Doctor Who season 14 review: The sci-fi staple gets a bigger budget and zippier pace
As the Fifteenth Doctor, Ncuti Gatwa is all wide-eyed enthusiasm and buttery-smooth charm in the Disney+ series
TV Reviews Doctor Who
It feels as if we’ve waited forever for the new season of Doctor Who to drop. And sure, we knew the TARDIS was in the capable hands of the impossibly charismatic Fifteenth Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa, you were born to wield that sonic screwdriver!), but longtime fans couldn’t help but feel a little trepidation over the show’s move to Disney+. Would this make for lighter and fluffier fare than we’re used to? More singing? More impossibly sweet happy endings?
Well, we’ve only been offered a peek at the first two episodes, but it’s safe to say that the show, which kicks off its fourteenth season on May 10, does feel quite different than what’s come before. The budget is bigger, for starters, which means the Doctor doesn’t spend as much time wandering around London and Cardiff as he once did. The pace is zippier, too: Not to get all Moira Rose about it, but each episode rumbles along at a dangerously rapid velocity, with barely a moment for the Doctor (or viewers) to take a breath. And, as already hinted by showrunner Russell T Davies, the show takes a sly step towards the realm of fantasy, which is likely set to displease some hardcore sci-fi fans primarily because logic and scientific explanations (traditionally the bread and butter of the genre) aren’t always to be found in abundance.
Still, the Doctor and Ruby Sunday do what the Doc and his companions have always done best: travel across time and space, embarking on zany adventures all the way from Regency England to the cold and clinical Baby Farms (exactly what they sound like) of the future. Which means, yes, you can expect the dynamic duo to don costume after costume as they come face-to-face with the likes of the bogeyman and the Beatles, not to mention the Maestro (Jinkx Monsoon), a musical villain who just so happens to be part of a pantheon of playful and terrifyingly powerful gods.
Gatwa, as mentioned already, is a brilliant Doctor, all wide-eyed enthusiasm and buttery-smooth charm. Unlike the Doctors who came before him, Fifteen is also in possession of some much-needed self-awareness: This is a time-traveling alien who’s in tune with his emotions, recognizes when he’s afraid or when something’s off, and is far less prone to furious flare-ups as a result. It makes for a kinder hero, particularly as he even seems to better understand humans and their pesky need for connection. Indeed, he happily hands Ruby a fully-charged mobile phone without even needing to be asked, solely so she can calm her nerves and check in with her mum.
Millie Gibson, meanwhile, gives her all as the Doctor’s spirited companion and she makes for a believable character, asking the sort of questions (like, say, what might happen if she trod on a butterfly in the time of the dinosaurs) and making the sort of oh-so-human demands (why go witness the birth of Jesus Christ when you can go hang out at Abbey Road during the era of the Beatles?) that we, ourselves, might make of the Doctor if we were lucky enough to be granted access to the TARDIS.
That said, there’s no denying Ruby has a whiff of the “Impossible Girl” about her, by which we mean she’s less of a Rose Tyler or Donna Noble (ordinary women doing extraordinary things) and more of a Clara Oswin, Amy Pond, or even a Rey Palpatine, if you fancy getting all Star Wars about it. The Christmas Special—yes, the one with the singing goblins—made it clear that there’s more to our girl than meets the eye, and the new batch of episodes really leans into that. Hard. Whether viewers find this extra layer to be a delicious added whiff of mystery or a distraction, however, remains to be seen.
All in all, there’s lots of fun to be had in this new Whoniverse installment, which is packed to the brim with comedy, camp, and chemistry. It feels uneven in places, true—and, with “Space Babies” coming straight after “The Church On Ruby Road,” a tad overloaded with chubby-cheeked infants—but it sure does make for dopamine hits aplenty. And while some of the visuals are more than a bit clunky (we’re thinking, in particular, of the musical notes in “The Devil’s Chord”), the story makes up for these missteps.
Will everyone enjoy it? We suspect the show will find scores of new fans thanks to its exhilarating adventure-of-the-week format, especially as it’s been set up to ensure they don’t have to have watched all of the 875 episodes that have come before. (The season premiere even offers up a quick Doctor Who 101, as Ruby asks all of the questions that newbies will need answers to.)
