.” We knew she was returning thanks to a press release earlier in the year. But if you don’t know who Mel is, or what adventures she had with the Doctor, read below!

Mel’s Strange First Doctor Who Story

If one can quantify such things, Melanie Bush’s entry to the TARDIS is the weirdest in all of Doctor Who. To start with, we need to explain the external situation. The BBC had canceled Doctor Who (or decided to “give it a rest” depending on which side you believe) after season 22, Colin Baker’s first as the Sixth Doctor. During the fallow time, lots of very cringe “Save Doctor Who” campaigns commenced, including a “We Are the World”-esque charity single called “Doctor in Distress.”

At any rate, the BBC relented and brought the series back, bringing the episodes back to 25 minutes rather than the previous season’s 45. That season had the overall title of “Trial of a Time Lord” which, reflective of the real-life “trial” of the series, was a courtroom drama. The four individual serials took the form of “evidence” presented at the Doctor’s trial. It’s all very silly and needlessly complicated. At the end of the second of these serials, the Doctor learns in the courtroom that his companion Peri Brown (Nicola Bryant) had died. (Spoilers: she got better.)

In the following serial, the evidence presented is an event in the Doctor’s future, where Mel Bush, a computer programmer from the 20th century, was already the Doctor’s companion. Her first appearance doesn’t have any of the hallmarks of companions’ first stories. She doesn’t meet the Doctor, doesn’t get to say “it’s bigger on the inside,” any of it. She just is.

What Was Mel on Doctor Who Like?

While fans never got to “meet” Mel properly, they very quickly got to learn about her through her personality. Her main trait? Probably now we’d call it “toxic positivity.” Her first scene is forcing the Sixth Doctor to work out on a stationary bicycle and drink carrot juice. Given Langford’s musical theatre roots, Mel was very exuberant and pantomimically cheerful. She could also scream roughly seven octaves higher than anyone previously.

After “Trial of a Time Lord” finished, the BBC (perhaps looking to save some amount of face) required that, for the show to continue, the Doctor would need to change. So after only two full seasons, Colin Baker was out. Sylvester McCoy came in for season 24, following a very hackneyed regeneration scene in which Colin didn’t even appear. Mel, however, stuck around and kept up her cheerful screams until the end of that season.

How Did Mel Leave the TARDIS Crew?

The final serial of season 24 was “Dragonfire,” which incidentally also introduced Ace (Sophie Aldred) who would take Mel’s place as companion. In that story (which according to yours truly isn’t very good), the Doctor and Mel meet up with a ruffian space mercenary named Sabalom Glitz (Tony Selby) who had appeared in “Trial.” At the culmination of that story, for seemingly no reason other than Langford was done, Mel decides to go off with Glitz to keep him in line on his spacefaring adventures. I dunno, man. Weird pairing, if you ask me.

How Is Mel Back on Doctor Who?

Whatever spinoff material may exist out there about what happened to Mel after her adventures with the Doctor ended, “The Giggle” writer, showrunner Russell T Davies, offers a new official story. The Fourteenth Doctor asks what she’s been doing and she says she traveled with Glitz until he passed away at the age of 101. He died falling over a whiskey bottle, which is very Glitz. After his Viking-style funeral, she came back to Earth. However, given her family were all gone, she didn’t know what to do. Kate Stewart offered her a job at UNIT, and the rest is there in the show.

Given Kate also offered a job to Donna Noble, it seems pretty likely Mel is but the first of the Doctor’s former companions to join UNIT, which points to the all-but-officially-announced spinoff series featuring a number of familiar faces.

Kyle Anderson is the Senior Editor for Nerdist. He hosts the weekly pop culture deep-dive podcast Laser Focus. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Instagram and Letterboxd.

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We’re about to reach the end of David Tennant’s brief but welcome return run as the Fourteenth Doctor. So, it’s time to start anticipating which villains the new Doctor, Ncuti Gatwa, will be facing in his upcoming run. Returning showrunner Russell T. Davies has already confirmed that the Fifteenth Doctor won’t be facing off against Daleks or Cybermen. At least not in his first season, anyway. Davies says both of the Doctor’s classic enemies need a “good pause.” As a long-time Whovian, I’d probably add the Master to that pause list as well, as excited as I’d be to see either Michelle Gomez or Sacha Dhawan, or, bless my hearts, both come back. 

Ncuti’s debut season will introduce new enemies. I’m always stoked for new and interesting villains. However, there are Doctor Who villains, fiends, foes, and frenemies from the show’s past and other mediums who can make a long-awaited return or a first-time debut onscreen. “The Star Beast” did excellent work of adapting a classic Doctor Who comic story and the Celestial Toymaker is coming back for the first time in decades in the final anniversary special, so digging into the past seems like a good move. Here are a few baddies we’d love to see face off against Ncuti Gatwa’s Doctor in the near future.

The Rutans

One of the major bits of Doctor Who lore focuses on the Sontarans, a stout race of alien clones at constant war with their sworn enemies, the Rutans. We’ve seen the Sontarans make frequent returns to Doctor Who since their first appearance in 1973’s “The Time Warrior.” But the only time we’d ever seen a Rutan on TV was in 1977’s “The Horror of Fang Rock.” The Sontarans might not like to hear me say this, but it’s time for some more Rutans!

The Aggedor of Peladon

The Third Doctor serial “The Monster of Peladon” (1974) is one of the rare times we see the Doctor return to a planet to discover how its culture is progressing. (It takes place 50 years (in the series time, not ours) after the 1972 story “The Curse of Peladon.”) While the Aggedor wasn’t ultimately an antagonist, its role in the superstitions and reverence to the culture of Peladon would make a fun story. The show can revisit in perhaps another generation or two after we last saw them onscreen.

The Selachians

The Selachians are a frequent Big Finish audio antagonist. They are alien sharks who have been awkwardly shoved into big bulky battle-mech suits. They can roam outside the ocean and conquer the universe. I don’t know what else I have to say to convince you this would make an amazing monster to see on TV? You can call the episode “Shark Week.” Please make this Doctor Who villain come to life.

The Ravenous

We see a lot of the Doctor protecting others from their enemies, and we see the Master toy with the Doctor. But we rarely get a monster that exists as a direct threat to the Doctor. The Ravenous are Big Finish monsters and a total trigger warning for those with clown phobias. These killers are from a world inside the time vortex devour the regeneration energy of Time Lords. Given how few Time Lords are left in the universe after the Time War, the Ravenous hunting down Ncuti’s Doctor to feed on his energy could be a delightfully intense story.

