It’s almost time for another trip in the TARDIS! The next season ofDoctor Whopremieres this weekend on Disney+ and BBC iPlayer and will introduce a new companion forNcuti Gatwa’s Doctor. Fans who caught the previous season will recognizeVarada Sethu,who appeared inthe episode “Boom,” as Mundy Flynn. Now she’s playing Belinda Chandra, the Doctor’s new companion who’s along for a wild adventure the “long way round” when the Doctor has trouble taking her back to Earth on the day she left.
Ahead of the new season, I sat down withDoctor WhoshowrunnerRussell T. Daviesto get an idea of what we can expect from the upcoming slate of episodes. During our exciting conversation, Davies spoke about what Sethu’s Belinda brings to the show and her relationship with Gatwa’s Doctor, as well as why he wrote in a connection between Mundy and Belinda. He also spoke about working withthe incomparableAnita Dobsonand the return of the villainous Mrs. Flood. Finally, he teased somethrilling episodes to look forward to, including one featuring hand-drawn animation and one inspired by Eurovision.
‘Doctor Who’ Showrunner Reveals What Makes This Doctor/Companion Duo Unique
“It’s a horrifying moment in an episode that kind of looks like it’s full of laughs and big, chunky robots.”
COLLIDER: I’m so excited for this season. It looks so impressive and so massive. One of the new elements of this Doctor and companion duo is that she doesn’t really want to be there, and she does want to go home. What can you say about how that shapes their dynamic?
RUSSELL T. DAVIES: I’m very much aware that withDoctor Whonow being on Disney+, we’re going to an audience and into territories across the world that we haven’t been in before. Doctor Who was always so very well across the world, but Disney+ is huge, so for some people, this is a brand new Doctor. For some people, Ncuti Gatwa is Doctor number one, which is a glorious experience to have. So, I kind of think it’s my job to show the range of the show, what an infinite range it is. So, if you’ve seen Millie Gibson being absolutely wonderful as Ruby Sunday, that’s a very rare example of an 18-year-old playing an 18-year-old, and she’s being very 18 and she’s kind of wide-eyed and loves it and gets such a kick out of it all, and is full of joy.
But there’s another side to the Doctor’s life, which is that, actually, every time you step foot outside the TARDIS, someone is trying to kill you, and Belinda’svery, very wise to that tune. She literally sees it happen in her first story. She’s got no idea what’s going on in her first episode. She’s kidnapped by robots and taken to a star far away for reasons that are explained within the episode — she’s being taken tomarryan AI generator. But within five minutes of being on this planet, this robot revolution erupts, and someone is killed right in front of her; she sees it happen, and the Doctor sees it happen. It’s a horrifying moment in an episode that kind of looks like it’s full of laughs and big, chunky robots. Suddenly, just like the Doctor’s life always does, it gets serious. So, Varada as Belinda brings a whole new slant to that — someone who’snotimpressed by the Doctor. Someone who wants to get home.
And there’s more to that story than it looks, as well. I can quite confidently tell you that she keeps trying to get back to May 24th, 2025, and that’s going to be a very significant date. Look up your schedules. An episode is actually dropped on that day.
Oh, that’s very exciting!
DAVIES: Forverybig reasons. Imagine how much work that was thinking about the script and the actual transmission. That was by far the hardest thing than anything else on the whole show, but worth it in the end. It really pays off.
Very complex timing math there.
DAVIES: There were many reasons to not let that happen. We had to fight them off almost weekly, but it worked. [Laughs]
Bringing an actor who had a one-off part inDoctor Whois not uncommon. It’s happened many, many times, but it usually isn’t referenced in the story, and I think we see in one of the trailers that it will be. What made you want to make Mundy part of Belinda’s story?
DAVIES: It very first happened in 1966. A man called Peter Purves came in as a one-off character in a scene set on top of the Empire State Building in 1966, and they liked him so much they cast him. And in those days, the protocol was almost like, if he cropped up again, he cropped up as the new companion, Steven, the space astronaut,three weekslater! It was just three weeks between two different parts. Can you imagine? Three weeks later, and they didn’t feel the need to say that was the same person at all.
I think now you can do it different ways with this. You can just cast the same actor again and have them be a different character, but the program is so scrutinized now and spoken about that I think if I hadn’t said there was a link between the two characters, everyone would be busy imagining a link between the two characters. So, I might as well ride public opinion with this. It’s not the most important thing in the world because I do thinkDoctor Whoshould always be new and open to new viewers. So, don’t worry, if you didn’t see last year, you won’t be lost with anything that Belinda does if you don’t know her past in the program. If youdoknow her past, it’s an extra little spin. It is kind of explained as we go along because it’s important in a way, but it’s not bogging the program down. It’s just a nice way of doing things because that’s what the internet would be saying about her anyway. “She’s been in it before.” So, you might as well play that game.
‘Doctor Who’s Russell T. Davies Teases Hand Drawn Animation Episode
“We all got to make a show in a different way, and that makes everyone sit up and enjoy the day a bit more.”
That’s fun. I like that. One of the episodes that I’m most excited for is the second episode where they get partially animated, likeScooby-Doo-style. Varada mentioned some very fun filmmaking techniques when I spoke with her, so what can you tell us about that episode?