By that same regard, though, it’s likely some longtime fans might find it hard to stomach the changes to their favorite show, particularly its aforementioned shift from pure sci-fi to fantasy. These individuals, however, have already been given the perfect goodbye: They can, much like David Tennant’s weary Fourteenth Doctor, gracefully bow out and reflect on the “good old days” rather than, y’know, hate-watch and moan about the show on Reddit.
Come for the fun and frolics, then, and stay for the mystery–because we predict this season is building up to something big. And we’re pumped to find out what.
Doctor Who season 14 premieres May 10 on Disney+
62 Comments
Because Doctor Who definitely needs a “zippier” pace.
“shift from pure sci-fi to fantasy”? Doctor Who has been squarely in the fantasy camp for the vast majority of it airtime.
Thank you. The idea that this show (which I love) has ever qualified as hard SF in any sense is just weird.
“Wibbly Wobbly Timey Wimey…stuff” is the exact level of science I need from the show,
It’s like saying Star Wars is hard sci-fi. They’re both fantasies, fun but not really trying for realism.
it has always been science-fiction. Wether it’s “hard sf” or not doesn’t really matter; sometimes it really streches it; but it also used to present some actual sci-fi concepts that served the narrative (like the whole River Song narrative comes to mind).
The new doctor who (from the specials with David Tennant) has dropped any pretense of being grounded in reality (with fourth wall breaking every five secondes). I don’t know to me that feels like a radical shift in tone to completely cartoony. I’m curious to know where it goes but I’m not sure I’m completely on board (then again; the previous season was so boring).
I’d argue that the difference between fantasy and science-fiction (however “hard”) is framing; not actually describing things that are plausible. In most SF magic is disguised as science and technology but with little basis to do so. As soon as we have FTL travel; time travel; teleportation; we’ve left the realm of science and just go into thinly disguised magic. It doesn’t really matter if this is in service to a solid story or overall message about our current societies, it just need enough suspension of disbelief from the audience. Fantasy just has wizards that do magical things and don’t try to explain it away with science or anything. For me the latest season falls straight into the fantasy domain.I’ve recently red “l’effet Churten” by Ursula Le Guinn, my favorite SF author (who was never interested in the “science” in the science fiction by the way) and it’s doctor who level of craziness; yet it’s a great story; yet it’s still not really “fantasy” as it’s set in a whole science fiction anthology she created.
The end to Matt Smith’s first season was him being brought back to life because Amy Pond remembered him existing. Even ignoring the 50 year history, the recent Who has mixed fantasy all the time.
Let’s not forget how recently The Toymaker was brought back by David Tennant invoking a superstition outside of the universe.
I’d think that would call up the Outercelestial Superstitionmaker, not the Celestial Toymaker.
the toymaker is part of the new series; that’s exactly where it starts throwing any pretense of SF out of the window.
The toymaker is from the first doctor, where he was similarly magically omnipotent.
yeah ok I’ve only seen the reboot; I’m not that invested in the show
Two words, friends: Tinkerbell Jesus. If I remember, Sailor Moon used the same tactic to finally defeat Queen Beryl.
Right. The Doctor has always been a wizard in a magic box.
They can, much like David Tennant’s weary Fourteenth Doctor, gracefully bow out and reflect on the “good old days” rather than, y’know, hate-watch and moan about the show on Reddit.We live in the age of the Internet: only the latter generates impressions.
People have been hate-watching Doctor Who since loooong before the invention of Reddit (or indeed the coining of the term “hate-watching”).
“By that same regard, though, it’s likely some longtime fans might find it hard to stomach the changes to their favorite show, particularly its aforementioned shift from pure sci-fi to fantasy.”I’m honestly struggling to understand what interpretations of “sci-fi” and “fantasy” you’re drawing upon in order to make this sentence make sense. Doctor Who has always been the softest, pillowiest, most marshmallowiest of soft sci-fi. The term “science fantasy” was practically invented to describe Doctor Who…except I’ve seen stuff like Star Trek described science fantasy, so you’d probably need an even more fantastical label to apply to Doctor Who. “Vaguely science-adjacent-when-we-feel-like-it fantasy?” This is a show that famously introduced “a big ball of wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff” to the cultural lexicon. So when you describe a turn to “fantasy,” I can only assume you mean, like, full-on swords and sorcery Tolkienian fantasy. Even then, the only functional difference between the Doctor and a literal wizard is a preference for pointy hats. He even carries around a wand!
