Ncuti Gatwa’s Doctor Who is already swapping out companions, apparently
Millie Gibson is reportedly out, and Varada Sethu in, once Gatwa wraps up his first season as the Doctor
Aux News Doctor Who
Things are moving fast over in the world of Doctor Who these days, with reports emerging today that returning series showrunner Russell T. Davies—the man who, once upon a time, brought us the rare single-season Doctor in the form of Christopher Eccleston’s turn on the revived sci-fi series—has cast Varada Sethu as the new companion of Ncuti Gatwa’s 15th Doctor. And while all of this is still popping up in a somewhat murky rumor space, with all reporting from the Daily Mirror and credited to unnamed sources, it also sounds like Sethu will be coming in, not in addition to Millie Gibson, who debuted as the Doctor’s latest companion less than a month ago, but as her replacement, as soon as the show’s yet-to-be-released latest season has aired.
The reports strongly suggest that Gibson’s tenure on the series will be a one-and-done thing, a fate that’s befallen something like half of the show’s “main” companions throughout the revived series’ run. (For every Billie Piper, who survived Eccleston’s tenure to have a vastly different vibe with David Tennant in the following season, there’s a Freema Agyeman or Pearl Mackie, out after a single year—and while we’re being pedantic, you can also toss Catherine Tate into that one-run pile, although she got a sort of second-chance stint with Tennant in late 2023.) It’s somewhat surprising, given that Gibson got such an enthusiastic launch into the series with its recent Christmas special, but such is life in Doctor Who—the franchise where no actor is ever truly safe.
Although she had a small part in the latest Jurassic World movie, Dominion, Sethu will likely be best known to American audiences for her role in recent Star Wars series Andor; she played Cinta Kaz, the “stone cold and fearless” fighter who’s an integral part of the heist team in the second act of the show’s first season.
67 Comments
You’re pretty bad at being pedantic since Martha had several appearances in Season 4, not to mention Donna’s appearance before her first season. Bill is the only companion contained to one season, unless you hold to the Episode 0 designation for holiday specials, which I’ve always thought was dumb (Aside from The Christmas Invasion, all the specials have functioned as epilogues or codas to the season prior, not as prologues to the coming season).In fact, by all appearances Ruby is set to appear in Season 15 as well, so it seems like the normal RTD approach of rotating the companions while possibly keeping one very special one in reserve to come back later with even greater dramatic tension. And people complain about Moffat’s impossible girl.
Remember that nerdy guy Nine and Rose picked up in the Dalek episode, took on one adventure and then dumped because he was trying to make money off his knowledge of the future? That’s what I call a one and done. (Though you could always bring him back as a villain; have him stewing for years over being abandoned until he finds a way to get revenge.)
Amusingly, if you want that story check out the Prisoners of Time comic miniseries that IDW released for the show’s 50th anniversary.
There’s actually a Doctor Who comic which gives Adam this precise arc – he’s so distraught over being rejected by the Doctor that he travels through time and kidnaps every companion, past and present. Harbo Wholmes recently did a video about it.
I’m not sure if she’s going to be back next season or not. They could dump her in the Christmas special, if they dump her at all.
As mentioned, the Daily Mirror doesn’t have the greatest reputation for journalistic accuracy.
Kids want to see the original Jamie back as the companion
Pretty typical. The companion with an unusual recent run was Yaz, I believe the only companion in the entire history of the show to stay with a doctor through their entire multi-season regeneration
Yet someone she has the least depth of any of the one seasoners(and change for some) of Martha, Donna and Billie.
I started to like Yaz a lot better after she fell in love with The Doctor and started calling her on some of her secretive, manipulative behavior. It felt like the writers figured out that character way too late.
Yaz was a favorite of mine but she always deserved a little more spotlight than she got IMO
She was constantly shortchanged for Ryan and old guy when the “fam” was together. Which is when Ryan and Graham left I though, alright!Then chibners added another old white guy. And then approximately 17 ersatz companions over flux… Siiigh
I really loved Yaz. And feel completely robbed we never got a Thirteen/Yaz kiss.
And while all of this is still popping up in a somewhat murky rumor space, with all reporting from the Daily Mirror and credited to unnamed sources,
It’s amusing how the Mirror “reported” this yesterday and then, seemingly because no one could get a confirmation or denial from the BBC or RTD’s company, today everyone’s just propagating the Mirror’s “news” with some articles not even bothering to qualify it’s a rumor.
Guess content’s content. … But it’s the Mirror ffs.
