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    Has Disney+ Changed ‘Doctor Who’? U.S. and U.K. Fans Discuss.

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    The show has a bigger budget since the streaming behemoth got involved. Has that pleased its devotees?Last year, when Disney+ was spending big to promote “Doctor Who” on the New York subway, an advertising campaign wrapped trains with images of the incoming Doctor, Ncuti Gatwa, and his time traveling police box, the TARDIS.“Your cosmic joyride awaits,” the train wrapper read, and Gatwa’s hand stretched out to invite prospective viewers — many of whom would likely be new to the show — to join him.The BBC had been making “Doctor Who” since the 1960s, and it had been shown in the United States on BBC America and HBO Max in recent years. When Disney+ came onboard as a distribution partner and co-producer in 2023, it pumped up the budget for the show, whose special effects had become painfully outdated, and brought it to a wider audience in the U.S.This revamped “Doctor Who” returns for a new season on Friday, with Gatwa once more playing a modern kind of Doctor, who is in touch with his feelings. The Welsh screenwriter Russell T Davies, who also oversaw an earlier revamp in 2005, is also back again, as the showrunner.Like last season, the episodes will be available simultaneously for British viewers on the BBC’s streaming service, iPlayer, and on Disney+ for the rest of the world. This time around, that drop has been pushed back by eight hours, so that new episodes land at 3 a.m. Eastern time — perhaps in response to complaints from British fans, who had to stay up until midnight last season to watch it online. Britons who prefer to see a TV broadcast of “Doctor Who” (a Saturday night BBC staple) will have to avoid social media for a day if they want to avoid spoilers.Gatwa plays a modern kind of Doctor who is in touch with his feelings.Maxine Howells/BBC Studios/Disney/Bad WolfWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Doctor Who’ Finale Recap: Answers Through the Tears

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      Ncuti’s Gatwa’s first season as the Doctor closes with a typically ambitious episode.Season 1, Episode 8: ‘Empire of Death’If Ncuti Gatwa’s first full run of episodes manning the TARDIS has been characterized by anything, it’s big swings.Over the course of this season, the “Doctor Who” showrunner Russell T Davies has explored racism, queer love, the threat posed by technology and even fandom itself, with episodes ranging from the abstruse (“73 Yards”) to the strangely saccharine (“Space Babies,” which I have largely advised friends skip).The season has, at times, felt overstuffed, but it’s been the overhaul “Doctor Who” needed after losing some momentum under its previous showrunner, Chris Chibnall. Davies’s ambition is undeniable, and the penultimate episode — in which the evil god Sutekh returned after nearly 50 years — was one of the boldest, scariest “Doctor Who” episodes in years.While the finale doesn’t quite maintain the tension, “Empire of Death” is still an effective and satisfying end to the season. The episode opens with several loose ends to tie up: Sutekh needs to be stopped, and we still need to discover the identities of Ruby’s mothe and her neighbor Mrs. Flood (Anita Dobson).The action picks back up in medias res, with Sutekh’s hollow-faced, red-eyed servants Susan (Susan Twist) and Harriet (Genesis Lynea) uncurling their palms and blowing out a brown dust that turns everyone it touches to ash. Kate (Jemma Redgrave) and her team at UNIT, Britain’s supersecret extraterrestrial task force, are quickly destroyed.Kate, played by Jemma Redgrave, and her team at UNIT run Britain’s supersecret extraterrestrial task force.Bad Wolf/BBC StudiosWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Ncuti Gatwa Brings Millennial Emotion to ‘Doctor Who’