Agreed. Change my mind: the first Fantastic Creatures movie is a VERY slightly re-purposed Doctor Who Christmas special.
You mean the Fantastic Beasts movie from Rowling’s book?
Yeah, I guess, except the Doctor Who Christmas specials are good.
The “book” was a plotless (not an insult, it isn’t a narrative) encyclopedia of imaginary creatures. The movie is based on it insofar as the main character was the fictional author. But that’s not the point. The point is that Doctor Who is largely indistinguishable from fantasy.
As for the actual Christmas specials, some are good, yes. I wouldn’t go so far as to say they all were.
The point being all Christmas specials are better than the Fantastic Beasts movie. I know the book wasn’t a novel, but the movie was overlong, indulgent, Harry Potter-verse drivel, so it’s a low bar to clear for Doctor Who.
Again, not talking about the quality of either property. Just showing how closely Doctor Who flirts with traditional fantasy by using a well-known example of traditional fantasy.
I remember Nilus once saying that Fantastic Beasts was like if J. K. Rowling caught half an episode of Doctor Who at a pub and the volume was turned down but she got the gist and now we have the Doctor but he’s a wizard and maybe autistic.
I’d say “still autistic” but otherwise dead on.
For a long time, DW has toyed with Fantasy creatures, etc., but dressed them up as Science Fiction-y. The Vampires of Venice weren’t actual vampires, but just a race of aliens that were somewhat similar to vampires. That sort of thing. So, if they’re actually not bothering with the SF explanation for these Fantasy things, I could see that as a notable change.
Is it, though? Saying “an alien did it” instead of “a wizard did it” is just a slightly different genre of handwavery. And regardless, describing Doctor Who’s up-to-now approach as “pure sci-fi” is, shall we say, laughable
Remember when Shakespeare repelled witches by shouting, “Expelliarmus!” Good times.
Even then, the only functional difference between the Doctor and a literal wizard is a preference for pointy hats. He even carries around a wand!Does it have a knob on the end? That’s how you can tell a wizard.
Yeah, Doctor Who has always been science fantasy, never “pure sci-fi” or hard sci-fi.
Then again, I’ve seen stuff like 3 Body Problem called hard sci-fi, and while it contains ideas based in real science, it’s pretty fantastical as well.
Heck, even The Expanse, which is the closest I’ve seen a sci-fi series come to imagining and depicting real effects of living in space, still has effectively magic molecules that can convert an asteroid into a stargate. So what really is hard sci-fi anyway.
It’s like season 5 didn’t even happen.
it has completely dropped any pretense of being scifi. we now have straight up magic and wizardry (and goblins ffs). we have the 4th wall completely destroyed. the tone is completely different. Before the pretty boring Whittaker era (not the fault of the cast); there was a few interesting scifi concepts; even if borderline believable and it served the plots. Now we have notes flying from a piano; goblins; camera looks; and dance routines.
Zippier pace…compared to Classic, New Who has always come on like a freight train.I don’t think this is a good thing.
I’m still a fan of the old school Who (my doctor will always be #5), but it’s hard to watch some of the old serials because they are too plodding. For ever classic, there are three or four serials that will put you to sleep. I think there is a balance to be struck between room-to-breathe and freight train, but given the modern audience, leaning closer to freight train is the right move to keep up interest in the show.
It reminds me in a little way of MST3K, one of my favorite shows of all time. To me, I have a harder time getting into the KTMA and the new seasons because of pacing issues. The jokes of the KTMA years were a little too few and far between (understandable, as everyone on the show was feeling it out so to speak, and hadn’t had much TV experience yet), and as for the Netflix/Gizmoplex years while I find the hosts and new faces endearing I feel like the riffs are crammed in without breathing room, and doesn’t feel as natural. I know it’s a scripted show, but the riffs from the Comedy Central/Sci-Fi years felt better paced and more natural sounding. I know it seems like a snobby thing to pick on, but how something is delivered can make a huge difference. And I feel the same way about Doctor Who.
