The Doctor is back, and thanks to a new trailer for the 14th (or 1st) season we know when he will return for a full new series.Doctor Who’s Christmas special, entitled “The Church on Ruby Road”, fully introduced a new Doctor inNcuti Gatwa, a new companion of Ruby Sunday, played by Millie Gibson, and delivered the kind of Who story that was almost completely missing fromthe tenure of Jodie Whittaker’s Thirteenth Doctor.
WithRussell T. Davies back as showrunner,and the backing of Disney Branded Television, the arrival of Ncuti Gatwa’s Fifteenth Doctor is a complete reinvention of the series, and therefore Davies has proclaimed the new season “Season 1” rather than season 14 (or even season 40 for those really counting from the show’s inception in 1963). Whatever the number of the season, the festive special ended with a teasing look at what is to come next, and a release window of May 2024. Check out the teaser below.
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Ncuti Gatwa’s Doctor is Already Bringing New Energy to the Series
As the longest running Sci-Fi show ever,Doctor Whohas been on the brink of extinction almost as many times as the Time Lords and Daleks in the series. But just like those two races, it always seems to find a way back.
After a run of declining seasons, both in review scores and viewership, something drastic needed to be done to save the series becoming part of the past – that something was the combination of Russell T Davies and David Tennant, who reunited to deliver a trio of 60th anniversary specials ending withthe “bi-generation” of Tennant’s Doctor into Gatwa’s. This in itself was a series first, with two Doctors being present at the same time, in the same place, and as David Tennant’s Fourteenth Doctor now lives out his life away from the pressures of being Earth’s savior, Gatwa’s journey in the TARDIS is just beginning.
Doctor Who
Originally premiered in 1963, Doctor Who is a sci-fi series that follows a powerful being known as a Time Lord, referred to as the Doctor. Using an interdimensional time-traveling ship known as the TARDIS, the Doctor travels time and space with various companions as they solve multiple problems and help avert catastrophe as much as they almost cause it. Though the Doctor is always the same character, they experience regenerations, allowing them to be recast every few seasons as a unique immortal being with new personality traits.
In his first full episode, Gatwa’s Christmas Day arrival was met with mostly positive reviews, especially for theSex Educationstar himself. Having wowed with all the charisma you could want in a Doctor, fans are now looking forward to seeing where the show will go next when it makes its return in 2024. Davies already started laying down threads and mysteries for the future in Tennant’s anniversary episodes, and the Christmas Special brings a host of new ones. Davies explained toDigital Spyand other media outlets that one big part of the upcoming series will be the church of the episode’s title, which played a big role in the special, but has a bigger role to play in the future. He said:
“You always have to be aware that it’s a new audience coming in. So you kind of start from scratch. Personally, I think it should be as Christmassy as possible. It’s amazing. We had snow, the church, but they’re always different every year. This was quite a fable, about a foundling on the church doorstep in the snow. So that story then continues into the series. We come back to that church. There’s all sorts of things. There were people in those scenes you don’t know were there. We have a lot more to come.”
Doctor Whois currently streaming episodes on Disney+.