DAVIES: Yeah, it was something we all had to learn. The reason I did it was Mr. Ring-a-Ding, a cartoon that comes to life in Miami in 1952, and when I say “comes to life,” he comes tomalevolentlife, and voiced by Alan Cumming. And I like that because none of us had worked with hand-drawn animation before, and I’ve done a lot of television. I’ve done, not just all the special effects inDoctor Who, but I’ve done period dramas, I’ve done futuristic dramas, I’ve done soap operas. I’ve done the whole range of things. I’venevertouched hand-drawn animation, not in any shape or form. So, we all had to learn the process, and none of us had ever done that. That’s why I do these things. Every day is a school day, and if we’re all doing something new, I think we all come out of it a bit more exhilarated.
I cannot tell you how many meetings hand-drawn animation is. It’s like every blink of Mr. Ring-a-Ding’s eye is a meeting. But to work with the animators and [Ian Spendloff] and Framestore, who animated the whole thing, was just a genius. So, it’s different ways of making things — recording the voice, playing that in, having a little dummy of Mr. Ring-a-Ding standing there, but having enough green screen to add him in afterwards. It was just enormous fun. We all got to make a show in a different way, and that makes everyone sit up and enjoy the day a bit more. It’s a nice, healthy process.
Speaking of the visual effects, they’ve changed so much since your first era ofDoctor Who. What’s it been like to watch that evolve? You can bring things to life you could only imagine 20 years ago.
DAVIES: Yes, and I certainly could never have afforded Mr. Ring-a-Ding, and that is an idea I’ve wanted to do for 20 years and finally got to do it. At the same time, fair dues to those teams who worked on it. I can remember in 2005 a premiere of theDoctor Whofinale at the BAFTA building. The show had done so well we had a BAFTA premiere of the finale, and that finale had hordes of 100,000 Daleks flying out of their spaceships and descending, and I can remember the audience gasping because they’d never seen anything like that onDoctor Who. They’d never seen anything like that on the BBC. Even back then, that’s not the kind of science fiction that the television was making — great big spaceships. So, our teams have always been brilliant, pushing the boundaries.
Now, I love our first episode, “The Robot Revolution,” because there’s a great big outer space city. We can say to them, “Why don’t we make it look like the 1950s, like retro science fiction, like those old films, likeThis Island Earth?” And that’s what they designed. So, the rockets really look like space rockets. They’re not spaceships, they’rerockets. And the city, it’s dazzling colors and style. So, we can just afford to keep experimenting and making wild swings with it. That’sDoctor Whoat its best, I think.
Anita Dobson’s ‘Doctor Who’ Villian Is “Amazing” in Season 2
“It’s like working with royalty.”
I think it’s so much fun! Now, I don’t need spoilers, but what can you tease about Mrs. Flood? Her little fourth-wall breaks are so much fun, and I saw recently that you said Anita [Dobson] was only meant to do one episode initially.
DAVIES: Yeah. She came in for one, but the thing is, we cast Anita Dobson, who in Britain is an absolute star. She’s married to Brian May in real life, so that’s stardom, but she doesn’t need a famous husband because she’s very, very famous in Britain. She once played a soap opera character called Angie Watts, and when I say “soap opera,” I mean a British soap opera, which is much more working class, much more domestic, much more real than, say, an American afternoon soap opera. She played an alcoholic pub landlady, and it’s literally one of the greatest performances ever put on a camera. I can remember moments of that to this day. She’s still enormously famous for that. So, it’s like working with royalty.
Once you get her to come in for one episode, I’m not sitting there, like, “Well, I’m not losing her.” And on top of all that, we discovered what a laugh she is. She’s such good company. I just call her Dobs. I go, “Hey there, Dobs!” She’s like, “Hello, love.” We have such a laugh together that it very quickly escalated into what is now Mrs. Flood. She very much revealed herself at the end of the last series, standing on a rooftop in the snow with a parasol and a white fur coat and a suitcase, saying she was going to be an absolute terror to the Doctor, so I don’t know why anyone was remotely surprised that she’s back. It was a very clear statement of intent, and I can absolutely tell you that all is revealed. It’s a secret that we don’t keep going. Some secrets you keep going for years. This one was like gunpowder. Once we started to roll with it, we loved it. So, you’ll see a lot more of her, and in the finale. She’s absolutely set the stage. She’s amazing.
That is so much fun. I cannot wait! To wrap up here, I know we’ve got a lot of super exciting things to look forward to this season. Can you pinpoint something specific that you’re very excited for people to see?
DAVIES: I am very excited by the finale,obviously, and that’s got some visuals I like, which we never done before, some really extraordinary work. But I’m very excited by Episode 6, which looks like it’s a laugh. It’s the Interstellar Song Contest, and here in Europe, we have the Eurovision Song Contest, which is a very big deal. It has well over 100 million viewers, that thing. It’s enormous. So, it’s an outer space version of that. That episode kind of looks like it’s going to be a laugh, and then turns much tougher than you’d ever dream it’s going to be. It has really exciting stuff for Ncuti, as well, and pushes him and reveals things about him that are extraordinary. So, just when you think you’re sitting back for a laugh in that one, you are pushed right to the limit. So, I’m very pleased with that one.
Doctor WhoSeason 2 premieres on Disney+ and BBC iPlayer on April 12.