Nobody No-One

Look, I like when Doctor Who gets weird. And you can’t get much weirder than this Big Finish foe who comes from an alternate universe where Word Lords exist instead of Time Lords. A being who travels in a CORDIS (Conveyance of Repeating Dialogue in Space-Time) and can manifest the spoken word into great power for himself is wild. Nobody No-One would make a great TV antagonist in this era of grand CGI budgets, and an excellent foe for a character whose primary trait is running his mouth. 

Gangers

One of the biggest themes of Doctor Who is having empathy and understanding the plight of others. But a lot of the villains we run into are fairly black and white as far as being “bad.” The Gangers, introduced in the Eleventh Doctor two-parter “The Rebel Flesh/The Almost People,” were synthetic avatars of humans created to do dangerous tasks. They gained sentience and then resisted the painful deaths they were often subjected to when seen as disposable.

When the Doctor left them, Gangers were starting to push for rights in society, but the episode did reveal that the technology for making them still existed centuries later in the future. Revisiting the Gangers at a later time when their ongoing fight for autonomy is still a struggle would be a great opportunity to show another antagonist with a morality that has to be addressed.

Raxacoricofallapatorians

This one is a stretch, but hear me out. The Slitheen, a family of criminals from the planet Raxacoricofallapatorious (good luck, spell check!), appeared in three episodes of Christopher Eccleston’s first and only season in 2005. They were also in the spin-off series The Sarah Jane Adventures. They’re also one of the most quickly mocked aliens in Doctor Who, with good reason. They’re a fart joke… and not a particularly good one.

But they’re also a weird relic of the last time the show was brand new again and struggling to find its voice, tone, and footing. And when Davies brought one back for “Boom Town” towards the end of that season, he still managed to do it in a way that made even these cringey characters interesting and layered. I would love to see him tackle this alien again with his contemporary sensibilities. Perhaps he can take this past punchline and turn it into something amazing.

Other Time Lords

The Master and the Doctor are fun and all, but there are a whole host of antagonistic Time Lords from Doctor Who’s history that could make a welcome appearance. While they’ve shown up in comics and audio dramas, sometimes the continuity for them gets murky and could serve to be solidified a bit more by the TV show. The First and Second Doctor’s time lord antagonists the Monk and the War Chief would be a welcome sight, as well as The Rani who vexed the Sixth and Seventh. 

Big Finish audios feature an interesting take on a Time Lord antagonist with the Renegade, also known as “The Eleven.” This character suffers from a regenerative dissonance. This means all of their previous regenerations still exist as separate, active identities within their mind. Basically, imagine a multi-Doctor episode played by one actor.

And let’s not forget Rassilon himself, who has appeared twice since 2005 played by Timothy Dalton and Donald Sumpter. Even if Gallifrey is still a smoldering ruin, Sumpter’s Rassilon was exiled by the Doctor and could still be out roaming the universe. And maybe he is still a bit annoyed by it all.

There are lots of favorite monsters from the 60 years of this show that would be a welcome sight, will we see any of them, or will a new cadre of baddies make us hide behind the couch? Only time will tell.

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Doctor Who’s new era is giving us a lot of awesome changes. We are getting yet another clean slate with Ncuti Gatwa’s Fifteenth Doctor and Millie Gibson’s Ruby Sunday, a new companion. And, of course, there’s a new (but not new!) showrunner taking the reins for this next chapter. Fans are already loving Russell T Davies’ return as the leader of this classic sci-fi series. Future episodes will also be available on Disney+ for US fans to enjoy. With all of these changes, it is not surprising that Doctor Who is delivering a new opening title sequence as well as a fresh upgrade to the interior of the TARDIS.

The first of three Doctor Who 60th-anniversary specials revealed these fun updates to the TARDIS and more. First, let’s talk about that new Doctor Who opening sequence. The time vortex looks like a colorful and daring realm of its own as the TARDIS sweeps through it in dramatic fashion. We hear the familiar theme song with yet another twist, thanks to the genius of composer Murray Gold. It’s a vibrant homage to opening title sequences from Doctor Who’s past, indeed. 

If this wasn’t enough to make you squee with delight, then surely you jumped for joy when the Fourteenth Doctor and Donna entered the TARDIS. A new Doctor typically results in a new TARDIS interior on Doctor Who, and this one doesn’t disappoint. It still has the tenets of a typical console room, complete with lots of round lights. At first, it seemed a bit too bright and lacking excitement. But, after watching David Tennant run around its ramps like a kid on Christmas, we got to see this TARDIS interior come to life with some beautiful colors. It looks like a proper spaceship with its otherworldly aura. Check out all the photos of the upgrade below.

Click To View Gallery

It remains to be seen if Ncuti’s Doctor will keep this new TARDIS interior or not. I’d personally love for this design to stick around for more than three episodes. But perhaps the creative minds behind Doctor Who have something even more splendid in store for Fifteen’s TARDIS. It does seem likely that Doctor Who will keep the new opening sequence for a while. There could be a slight variation in the theme song to differentiate between Doctors, but outside of that change, this title sequence is probably tied to this new “Bad Wolf” era. Doctor Who is back on TV, and we appreciate all of its wonderful gifts. 

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Doctor Who is celebrating 60 years of time and space adventures in style with a slate of anniversary specials with David Tennant’s Fourteenth Doctor and Donna Noble. The pair reunited in “The Star Beast,” as the Doctor went up against a very furry antagonist being chased by scary looking bug-like creatures. The adorable yet angry Beep the Meep and the Wrarth Warriors are brand new to many fans of the TV show. However, these characters are far from new to the overall Doctor Who universe. Here’s what you should know about the Big Finish and Doctor Who comics history of Beep the Meep and the Wrarth Warriors and how they appear in “The Star Beast.” 

