Doctor Who is now in its 61st year, featuring a host of gifted British actors, each taking on the iconic role in turn. So Ncuti Gatwa had some very big shoes to fill when he took on playing the Fifteenth Doctor. Now the season has concluded and the verdict is in: Gatwa is more than up to the challenge, bringing sparkling energy, charisma, and a superb sense of style to the role. He sings and dances, too, as does winsome new companion Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson). They have terrific onscreen chemistry, and Davies is in top storytelling form. In short, the new season mostly feels as fresh and energetic as ever, and I'm already looking forward to more.
(Spoilers below.)
Here's a brief summation for the benefit of those who may not have kept up with the more recent seasons. This is Russell T. Davies' second stint as showrunner, having revived the series in 2005. He lost no time introducing a few new twists after signing back on as show runner. When it came time for Jodie Whittaker's Thirteenth Doctor to regenerate, fans had expected Gatwa to be introduced. Instead, the new Fourteenth Doctor was played by former Tenth Doctor David Tennant, reuniting with former companion Donna Noble (Catherine Tate) for three specials.
The third special was called "The Giggle." During the climactic battle, the Doctor was shot. But instead of the usual regeneration, the Fourteenth Doctor "bigenerated" instead, resulting in both a Fourteenth Doctor and Gatwa's Fifteenth Doctor, a separate physical entity. Tennant's incarnation settled into a comfy retirement with Donna and her family, while Gatwa's newly regenerated Doctor headed off for a fresh set of adventures.
In the Christmas special, "The Church on Ruby Road," Gatwa's Doctor picked up a new companion: Ruby Sunday, a young woman abandoned at a church on Christmas Eve and raised by her foster-mother. Goblins kidnapped the new foster baby, Lulubelle, to feed her to the Goblin King in a ritual sacrifice involving a rather silly goblin song. Ruby and the Doctor joined forces to save her. Naturally Ruby decided to join him for a few more adventures in the TARDIS. (You can read our interview with Davies, Gatwa, and Gibson here.)
The Doctor and Ruby kicked things off by rescuing a group of talking "space babies" on an abandoned baby farm space station who were being terrorized by a monstrous Bogeyman (made, as it turns out, from actual "bogies" aka snot). It's a clever standalone concept that never quite gels, despite the charm of seeing babies in motorized strollers operating Rube-Goldberg-like systems to perform basic tasks on board the ship. But it works well as an appetizer for what's to come.
By contrast, "The Devil's Chord" is a classic Whovian adventure, in which the Doctor and Ruby must save the world from a powerful being called Maestro (Jinkx Monsoon), child of the Toymaker (arch-villain of "The Giggle"). Unwittingly summoned by a piano teacher playing the "devil's chord" in 1925, Maestro has been robbing the universe of music, intent on leaving nothing but Aeolian tones. So when the Doctor and Ruby crash a Beatles recording session in 1963, they are dismayed to hear the Fab Four play a decidedly uninspired tune about Paul McCartney's dog rather than one of their future hits. Everything works in this episode, from Monsoon's maniacal cackle to the fabulous outfits and sly visual callback to the Abbey Road album cover (not to mention the famous keyboard scene in Big). Bonus points for the big musical number at the end, taking advantage of Gatwa's and Gibson's natural talents.
The Bridgerton references run wild in the delightful "Rogue," as the Doctor and Ruby travel to Regency England and discover a group of "cosplaying" shapeshifter aliens have crashed the same gathering. (The Chuldurs kill whoever they want to "play" and take over their identities.) They are aided by a futuristic bounty hunter named Rogue (Jonathan Groff), with whom the Doctor enjoys a romantic interlude—only for Rogue to sacrifice himself to save Ruby, banished to an unknown alternate dimension with the Chuldurs.
"Boom" takes the duo to a war-torn planet in which the casualties are strictly controlled by a corporate algorithm, while in "Dot and Bubble," the Doctor and Ruby try to save an off-planet community of rich young white people from carnivorous slugs—which the youngsters don't notice because they live their lives literally shrouded in an online bubble. Is the metaphor a bit heavy-handed? Yes it is, but it's amusing to watch Lindy Pepper-Bean (Callie Cooke) try to navigate the outside world without the aid of a helpful virtual arrow telling her where to step.
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