I’m ok with this. Millie was the weakest part of the xmas special, in my opinion. Was hoping for a male companion, but it seems the doctor does prefer women, no matter the Doctor’s gender.
Well, there’s nothing saying that the next Doctor can’t be a woman again. So why not a male companion as well? How would the relationship dichotomy play out, though?
It’d be fine. The writing doesn’t need to make a male Doctor/female companion or female Doctor/male companion relationship be anything other than good friends that care about each other and go on adventures.
Shipping is fine for fans to do, but it should be waaaaay down the list of priorities for writers of the show.
Just as an aside, regarding the racist that accidentally got ungreyed above in a separate sub-thread, he’s the one that posts long lines of excrement porn gifs when the mood strikes. He just changed the name of the account. We’ll have to be careful about ungreying him.
I noticed them in the greys and then suddenly they weren’t, no stars or replies or anything.
I don’t know how they were ungreyed in the first place.
Is that what it takes to get out of the greys these days? Sheesh.
Even if you have some specially talented woman who can become a doctor, obviously the assistant is going to be a woman. Men don’t fit in subservient roles. Duh.
What I wonder is why nuWho is so averse to having one actor play the Doctor for more than three seasons.
I suspect it’s a combination of it getting harder to bring back an established Doctor after three seasons (by that point the actor can demand a lot more money and their profile is big enough they are getting offers for other roles which will create scheduling conflicts) and because the original run of Doctor Who showed that if a single actor stays in the role too long both the character and the show get a little off.
The show also seems to frequently take time off between seasons, so three seasons doesn’t really equate to three years anymore. I’m fine with it, would rather be left wanting more than grow tired of any Doctor/companion combo I was initially fond.
It is a tradition among Doctor Who lead actors since Patrick Troughton, with a couple of prominent exceptions, that the actors depart after three seasons to avoid typecasting
Wasn’t the only Doctor that did Tom Baker?
Tom Baker did seven seasons, Jon Pertwee did five. Tennant did three seasons plus a “season of specials” in 2009 that was basically a fourth season and then of course the recent series of specials as 14.
Jon Pertwee did too.
Tom Baker and Jon Pertwee were the two doctors to break the three season rule
Tom Baker and Jon Pertwee. Tom did 7 seasons. Pertwee did 5. All the rest are 3-ish (with the odd round of special finales or season overlap episodes here and there) except for Christopher Eccleston who only did 1 because of friction with the staff, and Colin Baker, who only got 2 because an entire season of his was canceled and then he was later unceremoniously fired during the crisis mode towards the tail end of the classic series.
Actors like variety and worry about being typecast. The show is very high profile but from all accounts an absolute beast to make — Whitaker is the first actor to leave the part without sustaining a serious physical injury in over a decade — and it only pays more or less standard BBC scale. If by year three your agent isn’t sending you daily reminders that you’re now famous enough to audition for Hollywood parts, your agent is incompetent. I’d imagine Matt Smith gets paid more per episode for House of the Dragon than he did per season of Doctor Who.
I’m not sure Smith was as high profile as he’d have liked since his film career seems to have fizzled unless you count the tour de force performance in the blockbuster It’s Morbin’ Time.
He’s had some good TV roles, though.
Even more, I want to see a nuWho Doctor stay between showrunners. The notion that when a showrunner changes, the Doctor must too is getting too entrenched.
Although technically I suppose it’s correct, it’s kind of funny to think of David Tennant ( 51 episodes, 2005-2010, 2013, 2023) and Jodi Whitaker (31 episodes, 2018-2022) as having done the same number of series.
GTFO whitey. The browner the better!
Gray suits you better.
Imagine being so insecure about your own skin color that something like this sets you off. Just sad really
As a gray skinned fellow I take offense to this line of thought.
Too much colloidal silver?
Imagine thinking that “trolling crustfuck” is a personality.
Snowflake
Something tells me you don’t really like or understand Doctor Who anyway.
Abort yourself.
Cry harder bitch!
honestly? good. while I liked how the Moffat era had longer companion arcs that really allowed the performers to settle into a comfortable groove, I think Chibnall’s era got way too comfortable with itself. (even when Graham left, he was just replaced with a different boring aging white dude!)one-season-and-done (with the opportunity to return for guest appearances in later seasons) feels like the best option.also, the real news is that, assuming there isn’t a third cast member we haven’t been told about yet, this is the first time all of Doctor Who’s main cast are POC! that’s pretty neat, I think!