The Doctor Who Comics and Big Finish Audios History of Beep the Meep and the Wrarth Warriors

Beep the Meep made his debut in the black-and-white comic story Doctor Who and the Star Beast (1980), written by Pat Mills and John Wagner with illustrations by Dave Gibbons. In the comics, Beep the Meep is big, furry, and white, much like the character appears in the TV show. Beep is the leader of the Meeps, a peaceful race who lived joyfully until their planet orbited near a Black Sun. The rays mutated them, making them an angry collective hellbent on conquering other planets. The Meeps were stopped by the Wrarth Warriors, a group of genetically engineered law enforcers with red eyes and a detachable claw for their left arm. The Star Council designed them specifically to deal with the Meeps, which they mostly succeeded at. However, Beep managed to escape death.

Beep’s ship crash landed into Earth, specifically the city of Blackcastle. The Meep leader put on a sweet front and befriended two kids named Sharon and Fudge. The innocent duo gave Beep shelter and the Fourth Doctor soon came along to help the fuzzy creature out. However, Beep the Meep’s true nature came to light. The Doctor teamed up with the Wrarth Warriors to defeat him. Following this story, Sharon became the Fourth Doctor’s next comic companion. 

Beep the Meep later made a brief cameo in Doctor Who Magazine #173’s Party Animals in 1991. This time, he appeared at a party that the Seventh Doctor and Ace attended. Here, Beep was colorized as a blue creature with yellow eyes. But we don’t see more action from him until 1996’s The Star Beast II. In that story, he got out on parole and wanted sadistic revenge. Once again, the Fourth Doctor got the upper hand, using black star energy to trap Beep inside For the Love of Lassie, a kids’ movie.

The most hilarious Beep the Meep comic appearance is Doctor Who Magazine #283’s TV Action! (1999). Beep tried to take over BBC’s TV hub to turn everyone in the UK evil, until the actor Tom Baker distracted him from his evil plan. You see, Beep the Meep thought Tom Baker was the Fourth Doctor (can’t imagine why…) and focused on destroying his longtime nemesis. The Eighth Doctor and Izzy came together to defeat Beep. 

Beep the Meep made the leap to audio stories with Big Finish’s The Ratings War, which was a CD that came with Doctor Who Magazine #313 (2002). Toby Longworth gave Beep the Meep a voice as the character faced the Sixth Doctor. Again, Beep tried to use TV to control the masses but he did not succeed. Once again, Beep ended up back in the hands of the Wrarth Warriors. In March 2019, Beep the Meep was in a Big Finish audio adaptation of Doctor Who and the Star Beast, with Bethan Dixon Bate providing the leader’s voice.

For the most part, the Wrarth Warriors only made comic and audio appearances to stop Beep the Meep. However, the Wrarth Warriors do briefly face the Slitheen family in the Russell T Davies’ story “Raxacoricofallapatorius,” which was in the book Monsters and Villains. In this adventure, they are still star police who deal with the Slitheen family’s illegal deeds. 

Beep the Meep and the Wrarth Warriors in Doctor Who’s 60th Anniversary Special Episode “The Star Beast” 

In the episode, Rose Noble, the Doctor, and pretty much everyone else in London except Donna Noble see a spaceship that appears to crash land in London. The ship lands in a steelworks mill; however, a separate vessel ends up near the Noble family home. Rose walks in an alleyway and runs into Beep the Meep (voiced by Miriam Margolyes). Who can resist a furry white creature with big brown eyes?! Beep is undeniably cute and Rose immediately tries to befriend this new alien creature. Meanwhile, large bug-like creatures are dead set on hunting him down.

The Doctor arrives at the Noble home, with Donna’s mum Sylvia trying to prevent Donna from remembering her TARDIS travels. Beep the Meep tells them that the bug creatures, known as Wrarth Warriors, cultivated Meepkind for their fur until the galaxy said that was no longer acceptable. So the Wrarth Warriors slaughtered them and said that they will hunt down Beep. We also learn Beep has two hearts like the Doctor. 

Things predictably go awry when the Wrarth Warriors and UNIT soldiers, who are under a mind spell of sorts, get into battle. They destroy poor Donna’s home as the Doctor works to get them and Beep the Meep out alive. The Doctor soon realizes the Wrarth Warriors are perhaps not the villains after all. He brings Donna and her family along with Beep to an abandoned garage. Fourteen then summons the two main Wrarth Warriors via teleportation. 

One warrior gives them the real story. He says the Meeps’ planet once basked in the light of the living sun. One day the sun went mad and became psychedelic, its radiation mutating all of Meep-kind into cruel beasts who live for conquest. Basically they all went mad and they can transfer this psychosis through their eyes. The Meep army captured the Galactic Council, beheaded them, and ate them. So, the Wrarth Warriors were summoned to stop them. They eliminated majority of Meepkind and now Beep the Meep, the cruelest of them all and the leader, is the only one left. Beep finally reveals his true nature and kills the two Wrarth Warrior leaders. This story largely lines up with the comic origins for Beep and the Wrarth Warriors. 

Beep the Meep’s ship did not crash at all. He purposely landed on Earth to use its dagger drive to gain energy by stabbing into the ground and burning everything within a five-mile radius for fuel. Yep, that means Beep the Meep would destroy the entirety of London to give his ship some more juice. Of course, the Doctor and the DoctorDonna (!!!) come together once again to save the day. They work together in the engine control room to disable the dagger drive system and render his ship useless.

The Doctor ejects Beep out of the capsule and into the custody of the Wrarth Warriors. Beep the Meep gets 10,000 years in prison but, before he goes, he says he will tell “the Boss.” We can assume this is the Celestial Toymaker, whom the Doctor and Donna will face in the upcoming specials. For more about him, check out our explainer about his Doctor Who history. 

It’s unclear if we will see Beep the Meep or the Wrarth Warriors in the next two Doctor Who anniversary specials. We doubt it considering the Toymaker is on the way. But it was fun to see deep-cut Doctor Who comic characters come to life to celebrate the show’s enduring legacy.

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Doctor Who fans are ready to see David Tennant return as the Fourteenth Doctor (seriously, what is going on here?!) alongside the beloved Donna Noble in the 60th anniversary specials. But there’s even more Doctor Who excitement with Ncuti Gatwa taking over as the Fifteenth Doctor in his first season. While many of us will think of it as season 14, the show is officially going into a new era. So it will be season one once again. Gatwa will make his debut when Fourteen regenerates at the end of the final anniversary special before going off on his own adventures. We already know that Ncuti Gatwa’s Fifteenth Doctor will travel with Millie Gibson’s Ruby Sunday. But there are some guest stars that have fans hype for the next chapter of Doctor Who. 