I know the Classic seasons are available on Britbox, but I do wish Disney would stream them so that Pertwee and so forth could find a wider audience.
It is sort of by necessity, though- the average classic Who story was about the length of a feature film in total, so basically nuWho has to tell a story in half the time. They have to zip through a lot of things. I think I’ll always favor the old school but I enjoy the new stuff anyway.
I feel like I’m the only fan who thought the original Russell T. Davies run was really overrated, and was shocked at the emergence of anti-Stephen Moffat rhetoric in recent years. Moffat has his flaws, and after series 6, the show became kind of rudderless, and too many episodes ended with Matt Smith saving the day with a speech, but series 5 remains the best the show has ever been. When Moffat took over, the aesthetics of a very cheap British show that looked like it was filmed the 80s (or earlier) were replaced with modern production values; professional cinematography, camera movements, dolly tracks, the show felt like it grew up and went pro. And storywise, the ongoing arcs felt immensely more satisfying to watch develop across a series, compared to the random weirdness, farting aliens, and deus ex machina endings of the Davies era. Amy and Rory felt less like overgrown children tag alongs and more like their own persons with specific relationships to the Doctor that had peaks and valleys.I fell off the show after Peter Capaldi left, intending to watch the Jodie Whittaker era, but heard nothing but bad things. My friend told me to just watch all the specials after series 13, and while he was enthusiastic about the show coming back, I was less impressed and still haven’t watched the last Xmas special. I’ll fire it up when the new series starts, but the specials bringing the show back to a weird indulgent fluff of the week format is so far pushing me away from making the show appointment viewing again. Anyone else feel the same way?
Oh, I very much agree re: RTD. I started watching regularly during the Smith era and then went back and watched from the beginning (of nu-Who) after series 5. There are certainly bright spots (usually the episodes penned by Moffat) and I’m sure RTD will still be miles better than Chibnall, but…farting aliens. Lightning zombie Master. Tinkerbell Doctor. Rose pining for Ten. Ten pining Rose. Martha pining for Ten. Ten stringing Martha along as a rebound companion because he’s still so busy pining for Rose. Ten absolutely refusing to just die already. Whatever the hell was going on in that London Olympics tie-in episode. Love. and. fucking. Monsters. Let’s not delude ourselves here.
Amen!
Yeah I’ve found the anti-Moffat stuff to be really weird.While I don’t mind the first RTD run, it’s no more, or less uneven than any other period in the show’s history and it’s got a hell of a lot of weaknesses of its own. It’s got plenty of strengths, but then again, I probably preferred Moffat’s writing.
The Chinball stuff was not great. Love Jodie and the cast overall but that’s definitely the weakest era of the show since the 2005 revival.
Moffat was the first victim of fans becoming too aware of who wrote what.
John Nathan -Turner says hi.
That’s what I’ve been afraid of. My hopes for the season are that the stories will be logical, don’t rely on the sonic
screwdriver, no last minute solution pulled out of nowhere, maybe one of
the stories set on earth doesn’t involve yet another alien (a pure
historical is too much to hope for but maybe just a mad scientist or
something?), maybe at least one solid scifi episode instead of a monster
of the week, and I really hope I’m wrong about Millie Gibson’s acting.But from what I’m reading, I don’t think I’m going to be real happy with this season.
“logic and scientific explanations”Oh don’t worry, we longtime Who fans know far better than to expect those.
“the show will find scores of new fans”So, like 60? Maybe even 100?
“These individuals, however, have already been given the perfect goodbye: They can, much like David Tennant’s weary Fourteenth Doctor, gracefully bow out and reflect on the “good old days” rather than, y’know, hate-watch and moan about the show on Reddit.”
I’ve been a fan since I was 8 and yes, I am old and cranky on occasion about changes to the lore and storytelling missteps. Have been whinging about it while still enjoying the vast majority of the show for several decades. It’s what Who fans do. While I won’t be hate-watching the series (I love every Doctor, even during the “bad” eras), I will continue to engage in online discussions and critical analysis with my fellow cranky old Who fans thanks very much.