Ha! I wrote similar above Graham left, here’s another old white guy! 🤣🤣
At least Graham was played by the one true ringer on the cast. The character was as sketchy as any of Chibnall’s characters, but Bradley Walsh could be counted on to make any scene he was in feel a lot more interesting than it actually was.John Bishop… not so much.
THANK YOU!
I loved Graham! Dude elevated every scene he was in. I know Yaz got a little better, but I would have loved to see the Doctor fuck about with an old dude as the main companion for a season. Graham was great!
I loved Graham, but Dan felt like an entirely different white guy. I’m not even being sarcastic, Dan was amusingly incompetent, and it took him like seven or eight episodes total (and technically two or three adventures) to leave.
“boring aging white dude”Ahh yes, casual racism continues to be a thing.
Good to see a Doctor Who cast who most Brits can identify with.
They never should have cast Mel Gibson in the first place.
Racist-ass Mellie Gibson.
Do they have the same eyebrows? Is that a clue?
I wonder if the switch is Disney poking their oar into casting decisions, to get their players in? It has uncomfortable “‘Professor Spacetime’ remake” vibes. If Sethu shows up with a tennis racket, I’m done.
Varada Sethu has worked basically her entire career in UK TV; this seems like a premature worry.
I wasn’t doubting her bona fides – if you’ve got an episode of either “Doctors”, “The Bill”, or “Casualty” under your belt, you’re a proper British actor, them’s the rules.But I also saw Disney’s finger marks all over the Christmas specials, and I can’t imagine they’d ever want to just be a passive distribution partner without planning to eventually own the Doctor outright later on.
Disney just has streaming rights. They aren’t part of the productioin aspect of the show.
Disney’s name showed at the end of the UK broadcast right alongside the BBC’s and Bad Wolf’s. No way on Raxacoricofallapatorius would they just let themselves be a silent and passive distribution partner.
Joel Collins literally denied any Disney creative involvement 2 days ago.
What part of this is Disney and not RTD?
RTD had a new doctor or companion every series/season he wrote.
Some companions didn’t last past an episode.
Odd that Rose isn’t the new companion, or at least one of. Kind of surprising she’s been a one(episode) and done
Rose is only, what, 15? The Doctor will never have a full-time companion who’s a minor, unless it’s a “Lost in Space” type deal where he has a family he’s trying to get back home. Which, no. Or they decide to turn it into Lone Wolf and Cub, which, again, no.Plus, RTD is big on including the companion’s family as part of the supporting cast, so that would really hinge on Catherine Tate’s availability (not to mention the fact that Donna’s hanging out with Fourteen, so you also have to think about writing around David Tennant’s absence if if the girl he considers his niece is a staple of the show (althought it could be a fun recurring gag where she has to be careful not to drop in spoilers about her adventures with Fifteen while hanging around Fourteen).
Yasmin Finney is almost certainly pre-committed to do the third season of Heartstopper — I doubt there was any way they could have made the scheduling work for a full-time gig as the Doctor’s companion, but it seems like a lock that we’ll see Rose again in a holiday special or something.
I’m okay with this. Rose Tyler will always be my most despised companion, especially with Ten, but I can’t even remember anything about Millie. Is the characters name Millie or is that the actress? At least Rose is memorable in the worst way.
I really liked Martha’s return run during the 4th season. She was a companion who left on her own terms and then forged a new path where she could continue to help people.
I kinda hate how news sources here in the UK have been reporting this. They keep saying she’s been axed. She’s filmed an entire series and is supposedly in 4 of the 8 episodes of the following season. It sounds more like her character’s arc finished. I wish the BBC would clarify some things because she’s very young and allowing news outlets to frame it like she was canned could be detrimental to her career.
I’ve seen this headline flying all over the internet, often written in the most melodramatic terms possible, and it’s honestly baffling to me. Several of the companions on modern Doctor Who only stick around for a single season, then move on to some other project. Freema Agyeman, Katherine Tate, and Pearl Mackie spring to mind. They have a complete character arc and then they’re out, with the occasional cameo episode down the road. Arguably the most popular modern companion, Donna Noble (Katherine Tate) only had season 4, then appeared in Tennant’s final special briefly, and has recently returned for the 3 60th specials 15 years later. It’s not unusual or scandalous at all. It’s fun to see a Doctor bounce off of multiple different companion’s personalities over the course of their 3-ish years in the role. I’m guessing Millie had a blast, got a satisfying arc, and left on good terms. Must be a slow news week.