It is not unusual for more than one Doctor to link up. Time-traveling is strange business, after all. And it seems that the latest iteration of The Doctor will meet the original in some way. In his GQ Man of the Year acceptance speech, Gatwa revealed that the Fifteenth Doctor will share a scene with the First Doctor. He doesn’t give any more specifics but we can assume this will happen sometime in the first season. While William Hartnell died nearly 50 years ago, David Bradley has been playing recent portrayals of the First Doctor. However, it seems Doctor Who will use footage of Hartnell alongside Gatwa’s Doctor. Interesting.

Lenny Rush is also joining the cast as Morris. Interestingly, Russell T Davies refers to him as a member of the TARDIS team, a phrase typically associated with companions. It is not fully clear if he will travel with the Doctor for more than an adventure or two versus being a full-time companion like Ruby Sunday. Perhaps he will be more like a Mickey Smith who hangs around for a bit and then decides to do other things. Either way, we are excited to see him!

Doctor Who season 1 (still gotta get used to that) will also bring Bonnie Langford back as Mel Bush. She traveled with the Sixth and Seventh Doctors before returning many years later, making a brief cameo in the Thirteenth Doctor’s final episode. Now, she will come back for a full on adventure.

There are quite a few mysterious new faces to this franchise. Drag Race’s Jinkx Monsoon will portray the Doctor’s “most powerful enemy yet.”

After taking one look at this character, we would let them take complete control of our lives. The statement about Monsoon’s character being a major baddie is very similar to what showrunner Russell T Davies said about Neil Patrick Harris’ character set to appear in the anniversary specials. Could this be the same character after a regeneration? Maybe. Or perhaps it is the Rani coming back to play again. Who knows.

Jonathan Groff will also appear in the upcoming season of Doctor Who. Most of us Americans know him best as Hamilton’s King George III. He certainly can give us a ton of humorous drama. The details about his character are unknown at this time outside of him playing a “key role” in the narrative. But we do know that it will be a historical episode based on this first look photo.

Anita Dobson and Michelle Greenridge will also appear this season as well in undisclosed roles along with Aneurin Barnard as a character named Roger ap Gwilliam. Indira Varma, who made a previous guest appearance in Torchwood, is starring as the Duchess.

We don’t know a lot about those new named characters yet, but the answers will eventually come. It seems this season of Doctor Who is going to be a campy good time based off of these guest stars. 

Another familiar face that we see again is Jemma Redgrave’s Kate Stewart. The leader of the UK’s UNIT branch and daughter of the Brigadier promises some more fun with the Fifteenth Doctor. We cannot wait to get more information about Doctor Who’s fourteenth season. Until then we will patiently wait for a trailer to really see Fifteen and Ruby in action.

Originally published on May 8, 2023.

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Ncuti Gatwa’s upcoming role as the Fifteenth Doctor on Doctor Who along with the future episodes heading to Disney+ is further expanding the show’s massive US and Canadian fanbase. There are a ton of newbies who want to understand “that blue phone box show.” The show’s modern era (2005-present) is a common entry point for newer fans. However, many want to go back to the very, very beginning, a.k.a. the Classic era (1963-1989). There are also longtime fans who 1) grew up watching Classic Who and love to see it and 2) became fans via the modern era but want to explore the Classic Doctors. Thankfully, Tubi is providing a free gateway into Classic Doctor Who, bringing all of the available episodes to its platform. 

Until now, the Classic era episodes were only available to UK and US fans via BritBox, a paid streaming service courtesy of the BBC and ITV. We can presume Classic episodes will remain there for now. But with a zillion streaming services in the universe, some people simply don’t want to pay for another one. That is totally understandable. So the Classic era episodes of Doctor Who on Tubi are a good thing, indeed. In addition to the show’s episodes, there is also Classic Doctor Who: The Animated Lost Stories, which includes animated reenactments of live-action episodes lost to time. (Many of them are from the Second Doctor’s era.) All episodes will run on a dedicated FAST channel and are available on-demand. 

Tubi will also offer a “New to Who” collection to help new fans board the TARDIS with relative ease. Now is the time to expand our recruiting efforts, Doctor Who fans. We need more people to become one of us because, well, we are an awesome collective. The Classic Doctor Who episodes are free on Tubi right now, so stream away my friends.

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Doctor Who sprinted back onto television in 2005 after a lengthy hiatus. Since then, the show has been running full steam ahead with several Doctors and companions traversing time and space for mind-blowing adventures. This year, fans will celebrate sixty years of Doctor Who with a slate of anniversary specials that end with us meeting the show’s Fifteenth Doctor. Ncuti Gatwa is set to helm the greatest sci-fi series of all-time and it is going to be a blast. Doctor Who series 14 will reset the series once again with another “clean slate,” bringing in fresh faces and familiar creatives to kick off a new era.

Here’s everything we know about Doctor Who series 14 so far. 

Doctor Who Series 14’s Plot 

Doctor Who? Plot? What does that mean? I am kidding. We can only assume that this season of Doctor Who will function like the others with a mix of episodic plots, two-parters, a few ongoing threads as the TARDIS team gels together, and some sort of seasonal arc. Based on a few outfits we have seen so far, we know that the Fourteenth Doctor will travel to several time periods in the past. This season will be short, however, with just eight episode and a Christmas special. 

Behind the Scenes 

Russell T Davies is returning as Doctor Who’s showrunner and a writer in season 14. He was previously the showrunner during the show’s early revival years from 2005-2010. Mark Tonderai, who directed Rosa, will return to direct a couple of episodes, too. Other directors include Dylan Holmes Williams, Julie Anne Robinson, Ben Chessell, and Jamie Donoughue. This is the first season that the show will be produced by Bad Wolf, Ltd. Filming for the series concluded in July 2023. 

Doctor Who Series 14’s Cast 

Ncuti Gatwa and Millie Gibson will lead the series as the Fourteenth Doctor and Ruby Sunday, respectively. And, as always with Doctor Who, there will be a lot of guest stars. Bonnie Langford will reprise her role as the Classic era companion Mel Bush. Jemma Redgrave will return as UNIT leader Kate Stewart. Drag Race star Jinx Monsoon will portray the Doctor’s “most powerful enemy yet,” Lenny Rush will play a character named Morris, Jonathan Groff will also take on a key role in the season.

