When
one
Doctor
biologically
passes
the
torch
to
another,
they
do
so
in
fire:
a
cascading,
revitalizing
burst
of
energy
that
blinds,
dazzles,
destroys,
changes,
and
births
in
equal
measure.
Although
Ncuti
Gatwa’s
Fifteenth
Doctor
already
went
through
all
that—of
a
sort—late
last
year
for
Doctor
Who’s
60th
anniversary
and
at
Christmas,
his
debut
season
feels
like
the
show
doing
exactly
that
itself:
a
rebirth
that
is
bursting
at
the
seams
with
energy.
The
first
two
episodes
of
what
is
now
“season
one”
of
Doctor
Who
once
again
(not
season
14
by
2005
reckonings,
and
certainly
not
season
40,
going
all
the
way
back
to
1963)—“Space
Babies”
and
“The
Devil’s
Chord,”
both
written
by
returning
showrunner
Russell
T.
Davies—operate
in
the
a
traditional
format
that
Davies
utilized
throughout
his
previous
time
on
the
show.
One
trip
forward
in
time,
one
trip
back.
It’s
a
way
to
not
just
introduce
a
new
companion,
in
this
case
Millie
Gibson’s
Ruby
Sunday,
to
Doctor
Who’s
inherent
premise,
but
a
way
to
re-center
each
season
to
the
audience
as
well
from
the
get-go,
in
Doctor
Who’s
purest
form,
so
it
can
once
again
show
off
what
it’s
capable
of.
It’s
just
that
this
time,
it’s
got
the
budget
to
match,
giving
it
all
the
slick
sheen
and
dazzle
of
a
show
that’s
never
had
a
Disney
budget
before.
Image: BBC/Disney
What it’s capable of is, in fact, a lot of fun. While there’s certainly threat and menace in both episodes (the latter’s villain, Maestro, played by Jinkx Monsoon, is a pitch-perfect performance of camp audacity and venomous evil in equal measure), the pervasive sense throughout this new dawn for Doctor Who is a sense of unyielding adventure. Even when it’s dark, even when it’s sad, the Doctor and Ruby are bonded by this shared yearning to see more of what’s out there, driven by this connection they feel together, one as the last of their people, the other searching for their birth parents. With fresh eyes for both Time Lord and human alike, their wanderlust is infectious, suffusing Doctor Who with that aforementioned energy, something it feels like it hasn’t always had in recent years.
This infectious charm is no clearer on display in the remarkable spark between Gatwa and Gibson. More often than not practically shrieking their lines at each other with delight, the duo are even better in these two episodes than they were feeling each other out over the course of their first meeting at Christmas in “The Church on Ruby Road”, simmering with a gleeful potential that has the Doctor and Ruby practically pinging about the screen at all times. Even in the quiet moments, the more emotive and demure scenes, that chemistry is electric: the Doctor has had friends before, mates even, as Donna Noble famously misheard the 10th Doctor say. But the Fifteenth Doctor and Ruby have a casualness with each other that makes them effortless feel like equals—not in the sense that Ruby has something to prove to her new alien bestie, but in the sense they are immediately drawn incredibly close as peers that understand each other, and understand what each of them needs out of this shared adventure.
Image: BBC/Disney
Davies’ scripts likewise match that energy—for better and worse. Both “Space Babies” and “The Devil’s Chord” move at a remarkable clip, and in an effortlessly breezy fashion. While this works highly in the favor of characterizing the Doctor and Ruby’s relationship together, it doesn’t quite always work in terms of presenting a few adventures that challenge the audience to think all that much about what’s actually happening on screen. You barely have time to, between the delectably chaotic storm Gatwa and Gibson wreak, and the stories bouncing from one moment to the next, almost like they’re hoping you don’t try to stop and think about the logistics of what’s going on for too long. It’s in a similar vein to “The Church on Ruby Road,” albeit with without the more explicitly fantastical bent of that story: these are broad episodes for broad audiences, ones that lean a little lighter and perhaps even sillier in tone than usual.
Not all of that lightness particularly works—there’s definitely a few moments in both episodes that feel like they lean a little too hard into camp slapstick, feeling a bit more awkward than they do charming—and that general vibe being the premiere of the season might bristle some Doctor Who fans who want something that leans a little more sci-fi and with a little more bite to it. But it’s also two episodes out of eight this season—and especially with a show that has such variation in genre and tone like Doctor Who, it’s hard to say if this is an indication of the season’s overall tone. Even if it was, on the whole it works more than it doesn’t, especially thanks to Gatwa and Gibson’s charismatic performances: it’s just good to be informed that the show’s not going to necessarily hit you with something more dark and cerebral right out of the gate.
Image: BBC/Disney
And really, again, isn’t that just like the Doctor’s regenerations have been for six decades now? A bright flash, a chaotic change, a brimming energy that pings about, and takes a little while to settle before they get stuck into the heady business of saving the universe? It’s more fitting that Doctor Who’s latest era hits the ground running in the manner it does—confident enough that it has enough energy to drag us along for the ride too, and get wrapped up in the same sense of adventure that its new heroes share. Time will tell, as it always does on Doctor Who, if the season can keep that energy and charisma even as it slows down, takes a breath, and lets itself think a little more. But what we’re starting with here as a lot of promise: just like that regeneration energy, it’s bursting with a potential that makes us hope that the future will be very bright indeed.
Doctor Who returns globally with a two-episode premiere Friday, May 10, at 7 p.m. ET on Disney+, and will broadcast through the BBC iPlayer at the same time in the UK, at 12 a.m. local time on Saturday, May 11, before broadcasting on BBC One later that day.
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