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      “Give-ING! That dress is giving!” said Ncuti Gatwa with a burst of unbridled laughter. The newest Doctor Who had been shooting the same scene for several hours in Cardiff, Wales, where hangar-like spaces were teeming with crew and filled with sets and equipment for the show. (Yes, Whovians, the TARDIS was parked nearby.) Now, at the director’s request, the new Doctor was improvising.Gatwa (whose first name is pronounced “Shoo-ti”) laughs a lot, often at himself. “Why do I keep moving this footstool?” he asked a few minutes later as he tried to get into position for yet another take. “Because the art department isn’t here to do it for you,” teased Varada Sethu, who joins the Doctor and his current companion Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson) for some adventures in Gatwa’s second season. “I have to do everything myself!” cried Gatwa in a mock-tragic tone, before another eruption of mirth.Born in Rwanda and raised in Scotland, Gatwa, 31, made his name playing the effervescent Eric in Netflix’s “Sex Education.” But the lead role in “Doctor Who,” a British institution about a time-traveling alien and his human companion that has been a BBC stalwart for 60 years, has taken him to another level of fame.(Conveniently, the doctor periodically dies and is regenerated in a different physical form; Gatwa is the 15th Doctor, following Matt Smith, David Tennant and Jodie Whittaker.)Gatwa stepped into the role of the 15th Doctor in the most recent season of “Doctor Who.”Bad Wolf/BBC StudiosThe show — which first ran between 1963 and 1989 — was revived in 2005 and today has an exceptionally diverse, intergenerational fan base. But the current season, which ends on June 21, has ushered in a new era for the show, with Disney+ now a co-producer alongside the BBC and Gatwa the show’s first Black lead actor, with a distinctly fabulous vibe.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Doctor Who’ Episode 7 Recap: God of All Gods

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      In the first part of the season finale, a terrifying enemy from the Doctor’s past returns, as mysteries start to be solved.Season 1, Episode 7: ‘The Legend of Ruby Sunday’Over six decades, “Doctor Who” has introduced many villains — including big hitters like the Cybermen (first introduced in 1966) and memorable one-off monsters like the gas-mask wearing Empty Child (2005) — as the Doctor’s most fearsome enemy.But in “The Legend of Ruby Sunday,” the first episode in the season’s two-part finale, it seems his ultimate nemesis might finally have been identified — or rather, rediscovered. It turns out the mysterious villain who’s been pulling the strings this season (“the one who waits”) was first fought by Tom Baker’s Fourth Doctor back in 1975.This reveal is genuinely fear-inducing. But it’s the combination of Russell T Davies’s pacey, tricksy script and the show’s newly lavish production values that makes Episode 7 such a bone-chilling adventure — one far scarier, far more ambitious, than I expected from the show’s Disney era.As the finale opens, two mysteries, which Davies has threaded throughout the season, hang in the air. There’s the question of Ruby’s (Millie Gibson) back story, including the identity of her birth mother. And what about the mysterious woman (Susan Twist) who keeps popping up wherever the Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) and Ruby travel?These questions are on the Doctor’s mind as the TARDIS crashes into the headquarters of the United Intelligence Taskforce, or UNIT, Britain’s supersecret extraterrestrial task force. He’s greeted by the organization’s head, Kate Lethbridge-Stewart (Jemma Redgrave), and her team, including the 13-year-old scientific prodigy Morris (Lenny Rush).Kate Lethbridge-Stewart, played by Jemma Redgrave, runs UNIT, Britain’s supersecret extraterrestrial task force.Bad Wolf/BBC StudiosWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Doctor Who’ Episode 4 Recap: Now You See Her

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      A strong episode focuses on Ruby, the Doctor’s companion, and the mysterious older woman who starts following her from a distance.Season 1, Episode 4: ‘73 Yards’Let’s get the easy bit out of the way. “73 Yards” is not just the best episode of the season so far, but also the strongest story “Doctor Who” has produced in years — despite the Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) hardly featuring.That’s not to say the decade-spanning story’s success depends on Gatwa’s absence. Yes, Episode 4 gives Millie Gibson space to break out of her companion role for the first time, and she gives a nuanced performance well beyond her 19 years.But it’s Russell T Davies’s ambitious, unpredictable script that will ensure a place for “73 Yards” in the Whoniverse history books. The episode constantly wrong-foots viewers, plays with folk stories and horror tropes, and finds a genuinely terrifying villain in a nuclear-warmongering politician.“We are in Wales. Spectacular!” shouts the Doctor as the TARDIS materializes on a craggy cliff face. For international viewers, it’s a swift introduction to a nation that has long been associated with “Doctor Who”: Davies is Welsh, and the show is a former BBC Wales production.In a seemingly throwaway comment, the Doctor mentions a future prime minister, a Welshman named Roger ap Gwilliam, who will lead Britain to “the brink of nuclear war” in the 2040s. “Sorry, spoilers,” he says, shooting Ruby a smile.The Doctor, played by Ncuti Gatwa, and Ruby start the episode on a cliff in Wales.Bad Wolf/BBC StudiosWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Doctor Who’ Season Premiere Recap: Back in the Groove

