When the run-up to the latest series of a long-running show consists of speculation that it could be paused, it isn’t a good sign.
Yet that is the environment that “Doctor Who,” the much loved British sci-fi show, currently finds itself in. This is despite an international distribution deal with Disney+ (and with that, a supersized budget), breakout “Sex Education” star Ncuti Gatwa as the 15th incarnation of the Doctor, and Russell T Davies — who was responsible for the show’s successful revival in 2005 — back as the show’s head writer, showrunner and executive producer.
Perhaps more is riding on the success of this upcoming season than ever before, so the good news is that the first episode, “The Robot Revolution,” is a decent debut. Varada Sethu shines as the Doctor’s new companion, Belinda Chandra. Well, I say companion. From the outset it is clear that, unlike many other companions in the show’s history, Belinda does not actively want to be there.
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After being kidnapped by robots from another planet who claim her to be their queen, Belinda is unable to return home to the current date, despite the Doctor’s help. And instead of just going along with every whim and decision the Doctor makes, she’s independent and, at times, pushes back. It makes for an interesting dynamic compared to other companions and seasons, aided by natural and interesting chemistry between the two.
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This entertaining episode makes you wonder why “Doctor Who” feels so precarious in the first place. The complexity of ratings in the streaming era are certainly a factor. In fact, it can be a bit hard to work out how much of a hit the new “Doctor Who” is. When Gatwa’s first season as the Doctor debuted in the middle of last year, episodes were released at midnight on BBC’s streaming service iPlayer to coincide with the international release on Disney+. As a result, an underwhelming 2.6 million tuned in for the first episode on BBC One, but that didn’t include the majority of people who had already watched on iPlayer the same day, resulting in a later combined total of over 6 million. A similar trend continued for the rest of the season, with Davies saying that the show was doing well with key age groups such as under 16s and 16-34s: “It’s not doing that well in the ratings,” he said, “but it is doing phenomenally well with the younger audience that we wanted.”
Then, despite highlighting that each episode of Gatwa’s first season was in the top five series globally on the Disney+ platform every week it aired, reports that Disney would not decide to renew its current distribution deal with the BBC until the upcoming season had finished airing merely added to cynical speculation. Even if a deal goes ahead between the two, as television production generally takes a year, it feels inevitable that there is going to be a gap before the next season anyway.
If “Doctor Who” was to be paused, or there is to be a long wait ahead for viewers after these episodes, it would be a shame. Not just because it is a British cult institution, but also because the show feels more inclusive and forward-thinking than other sci-fi shows or franchises. With Gatwa and Sethu, this is the first time that the Tardis is manned solely by people of color. Such inclusivity has been the hallmark of the new Davies era, such as the inclusion of trans characters and the Doctor having a same-sex crush, resulting in a vocal ignorant minority complaining that the show is now too “woke.” In a recent interview with the Radio Times, Sethu said: “Woke just means inclusive, progressive and that you care about people. And, as far as I know, the core of ‘Doctor Who’ is kindness, love and doing the right thing.”
A hope is that, over the course of this upcoming season, between high stakes adventures, there will be enough opportunities for Belinda and the Doctor to just hang out and decompress. One of the great appeals of “Doctor Who,” and one of the reasons why it has been so long lasting, is not only how it has always reinvented itself, but how unpredictable it can be with each new story, with lighthearted and comedic episodes usually followed by disturbing ones. Yet some of the best stories of Gatwa’s first season, such as the mystifying “73 Yards,” featured his character only making a limited appearance. A challenge in the current “Doctor Who” era, too, is that it can fall into a loop of plot, daring escapes and an array of new characters and risk the viewer not becoming as invested in their backstories as those in Davies’ first era back in 2005.
The traditional plot beats when a new companion joins the “Doctor Who” are also examined in turn in this episode, even though they did similar with Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson) in Gatwa’s first season. For example, The Doctor has two hearts! His name is just the Doctor! The Tardis is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside! etc. Is this just a tradition with every companion that joins him, or is it a tool to educate this British show to Americans? It’s hard to tell.
Without revealing spoilers of “The Robot Revolution,” an initially predictable plot has an unexpected and pretty ambitious twist in the third act, which it manages to land. The last few seconds of the first episode are particularly spine-tingling.
A question going forward is that, whilst the show always manages to tie up the loose ends in each episode, whether this season will be able to land some of its overarching central plot mysteries. Last year featured a quirky and rather enjoyable mystery focusing on why a minor character Susan Triad (Susan Twist) kept appearing in every episode. Her cameo appearances started as an Easter Egg noticed by fans, only to then grow and become the crux of the plot of the two-part finale. Yet the other major mystery of the series, surrounding the possible identity of Ruby Sunday’s mother, felt a little bit anticlimactic when she was unveiled, even though the thought process behind that storyline was touching.
It makes you wonder whether other mysteries in the series will have a satisfying payoff. Will the puzzle around the identity of Mrs. Flood (Anita Dobson) and the reason she keeps breaking the fourth wall be solved and make sense? How about her hint at the end of the last season that the Doctor’s story would “end in absolute terror”? And will any upcoming explanation of why Sethu has already appeared, as a different character, in Gatwa’s first season in the episode “Boom” be logical to viewers too?
And then, of course, the new mystery consists of why Belinda Chandra cannot return home to the current day, even though the Tardis is trying to do so.
You just hope that — like the Tardis — it manages to stick the landing.
“Doctor Who” Season 2 debuts April 12 on BBC iPlayer in the U.K. and Disney+ internationally.