To your credit, however, I am aware that much like every popular long-running sci-fi/fantasy series, there is an industry of hate-watchers who by the way have a nice depressing spread of ages from young to old. No need to target us OG fans who kept the passion for the show alive these past 60 years.
Doctor Who: Being ruined forever since 1963.
Honestly, as someone who has been watching since the Tom Baker days, the show’s writing has been pretty sub-par since around the time they thought “sonic sunglasses” would be a good idea. The Chris Chibnall era was pretty dismal. The cast was fantastic, but the stories were…not. I was hoping the return of RTD would signal a return to better stories, but I’m not getting my hopes up.
Not many things in entertainment are more frustrating than excellent acting bolstering terrible writing.
In what strange world do you live that Doctor Who even vaguely resembles “pure” sci-fi? They literally explain things on this show with the term “timey-wimey”.
scifi doesn’t mean it needs to explain everything, it just means we don’t have straight up magic. If we’re gonna limit SF to what’s plausible or possible then I regret to inform you “warp drivrs” are not plausible and are basically magic or plot devices from the perspective of what we know of physics.
The Doctor defeats a sun monster by creating a spirit bomb through the use of song, this is barely a sci-fi show.
the last series just straight up says “the laws of physics don’t matter anymore; look we have litteral goblins flying in a boat and musical notes flying in the air for some reason”. you can find all the examples in the world it won’t match the ridiculousness of the last few episodes in term of giving a fuck about plausability. By the way this is not necessarily a dig; just you have to aknowledge this.Doctor who has always been a scifi show; and it was ridiculous from the moment of its inception because; you know; time travel is also not possible even by the crazyiest physics. It’s about how it’s all framed.
“scifi doesn’t mean it needs to explain everything” never said it did, but you go right ahead and beat up that poor straw man.
Having been through multiple eras of the show now I’ve developed a thicker skin to the “fans” who just whine about anything they can get their hands on. This is the most excited I’ve been personally for the show since the around the 50th, Gatwa’s already a star in my book
My reaction to most episodes of NuWho has been “That was pretty fun and sort of good, now let’s see why the Internet thinks I should hate it.”Less so in the Chibnall era, because I don’t think Chibnall understands sci-fi/fantasy which is a problem when show running Who and meant that a lot of excellent Jodie Whittaker acting was wasted.
The shift to ‘fantasy’ was expected, surely? One of the last (first) things Tennant did was to hurriedly decide at the beginning of the universe that a salt circle could offer protection to the threatened. He immediately followed up with the realisation that he had indeed sown the seed of a more fantastical universe.
The universe that we’re currently looking at is not only fantastical, but subject to the law of mavity.
It’s not beyond the bounds that this peculiar situation will be addressed during Dr 15’s run.
Just finished watching both episodes. “Space Babies” is about as ridiculous and dumb as it seems from the title and, aside from Fifteen saying “space babies” way too often, was still a good bit of fun. I’m not sure if RTD doing a huge fart joke right away is a prelude of more to come or just him getting it out of his system. Hopefully that’ll be it.The second episode is great, and easily hangs with the better episodes of seasons past. It throws a lot of balls in the air for season long arcs, and I’m not necessarily confident they’ll all land, but the stakes are interesting and exciting while not being overtly universe ending. Monsoon was spectacular, just on the right side of cloying and somehow projecting loads of menace. On the face of it, I was ambivalent about the “pivot to fantasy”, but if they are the sorts of villains and stories that tack produces, I want to see more.
I’m not sure if RTD doing a huge fart joke right away is …just him getting it out of his system.I see what you did there. Heard/smelt it too.
on the second episode I’m torn between finding it completely ridiculous and over the top to the point of being good in a surreal sense.
about ep2ah yes it takes a musical to find the C major chord; one of the most used chord on earth (maybe after the minor one).On one hand I find the episode super cringe (and not a big fan of the whole fully fantasy turn with goblins and magic creatures). Also leave the fourth wall alone for a bit please. on the other hand they pushed it all far enough so that it enters the fully surreal and silly. also the cast is; as always; great. (also “I thought this was extradiegetic music”, ok this one was good)