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      The new season, written by Russell T Davies and starring Ncuti Gatwa as the 15th Doctor, opens with a double episode premiere.Season 1, Episodes 2 and 3: ‘Space Babies’ and ‘The Devil’s Chord’Russell T Davies, the showrunner for the new season of “Doctor Who,” had a tough task ahead of him.How do you convince longstanding fans that this British institution of a show is back in safe hands after several disappointing seasons, while also introducing a new international audience to a sci-fi series steeped in 60 years of history?In the premiere double bill of “Doctor Who,” you can feel Davies grappling with these questions, with largely successful results. After the show was canceled in 1989, Davies rebooted “Doctor Who” in 2005, manning the ship during Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant’s tenures as the time-traveling Doctor. Under Davies, “Doctor Who” was not only popular, but, dare I say it, kind of cool.We met Davies’s new Doctor, played by the Scottish-Rwandan actor Ncuti Gatwa, last year in the show’s 60th anniversary episodes (and somewhat confusingly, this new season’s first episode aired as a stand-alone Christmas special). This is also the first season to debut on Disney+ in the United States, and since the rules governing time and space in the “Whoniverse” are notoriously complicated, there’s a lot of world building to do in less than two hours of TV.Typically, a “Doctor Who” two-parter would feature a shared story or location, but here we have two separate adventures. The first episode, “Space Babies,” does much of the heavy lifting to set up the season, so that by the time “The Devil’s Chord” rolls around, “Doctor Who” can do what it does best: take the audience on rip-roaring, high-voltage adventures.“Space Babies” picks up where the Christmas episode, “The Church on Ruby Road,” left off. The Doctor’s new companion Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson) enters the TARDIS, his spaceship disguised as a police box, with lots of questions about where he comes from. It’s the Doctor’s job to take her, and any first-time viewers, through the basic Time Lord fact sheet: He comes from the planet Gallifrey and is the last of his species, an orphan like Ruby; he has been alive for thousands of years; and he spends his time traveling through time and space. As introductions go, it’s not subtle, but it gets the job done.Ruby is human, TARDIS technology confirms, but she remains a question mark we can expect the season to return to later.Bad Wolf/BBC StudiosWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      What to Watch this Weekend: A Fun Biographical Drama

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      “Nolly,” premiering Sunday on PBS, stars Helena Bonham Carter as Noele Gordon, a pioneer of British television.Helena Bonham Carter stars in “Nolly.”Quay Street ProductionsHelena Bonham Carter stars in this three-part “Masterpiece” biographical drama about Noele Gordon, a pioneer of British television. “Stars in” might be understating it: She’s in nearly every scene, trembling, laughing, sobbing, scolding, scheming, singing “Rose’s Turn.” Her chin tilt is the very axis on which the show spins.Gordon, known as Nolly, was the first woman on color television, and she was a presenter, an early TV executive and eventually the lead of the long-running, low-budget soap opera “Crossroads.” “Nolly,” which premieres Sunday at 9 p.m. Eastern on PBS, focuses its story on her firing from “Crossroads” after nearly 20 years as its star and creative anchor. She’s blindsided, as are the show’s millions of fans. She’s also heartbroken: The end of her character and the end of her self are practically one and the same. She pleads with a producer not to kill her character off. “It’s not a real death,” he snaps. “But still,” she says. It is.“Nolly” makes good use of that overlap between on-camera and off-camera life, how people — women especially — are yanked around or cast out within their own lives. Nolly delivers multiple righteous monologues standing up for her maligned show, for soaps in general, for women’s interests, for those who are overlooked and rejected, especially her.Created and written by Russell T Davies and directed by Peter Hoar, “Nolly” is mercifully light on its feet. Corrective, finally-getting-their-due sagas can sometimes feel like cultural penance, a televised hair shirt to abrade us for our blind spots. “Nolly,” though, is fun and savvy, and its tone lands right between “Slings & Arrows” and “Hacks” — smart, cutting, with characters (and characters playing characters) who are simultaneously ridiculous and brilliant.What the show gains in affability it perhaps loses in scope and depth. At just three episodes, it feels like hearing only the beautiful coda of a fuller work. (“Fosse/Verdon,” for example, had eight episodes.) As Nolly pleads her case that she has more to give — more star power to share, more story to tell — so too does “Nolly.” More