India Varma (Torchwood) is taking on a new role as the Duchess. Of course, there are other actors like Anita Dobson and Michelle Greenridge are taking on undisclosed roles. Hopefully we will know more about them as the season nears. 

Doctor Who Series 14’s Release Date 

Doctor Who season 14 will hit the BBC and Disney+ sometime in 2024, following Ncuti Gatwa’s first full episode in a Christmas 2023 special which will air on Christmas Day. 

Originally published on July 20, 2023.

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In the lead-up to the Doctor Who 60th anniversary, along with a trio of David Tennant-starring specials, the BBC has announced a very cool thing for long-time fans. Tales of the TARDIS will see in-canon reunions between various classic-era Doctors and their companions. Fifth Doctor and Tegan, Sixth Doctor and Peri, and Seventh Doctor and Ace will all have scenes together again. For Doctor actors who’ve passed, companions will get back together. These include First Doctor companions Vicki and Steven and Second Doctor companions Jamie and Zoe. Third Doctor companion Jo Grant will meet up with Clyde from The Sarah Jane Adventures.

The interstitials—written by showrunner Russell T Davies and Who writers Phil Ford and Pete McTighe—will weave between episodes of classic Doctor Who to create 90-minute omnibus versions. It sounds like so much fun! But people outside of the UK, and more than that people who don’t pay for a television license fee, can’t watch them. You see, these are only available on the BBC iPlayer, the public broadcaster’s on-demand service. Only people who pay for a license fee and live in the UK can legally watch programming on this service.

In an Instagram post, Davies explained that he’s not sure when, or if, the Tales of the TARDIS episodes will ever make their way elsewhere.

This is the latest in a series of programming and distribution choices which have left many a bit confused. There, all of Doctor Who is on some BBC service. In North America, it’s a different story. So here’s a quick rundown of what episodes you can see on what service.

Brand New Doctor Who Will Be on Disney+

As we reported a year ago, starting with the three David Tennant specials, all subsequent Doctor Who episodes, and presumably specials, will stream on Disney+. This is a massive deal that will bring the show to the streamer day-and-date as it airs on BBC One in the UK. It’ll be on Disney+ everywhere else in the whole wide world (that has Disney+).

Classic Doctor Who Is Still on BritBox

BritBox, the global streamer the BBC and ITV went in on together, has been the home of classic series Doctor Who—a catalogue of nearly 700 episodes, including missing episode animation and reconstruction—since 2017. This also has a number of specials and ancillary material for your viewing pleasure. If you want to catch up on the first 26 seasons of the show, BritBox is the place to do it.

Where Is the Rest of Modern Doctor Who?

This is a little bit trickier. In the United States, Doctor Who from 2005 through 2022 is on Max. This is not the case for Canada, which has been without a streaming home of modern Doctor Who since January. The Max deal came from back in the halcyon HBO Max days when the WB-owned service wanted people to come to them for quality programming. Presumably, this is a deal that’s in place for the foreseeable future, but given how ephemeral Max programming is, we wouldn’t hold our breath that everything from the Ninth through Thirteenth Doctors will remain there forever. Where will it go after that? No idea.

That means, come November 25, you’ll need three separate streaming services to watch the whole of Doctor Who in the US. This is why I advocate for physical media, folks.

Kyle Anderson is the Senior Editor for Nerdist. He hosts the weekly pop culture deep-dive podcast Laser Focus. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Instagram and Letterboxd.

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When it comes to Doctor Who’s modern companions, Donna Noble (played by the remarkable Catherine Tate) remains a fan favorite with a controversial arc. She started off as a rather annoying temp from Chiswick but her platonic chemistry with the Tenth Doctor (David Tennant) and sharp wit made her a beloved companion. Donna became a very important person in the universe, discovering her own power and worth while traveling in the TARDIS. However, she saw some pretty heartbreaking things and her companion arc ended on a very sad note (more on that later). Donna Noble is returning for Doctor Who’s 60th anniversary on November 25 but some people have probably forgotten what happened to her years ago in the series. 

Any Doctor Who fan who knows Donna Noble cannot forget her heartbreaking fate in Journey’s End. Thanks to her touching the Doctor’s severed hand, she gained all the knowledge of a Time Lord. The “DoctorDonna” used this to stop Davros and save many planets in the process; however, she couldn’t save herself. The Doctor’s knowledge is simply too much for a human so the Tenth Doctor made the decision to wipe her mind. As he explains, this will keep her mind from burning up and killing her. All traces of her time with him left her memory in an instant. That scene is still a highly emotional and controversial moment among Doctor Who fans. 

But some fans may have forgotten Donna’s brief return in “The End of Time” in 2009. (It was approx. 2010 on Earth, considering Rose Tyler’s year away from home threw off the timeline a bit.) The Tenth Doctor Christmas special is his epic swansong that loops her back into the mix. The Master returns and tries to make every human a copy of him to take over the world. But Donna isn’t affected because her DNA is no longer the same. However, her memories began to seep through and are nearly restored. Thankfully, the Doctor installed a fail-safe to prevent this from happening. She even generates a pulse that helps to defeat some of the Master’s nearby clones as well as herself.

Towards the end of the episode, the Doctor saves her grandfather Wilfred, which triggers his regeneration. He holds off and sees Donna one last time as we see her marrying Shaun Temple. The Doctor also left her a winning lottery ticket to ensure her financial future. So that’s what happened to Donna Noble in Doctor Who. As we moved on with a new Doctor and showrunner, those previous companions like Donna, Martha, and Rose went off to live their lives… until now. Rose is still on parallel Earth and Martha could still be a freelance alien hunter. We will never know. But we are getting a glimpse into Donna’s life once again.

We now know that Donna is still married with a daughter, Rose Noble. Besides her child’s name, which is an obvious homage to Rose Tyler, Donna’s mind still has remnants of her TARDIS traveling days. In the anniversary specials trailer, she admits to her mom that she feels like something special is missing from her life. How will the Doctor keep her from remembering him and dying? Is she still wealthy? What is Donna Noble currently doing with her life? We will get those answers and more soon when “The Star Beast” hits Disney+ on November 25.

Originally published on August 30, 2023.

