Why a ‘flirty, cheeky’ new Doctor is what we all need now
AS DOCTOR WHO RETURNS TO TV, RACHAEL DAVIS CHATS TO STARS NCUTI GATWA AND MILLIE GIBSON AND WRITER RUSSELL T DAVIES
DOCTOR Who is back, and it promises to bring sci-fi thrills like you’ve never experienced, not to mention a whole lot of great fashion.
“Look out for a banging duffel coat and a Bobby hat in Episode Four,” teases Sex Education star Ncuti Gatwa who takes on the mantle of the Fifteenth Doctor.
Ncuti, 31, has become known for his fashion sense, appearing on many a red carpet dressed to the nines and it’s a trait he’s bringing to his incarnation of the Time Lord.
Over the decades, each Doctor has had their own distinct look, but Fifteen has a fantastic new outfit for each episode.
“Yeah, fashion – the Doctor, he loves his fashion. We tried to explore a lot of subcultures of British fashion through this iconic institutional character; we thought: ‘What a good opportunity to do so’. He’s got a lot of clothes.”
Fans first got a glimpse of Ncuti’s Doctor Who over the festive period. A new era of the BBC fan favourite was ushered in at the end of 2023, with Years and Years and It’s a Sin writer Russell T Davies, who was the original showrunner and head writer of the 2005 revival of the series, back at the helm.
Whovians were treated to special episodes featuring previous stars David Tennant and Catherine Tate before meeting the Fifteenth Doctor and his companion Ruby Sunday, played by Coronation Street’s Millie Gibson.
Now, it’s time for the main event: a new series with eight episodes of Time Lord fun, the first since the BBC struck a deal with Disney+.
Ncuti says that, in many ways, his portrayal honours the legacy of all those that have come before, sitting “on the shoulders of many an amazing actor that’s brought such cheekiness, eccentricity, compassion, curiosity as well”, while still having a fresh edge.
“Those are the traits that I say my Doctor has, but then each of the Doctors has that,” says the Rwandan-Scottish actor.
“You bring pizzazz!” grins costar Millie, 19.
“He’s a bit flirty,” adds Ncuti. “He’s a flirty guy. Cheeky.”
On Christmas Day 2023, in an episode titled The Church on Ruby Road, fans were introduced to the Doctor’s new companion Ruby Sunday – an orphan who was abandoned at a church on Ruby Road, hence her name. With Ruby now officially on board the Tardis, Millie says she’s excited for fans to get to know her better.
The actress says she loves Ruby’s “fieriness, and just her will
of throwing her personality headfirst into the Doctor’s world... and her relationship with the Doctor as well”.
“I think it’s not really been explored as platonic before,” she notes.
“Our kind of relationship is very special.” While Doctor Who has always been a family scifi programme with varying degrees of darkness and light, Russell T
Davies says that this new era leans more into levity and fun.
“You kind of look at the world and think: What do we need now? What do I want to watch of a night, of a morning, what do I want to sit down with?” says the showrunner.
“It’s a tough world, and I wanted something lighter and funner. Doctor Who has always had a great sense of joy and humour about it, but I kind of pushed it a little bit this time, just a bit. It’s still terrifying, and running for your life and saving your life, and the stakes are high all the time.
“But I just thought, especially for children - I think you keep hearing stories about children’s mental health, and I come from a family of teachers, I kind of follow that stuff a lot – and I thought: I want somewhere where they can go and be safe and happy and fun, simply to have fun.
“So there are moments of peril, and danger, and horror, even, but it’s properly a show that puts a smile on the face. And it always was.
“I think that’s Doctor Who at its best, really.”
Russell adds that this new incarnation of Doctor Who will be visually bigger and better than ever, thanks to a budget increase following the Disney+ deal.
“It is lovely... When we say: ‘Oh my god, there’s an alien army on the horizon’, now we can show the alien army on the horizon, before we just had to point,” he says.
“But, of course, that’s never what Doctor Who was about... we’re more about the Doctor, and a great one liner, and a smile, and the companion and her mum and having fun and being at home with it. So although we’re more impressive, I think, and more visual now, it’s never about that, really.
“Honestly, if they took the money away tomorrow, we’d still make a lovely, lovely show, just with these brilliant actors – they’d be brilliant sitting in a dark room!
“Having said that, we’ve got great aliens coming up, enormous monsters, space stations, vistas of outer space, we’ve got a colony world on an alien planet... I love that stuff... It’s exciting.”
The show’s stars say they revelled in being able to go to so many different pockets of history and corners of outer space across the series’ eight episodes, but there was one historical era that they really loved spending time in.
“Regency,” they exclaim in unison. “The amount of layers in that episode... I love it so much you go through so many emotions in that episode,” Millie adds.
“The end is heartbreaking,” teases Ncuti.
“Also, Boom, Episode Three... It’s ‘boom’. I feel like it’s where stakes are now added to the series, like, depth is now there. It’s not just all fun and games anymore.”
“What we’ve got coming up is the full range of adventures,” says Russell.
“We’ve got comedy stories, we’ve got music, we’ve got horror, we’ve got Welsh folk horror – that’s a very unusual territory for the show to go into. We’ve got chases, we’ve got the end of the world, and sometimes we’ve got something as simple as the end of a friendship...
“So it’s got the full emotional range. It’s got all the epic stuff, if you love that, but it’s got heart and humanity right at the centre of it.”