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      ‘Doctor Who’ is Back. Here’s What You Need to Know.

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      The British sci-fi show is celebrating its 60th anniversary with three specials featuring some familiar faces.It’s rare for a television show to celebrate its 60th anniversary. It’s even rarer for a show to be entering a new era on its 60th anniversary.But “Doctor Who,” the British sci-fi show that began airing on the BBC in 1963, is in a period of expansion. Three upcoming specials, celebrating the show’s latest milestone, will arrive weekly on Disney+ in the United States from Saturday, as part of a deal between the streamer and the BBC.And then a new season, starring Ncuti Gatwa (“Sex Education”) in the title role, will arrive next year on Disney+ (and the BBC in Britain) following an extra Christmas Day episode. Russell T Davies, who relaunched the show in 2005, is the showrunner for them all.“Doctor Who” has decades of adventures, villains and complex story lines for dedicated fans to immerse themselves in. But if you’re new to the show, here’s what you need to know before tuning into the upcoming specials.A Quick RecapDavid Tennant, right, as the Doctor in Season 4 of “Doctor Who.” Tennant will rejoin the show for the 60th anniversary specials. Adrian Rogers/BBCThe Doctor is a Time Lord from a planet called Gallifrey, who travels across time and space in a Tardis, an unassuming spacecraft that looks like an old British police box, which members of the public used to call the authorities. His mission is to protect Earth, and the humans who live there, from a variety of threats.“The Doctor is the nerd, the well-read misfit, who isn’t particularly physical, who still wins the day,” said Toby Hadoke, an actor who hosts a podcast dedicated to the show. “The Doctor always offers hope for the person who feels slightly left out.”David Tennant, who played the Doctor between 2005 and 2010, and will be back as the star of the 60th anniversary specials, said that he thought the show’s appeal was “the way the domestic and the simplistic and everyday meets the fantastical and the absurd.” In the show’s world, “the most extraordinary things become very relatable,” he said.The show’s longevity is partly thanks to the fact the Doctor can “regenerate,” meaning a new actor can step into the role, but the show also experiments with genre, and the same season can include a historical drama one episode and a modern political satire the next.“Every time the Tardis door opens and the team steps out to a new planet, or a new time, or a new story, then it begins again,” Davies, the showrunner, said.The Doctor usually travels with a regular human companion, who in the 60th anniversary specials is played by the comedian Catherine Tate.Where Are We With the Plot?Jodie Whittaker became the first woman to play the Doctor in Season 13.BBCAt the end of the last season, Jodie Whittaker, the 13th incarnation of the Doctor, regenerated.Traditionally, a new actor plays each incarnation, and Gatwa is confirmed to be the 15th Doctor. But for the upcoming 60th anniversary episodes, Whittaker has turned back into Tennant, who was the 10th Doctor from 2005 to 2010, and then again for a 50th anniversary special in 2013.Rather than reprising the 10th Doctor, in the upcoming specials, Tennant will portray a 14th Doctor, the first time an actor has played two distinct Doctors. (Keeping up?)“Who is to say you can’t do this?” Davies said. “There’s absolutely no doubt that it can happen.”Tate will also reprise her role as Donna Noble, the Doctor’s companion. But in their last adventure together, which aired in 2008, the Doctor wiped Donna’s memory, and with it all recollection of their time together. If Donna remembers him, she will die. And yet they will reunite in the upcoming specials.“I had left our heroes in a tragic situation separated forever, unable to ever be happy again,” Davies said. “That’s begging for a final act, isn’t it?”How to Watch in the U.S.Ncuti Gatwa will star as the Doctor in the show’s upcoming season.Tolga Akmen/EPA, via ShutterstockWhile “Doctor Who” has aired in the United States for a number of years, including on PBS, the Sci Fi Channel and BBC America, the new international distribution deal with Disney+ could make the show more accessible to a casual audience. For new viewers, the 60th anniversary specials will begin with a prologue recapping the Doctor and Donna’s story.If you would like to dive deeper into the back catalog, older “Doctor Who” episodes are available to stream in the United States on Max or BritBox.An Inclusive Sci-Fi ShowYasmin Finney will join the cast of “Doctor Who” in the new season.Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images“Doctor Who” has long been notable among sci-fi franchises for its onscreen diversity. Whittaker became the show’s first female Doctor in 2017, and in 2020, Jo Martin played an incarnation of the Doctor known as the Fugitive Doctor, the show’s first Black doctor. And Yasmin Finney, a trans actor who played Elle in the Netflix show “Heartstopper,” is also joining the cast.“The show has always been good at appreciating inclusivity, and cherishing the different,” said Tennant, who added that he grew up as a “skinny bloke with specs in Scotland, who didn’t feel like the coolest person in the room.”But “the Doctor celebrates uncoolness,” he added. “And that was something I appreciated.” More