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It’s the most wonderful time of the year. No, we don’t mean the ‘Ber months and all their fall/holiday glory, even though they are absolutely awesome. We mean the triumphant return of Doctor Who for its 60th anniversary with a three-part special. Can you believe it’s been 10 years since we saw the Tenth and Eleventh Doctor join forces for an epic adventure?! Well, David Tennant is returning to Doctor Who, but he’s going to be the Fourteenth Doctor instead. We are still confused but very intrigued, especially because we are catching up with Donna Noble. It has been a long time since we last left her in the Whoniverse. The trailer for Doctor Who’s 60th anniversary is action-packed, gorgeous, and complete fan service in the best way with a nod to the past, thanks to Neil Patrick Harris’ Toymaker. We can’t wait until the first special hits on November 25!

Donna reveals to her mum that she feels like there’s something missing from her life in this Doctor Who trailer. That’s the understatement of the year. It’s clear that those suppressed memories of The Doctor and the TARDIS are still threatening to surface years later. Also, a spaceship crashing right in front of her eyes doesn’t help. Donna is not the only person dealing with some memories. The Doctor has a memory that is back and has something to do with a weird villain called the Toymaker. It looks like these Doctor Who specials will be unlike anything we’ve seen from the franchise so far.

Who Is Neil Patrick Harris’ Doctor Who Villain, the Toymaker?

Until this trailer, we weren’t sure about how Neil Patrick Harris’ character would play into the Doctor Who anniversary specials. His character is a classic Doctor Who villain called the Celestial Toymaker, who appeared in a First Doctor serial 57 years ago.

The 1966 serial, aptly titled “The Celestial Toymaker,” is mostly lost to time, with only stills and fragments of it existing. But the story involves the Toymaker forcing the Doctor’s companions to play childish yet deadly games. He would trap victims in a little universe called the Celestial Toyroom and manipulate them. Losing was a bad thing because, well, you’d become his plaything forever. The Doctor wins the game, and the Toymaker’s world is destroyed. Or so we thought.

How Will the Toymaker Play Into Doctor Who‘s 60th Anniversary? Will Donna Noble Die?

In the 60th anniversary specials, the Toymaker and his accomplices are no longer in that pocket universe. They are on Earth and threatening to do something so bad that the TARDIS itself has run away. But if there’s one being in the universe you cannot scare, it is the mighty Donna Noble. She’s not only fighting for the world but for the safety of her daughter Rose Noble, played by Yasmin Finney. The Doctor admits that he may not be able to save Donna this time. So there’s a chance that Donna Noble could die in Doctor Who‘s anniversary specials.

Let me tell you something, reader. If this show harms a hair on Donna or Rose Noble’s head, I will never forgive them for it. NEVER. The Doctor Who 60th-anniversary trailer ends as it should: with a closeup of Ncuti Gatwa’s gorgeous face. The Fifteenth Doctor is going to be awesome, indeed.

When Will the Doctor Who 60th Anniversary Specials Air?

The Doctor Who anniversary specials will start to air on November 25 on the BBC for those in the UK and Ireland and Disney+ for other countries, including the US. The first special, “The Star Beast,” will debut on that date followed by “Wild Blue Yonder” on December 2 and “The Giggle” on December 9.

Ncuti Gatwa will take over for a holiday special with his full season arriving in 2024.

Originally published on September 25, 2023.

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Sixty years of time and space travel, 15 Doctors (plus a few more), and hundreds of episodes have all led to this. The culmination of everything Doctor Who has been about since 1963. I only slightly jest, but it is pretty rad that fans of perennial deck building game Magic: The Gathering can now enjoy it in terms of their favorite sci-fi show (probably). As part of MTG‘s Universes Beyond imprint, which also recently announced Jurassic Park Magic cards, the various Time Lord incarnations, and their companions and villains are now playable cards. These Doctor Who Magic cards look pretty damn gorgeous, have to say.

Available for preorder October 13, Magic: The Gathering‘s Doctor Who line will have four separate, 100-card decks. Each will have 50 unique cards with brand new original Who artwork. The Blast from the Past Magic card set will feature all of the classic series Doctors and companions. Timey Wimey will have Doctors Nine, Ten, and Eleven. Meanwhile, the Paradox Power Doctor Who Magic card set will have the Twelfth and Thirteenth Doctors. And Masters of Evil will, of course, have all the baddies you could hope for. As part of WeeklyMTG on YouTube, the Magic team revealed a number of new Doctor Who cards and their abilities. Check out some of them in our gallery below, and watch the whole livestream on their channel.

Click To View Gallery

I’m not a Magic: The Gathering player personally, but I definitely am a Doctor Who fan. These cards are absolutely gorgeous, and I might just have to pick some up just to have them. Plus, it’s beyond awesome that the game calls the Doctors “Legendary Creatures.” Too right, MTG. Too right.

Kyle Anderson is the Senior Editor for Nerdist. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Instagram and Letterboxd.

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Doctor Who is returning to our screens soon to celebrate sixty years of time and space adventures. We already know quite a few things about the show’s anniversary specials, including the return of Donna Noble and a Fourteenth Doctor who looks a lot like the Tenth Doctor. But one element of speculation swirled around Yasmin Finney’s character named Rose. There is some weird timey-wimey stuff happening here, so some people thought she could be an alternate version of former companion Rose Tyler. Others speculated that this Rose had a connection to Donna. Well, Doctor Who confirmed that Yasmin Finney’s Rose is the daughter of companion Donna Noble.

The show’s official Twitter (now known as X, sadly) page put speculation to rest in a Happy Birthday tweet for Yasmin Finney. The revelation of her as Rose Noble makes a lot of sense to explore in Doctor Who. We know that Donna got married to Shaun Temple and gained financial security, thanks to a lotto ticket left by the Doctor. So it is not shocking that she has a daughter who appears to be a teenager now. We still aren’t sure how Donna nor Rose will come into play in Doctor Who’s anniversary specials.

But we hope that their story will end happily, especially since we know the series will move on to Ncuti’s Fifteenth Doctor. Honestly, it would have been super cool for Rose Noble to travel with his Doctor. However, there’s that pesky issue of Donna not being able to remember the Doctor without her mind “burning up.” Sure, there’s a fail-safe in place but who knows how well that would work? And surely her own daughter would tell her about traveling with an alien in a fun blue space box, right? Donna does have small residual memories of her time with Ten, so that explains why she’d name her daughter Rose.

