For Doctor Who fans, the introduction of a new Doctor is always an event in and of itself. After months of teasing and set photos, yesterday’s third and final 60th anniversary special formally introduced the world to Ncuti Gatwa’s Fifteenth Doctor.
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To mark the occasion, BBC released three videos focused on the new Who era he’s ushering in. The first hypes up his debut solo adventure, The Church on Ruby Road special airing on Christmas. In it, the Doctor is enjoying his new lease on life and finally going to the club, only to have his fun interrupted by a group of goblin pirates with a flying ship. It’s here where he’ll first cross paths with his companion-to-be, Ruby Sunday. Played by Millie Gibson, Ruby was abandoned as a wee baby on Christmas Eve, and like the Doctor, she ends up getting entangled in the pirates’ shenanigans. The special looks like a ton of fun, and honestly, after swinging off a pirate ship in the sky onto solid ground, wouldn’t you also want to go on adventures with a time-traveler?
In the second video, Gatwa offers a first look at his brand new Sonic Screwdriver. Along with looking more hi-tech and alien than ever, it comes with what’s essentially a USB port, along with a proverb from the actor’s native country of Rwanda, but written in Galifreyan: “The sharpness of the tongue defeats the sharpness of the warrior.” Despite how different it looks from the previous iterations, Gatwa assured that it remains “a magnificent piece of Gallifreyan technology that helps the Doctor through all his scrapes.”
As for the third video, it contains spoilers for yesterday’s special, so you if you haven’t seen “The Giggle,” it’s best to turn back now. For everyone else, there’s a spoiler tag below the video.
“The Giggle” marks Doctor Who’s first-ever bi-generation: rather than transforming into a single entity as is normally his MO, the Doctor pulls a mitosis and splits himself into Gatwa’s Fifteen while retaining his current-ish form as David Tennant’s Fourteen. In a video looking back on the special’s production, Tennant noted how surprising the status quo shift was, adding that both actors had basically just met before they had to get “very intimate, very quickly” with each other.
For Gatwa, getting to work with Tennant was a neat little bit of serendipity: he credited Tennant (and his Hamlet performance specifically) as one of the reasons he took up acting in the first place. “To be there on that day with him and Catherine [Tate], and faces that I grew up with… was just very, very overwhelming,” said Gatwa. “David as the Doctor and myself as the Doctor was just so much fun.”
While we know a little bit of what’s to come with the Fifteenth Doctor, the future of Fourteen is more up in the air. He’s living with Donna Noble and her daughter Rose (Yasmin Finney), and has a TARDIS of his own that’s now wheelchair-accessible. Tennant claims to not know anything, but showrunner Russell T. Davies was a little more concrete: “It’s not much of a tease,” he said. “David[’s Doctor] is parked, he is living. For once, we’ve got a happy Doctor who’s no longer saving the universe for a happy life.”
Regardless of whether or not they’re being truthful, it’s a brand new day for Doctor Who, which returns on Christmas Day with The Church on Ruby Road. Gatwa’s inaugural season is expected to hit sometime in 2024.
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