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      Ncuti Gatwa Is the New Doctor on ‘Doctor Who’

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      Mr. Gatwa, a star of the Netflix series “Sex Education,” will be the first Black man to play the lead character in the enduring BBC science fiction franchise.Ncuti Gatwa, a star of the Netflix series “Sex Education,” will be the 14th actor and the first Black man to play the lead role of the Doctor in “Doctor Who,” the long-running British science fiction franchise about a time-traveling adventurer, the BBC announced on Sunday.He replaces Jodie Whittaker, who announced her departure last July after three seasons as the show’s first female doctor.Mr. Gatwa, 29, a Rwandan-Scottish actor, plays Eric Effiong, a gay man navigating his sexuality and identity in a religious Nigerian family, in “Sex Education,” the hit British teen comedy-drama series on Netflix.“It feels really amazing, it’s a true honor,” Mr. Gatwa told the BBC on Sunday as he arrived for the EE British Academy Film Awards, commonly known as the BAFTAs, where he was nominated for best male performance in a comedy program for his work on “Sex Education.”“This role is an institution,” he said of the Doctor. “It’s so iconic and it means a lot to so many people, including myself, and so it makes everyone feel seen as well. It’s something that everyone can enjoy, so I feel very grateful to have had the baton handed over and I’m going to try to do my best.”“Doctor Who” fans celebrated the news on Twitter on Sunday, with many expressing their excitement to see a doctor who resembles them. Others noted the low-key nature of the announcement: a tweet followed by a news release that the BBC shared on social media. In July 2017, the BBC announced Ms. Whittaker’s selection in a commercial that aired after the Wimbledon men’s final.In a statement shared by the BBC, Mr. Gatwa noted the importance of “Doctor Who” to fans worldwide, and acknowledged feeling “a mix of deeply honored, beyond excited and of course a little bit scared.”“Unlike the Doctor,” he added, “I may only have one heart, but I am giving it all to this show.”The BBC has aired 39 seasons of “Doctor Who” over nearly 60 years. The show, about an alien known as the Doctor who travels through time and space in an old-fashioned British police telephone booth called the TARDIS, has cultivated a legion of dedicated fans who call themselves “Whovians.”The Doctor regenerates into new people, and in turn, the show replaces its lead actor every few years. Though transitions to new Doctors are expected and eagerly anticipated by fans, the show’s previous attempts to change and diversify have not been universally embraced. When Ms. Whittaker’s turn as the Doctor was announced in 2017, some fans adopted the hashtag #NotMyDoctor and questioned why the character had suddenly changed genders.Ms. Whittaker’s final episode is yet to come, Russell T. Davies, the series showrunner, said in a statement. It will air in the fall during the BBC’s centenary celebrations, according to a trailer previewing the episode.Mr. Gatwa will make his debut as the Time Lord in 2023. More