Either way, this extra tidbit about Rose being the daughter of Donna Noble makes us more hype for Doctor Who. Hopefully, we will get air date information for those specials soon.

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What a dang world. We are presumably close to the 60th anniversary of Doctor Who and we already know a lot. We know David Tennant is back as the Fourteenth Doctor. Catherine Tate is also back, and Neil Patrick Harris is joining. We know there will be three specials with Tennant as part of the anniversary celebration, complete with all three titles and a teaser. They’re interesting, for sure.

The first special will be “The Star Beast,” which is, funnily enough, the initial title for the movie Alien when it was in spec script form. Special two will be “Wild Blue Yonder;” some of the bits of that part of the teaser have “redacted” and static added. Seems pretty TARDIS-y to me. The third one, “The Giggle,” has our man NPH in it. “Laughing at the human race.” We also see our first glimpse of live-action Beep the Meep, a very weird character who made the jump to TV from the old comics. The name of that comic? “Doctor Who and the Star Beast.” Sooooo, that’s fun, innit?

The little teaser also shows us a few shots of Yasmin Finney, who will portray Donna’s daughter Rose Noble. Donna married her husband Shaun Temple, whom we last saw in “The End of Time.”

We still don’t know exactly when these specials will air or how frequently. Will it be one per month? One per week? Three days in a row? All we know for sure is the actual 60th anniversary of Doctor Who is November 23, 2023.

Originally published on May 15, 2023.

Kyle Anderson is the Senior Editor for Nerdist. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Instagram and Letterboxd.

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The current era of Doctor Who continues to move forward with more time and space traveling fun. There have been dozens of stories that explore this universe’s lore, teach valuable lessons, and are just plain odd. In the days of streaming and marathon watching, it’s not impossible for a new or casual fan to catch up on Doctor Who. But who really has the time to go through many seasons of action?

A seasoned viewer could help them out by explaining a few core concepts from the show. But even those basics become super complicated without any viewing context. Thankfully there are more than a few solid episodes that showcase the essence of Doctor Who, capture its wonderful energy, and are wholly entertaining (even if they aren’t “the best”) while taking fans through a range of complex emotions. Current fans delight in watching them, causal fans have probably heard of them, and new fans would be able to get a solid feel of the show, even if they don’t necessarily understand everything that is going on.

Of course, every essential episode can’t be listed in this post. But, these episodes should be on any essential watch list for the modern era to represent each numbered incarnation of The Doctor.

The Essential Doctor Who Episodes for the Ninth Doctor

“Rose” (Season 1, Episode 1)

This one is quite obvious. “Rose” may not appear on most “best Doctor Who” episodes lists but it’s an essential watch for anyone who wants to get into the current era. It’s the best jumping on point; it sets up the show’s premise and establishes the Doctor. “Rose” is quirky, fun, a bit cheesy, and opens up this strange universe through the eyes of the very-relatable Rose Tyler.

“Father’s Day”(Season 1, Episode 8)

Many people would want to travel in the TARDIS to escape their boring daily lives, witness a historic event, or even get a peek into the future to satisfy their curiosity. However, human nature would tempt the best of us to alter the past or future in our favor.

Rose is a great companion, but her misstep in “Father’s Day” proves that 1) life-altering decisions should be left to the Doctor’s discretion; and 2) one person’s life or death really can alter the entire universe. This episode is a powerful way to introduce just one example of the feels that Doctor Who fans can’t get enough of. We love to be emotionally destroyed.

“The Parting of the Ways” (Season 1, Episode 13)

The Ninth Doctor introduces Rose—and by extension new fans—to the concept of regeneration in such a caring and gentle way. His optimistic attitude and reassurance that he is the same person with a different physical appearance makes the blow of “losing” him a bit less severe. Regeneration aside, “The Parting of the Ways” also shows how powerful and complex the bond between Doctor and companion can become over time.

Honorable Mention: “Dalek” (Season 1, Episode 6)

By the end of this episode, new fans will definitely understand that this villain and The Doctor have a long and complicated history. The Ninth Doctor and Rose’s relationship is quite solid at this point as she guides him away from making a terrible decision. And, if nothing else, it is interesting to see what Doctor Who thought 2012 would be like versus what it was actually like 8 years ago.

The Essential Doctor Who Episodes for the Tenth Doctor

“School Reunion” (Season 2, Episode 3)

Rose may have been the first companion for a lot of fans but she was simply the latest in a long line of TARDIS travelers. “School Reunion” provides a perfect gateway to help new fans connect the current era with the show’s classic episodes via Sarah Jane Smith—one of the most popular companions of all-time.

Casual and modern-era only fans will want to dive into the show’s original run after this episode. “School Reunion” explores what happens to a companion years after they stop traveling with the Doctor. How do they go back to a normal life? Does the Doctor simply forget them and move on? How would they handle seeing the Doctor with a new face? Those questions get answers here. Yes, there is some childish cattiness for a bit but Sarah Jane still rules.

“Blink” (Season 3, Episode 10)

A Doctor Who essential episodes list isn’t valid without “Blink”. Many fans and critics alike say it’s one of the best episodes ever—and they aren’t wrong. “Blink” introduces the terrifying Weeping Angels, wallops viewers with feels, and shows how vital a side character can be in the Whoniverse. Interestingly, the episode is both Doctor-lite and companion-lite, but that’s not a problem. It’s a terrifying and thrill

“Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead” (Season 4, Episodes 8 and 9)

Considering a two-parter as one entry might be cheating a bit but oh well. Ten and Donna are a companion match made in heaven and these episodes are awesome.

There’s the introduction of River Song, who will play a vital role in upcoming seasons, the Vashta Nerada, and a very emotional storyline for Donna Noble. Doctor Who’s trademark ingenuity and drama shine bright here, thereby making it a “must-watch” episode.

ing ride that shows Doctor Who at its absolute best.

Honorable mention: “The Stolen Earth/Journey’s End” (Season 4, Episodes 12 and 13)

We love a group effort. The Tenth Doctor gathers all his companions, some of their family members, Sarah Jane, Jack Harkness, and more for an epic adventure. There’s a lot to learn here about Davros and the Daleks as well as the power of the TARDIS. It’s a great sendoff for a ton of characters and a reminder that The Doctor must keep moving forward—even if they are alone.

The Most Essential Doctor Who Episodes for the Eleventh Doctor

“The Eleventh Hour” (Season 5, Episode 1)

“The Eleventh Hour” is another modern Doctor Who episode that would serve as a great starting point. Eleven’s introduction to Amelia Pond as a whimsical and weird figure, their reunion many years later, and his ability to save the world with his words all encompass the show’s lore and excitement. Oh, and don’t forget about the TARDIS and her amazing upgrade.

“Vincent and The Doctor” (Season 5, Episode 10)

THE FEELS. THE FEELS. This episode doesn’t require any real knowledge about the series to love it. It’s confirmation that this time-traveler definitely meets famous people from the past.

And sometimes it is fine to give someone a glimpse of their own future. Tony Curran’s portrayal of Vincent van Gogh is sheer perfection, there are dark forces afoot, and the final moments of this episode hurt in the best way possible.

“The Snowmen” (Season 7, Episode 6)

This episode dives in The Doctor’s psyche in a wonderful way. Eleven is reeling from a major loss and hiding in (Early? Late?) retirement. But, evil snowmen and a brilliant governess bring him out of his funk and back into his old life. Doctor Who and Christmas specials are a staple in this era and this is perhaps one of the best ones yet with great storytelling, dialogue, and the beginning of a new companion arc.

Honorable mention: “The Pandorica Opens” (Season 5, Episode 12)

This episode is all about going big or going home. Doctor Who isn’t always the best at continuity but this has quite a few ties that come together here. There’s so much going on here and some of it is frankly confusing but the ride is fun and wild—basically a way of life as a Doctor Who lover.

The Essential Doctor Who Episodes for the Twelfth Doctor

“Dark Water/Death in Heaven” (Season 8, Episodes 11 and 12)

Helloooo Missy. Doctor Who may be seen by outsiders as some silly little sci-fi series but its much darker than they could imagine. “Dark Water” brings back a couple of great antagonists and has an underlying morbidity that sets up an equally somber conclusion in “Death in Heaven.”

“Heaven Sent/Hell Bent” (Season 9, Episodes 11 and 12)

This one is pretty obvious. There are sweeping monologues from a very angry Doctor, Time Lord and Gallifrey action, and a great conclusion for the Doctor’s companion, Clara. These two episodes are pretty much perfect across the board and close an important chapter in Who history before the show’s soft “reboot” in Season 10.

“Thin Ice” (Season 10, Episode 3)

“Thin Ice” has so many wonderful things. Bill in a Regency era dress. The Doctor admitting that history was whitewashed. Bill taking the Doctor to task about his actions. The Doctor punching a racist for Bill.

There’s also some business about a big fish or something but that’s not what is really important here. “Thin Ice” won’t reveal anything new about the series but it’s a fun historical that tosses in lots of Easter eggs for current fans.

Honorable mention: “The Eaters of Light” (Season 10, Episode 10)

This episode is one of many (“Flatline,” “Turn Left“) that allow the companion to shine separately from the Doctor. “The Eaters of Light” combines real-life history with sci-fi and shows Bill rallying scared and young troops towards a fight.

There’s some social commentary sandwiched perfectly into all the drama that doesn’t detract from the story. And, the episode’s writer, Rona Munro, is the first writer to write for the classic and revived series.

The Essential Doctor Who Episodes for the Thirteenth Doctor

“Rosa” (Season 11, Episode 3)

“Rosa” takes Doctor Who in a new direction. It blatantly addresses the racism of Rosa Parks time period, accurately showing how the Doctor’s TARDIS team would be treated during that time.

There’s some great character development for Ryan and important conversations among different members of the team. This episode takes Doctor Who back to its original premise—an education series with some otherworldly elements thrown into the mix.

“Fugitive of the Judoon” (Season 12, Episode 5)

This episode is simply mind-blowing with Black woman incarnation of the Doctor, the return of the Judoon, and other great surprises. It causes the Doctor to rethink everything she knew to be true and shows how this show can quickly go in a new direction to throw everyone for a loop.

“Haunting of Villa Diodati” (Season 12, Episode 8)

This is one of the best episodes (so far) in Thirteen’s run. A famous historical figure, a haunted house of horrors, an unexpected version of a well-know villain, and The Doctor having to dress down her companions for thinking that they know best in these high-stakes situations. Doctor Who can get caught up in a lot of lore and twisted storylines but this feels simply like a good ghost story.

Honorable mention: “Demons of the Punjab” (Season 11, Episode 6)

“Demons of the Punjab” made more history with a story that focused on South Asian characters. Representation and Doctor Who have always had a complicated relationship but the show certainly got it right this time.

This tragic love story infused with odd will make many fans do some Googling to learn about the partition of India and expand their horizons. Doctor Who is fun and entertaining but it’s also an avenue to teach us more about the world around us and ourselves.

Of course, this is just a sample of episodes out of many. But this list is a great start to dipping into the wonderful (and weird) world of Doctor Who.

Originally published on March 26, 2020.

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We still have a little while before we see David Tennant (temporarily) take over the TARDIS as the Fourteenth Doctor. For the most part, he looks like an edgier version of the Tenth Doctor yet his outfit has a few key differences to make it unique. (Also, Tennant still has really great hair. He’s a blessed man.) I cannot confirm this but I am sure there are already people out there cosplaying this version of the Doctor. However, there’s something that is missing from the look. You know, a certain instrument that several Doctors love to use when they need to get themselves out of a jam or provide a quick tech fix. We’ve been wondering just how epic the Fourteenth Doctor’s sonic screwdriver would be if he got his own …and now we know that it is awesome. Doctor Who gave us the most dramatic sonic screwdriver reveal, one that is worthy of his chaotic glory. 

This sonic screwdriver is gorgeous. I love the gold and marble details as well as how it combines small aesthetic elements of several previous Doctors’ screwdrivers, including Ten and Eleven. It could be a hint that his Doctor had to piece this sonic together based on what’s in his storage (you know he has some room full of stuff) and infuse it with available elements. It is also a great way to honor the past for the 60th anniversary special.

We don’t know when we will be able to purchase the sonic screwdriver and complete our Fourteenth Doctor looks. But for now we will just continue to marvel at its beauty. We can’t wait to discover what’s going on with Fourteen and Donna when Doctor Who returns later this year.

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