Doctor Who Review – Season 2

Cover spread for the Doctor Who Season 2 Blu-ray steelbook. The front cover, on the right, shows the Doctor, played by Ncuti Gatwa, with companion Belinda Chandra facing us, as they both look with concern at something in the distance off to our right. The Doctor is holding his sonic screwdriver in his right hand. The back cover shows other characters from the series, including the Rani, Mrs Flood, Mr Ring-A-Ding and Conrad, all standing in front of a large clock face.

Note: This post was updated in August 2025 with details of the Blu-ray steelbook, and in November with deleted scenes and an update on the future of the show.

Twenty years after its revival, Doctor Who recently returned for its 15th series of the modern era, named Season 2 as part of the BBC’s collaboration with Disney+. I discussed that partnership and other aspects of the show’s latest revamp in my Season 1 review last year, so I don’t need to go through the same preamble here. They did change the time that the episodes are dropped online, from midnight to 8am on the day of broadcast, after the feedback they got last year, but that didn’t bother me.

Once again we’ve had an hour-long Christmas special and 8 regular episodes (which is far too few), including a 2-part finale, all overseen by Russell T Davies as showrunner, who wrote 4 of the episodes and co-wrote another. Ncuti Gatwa is back in the lead role as the Doctor, in what sadly turned out to be his final series, but Millie Gibson only appeared in a couple of stories as Ruby Sunday, as we had a new companion in the form of Belinda Chandra, played by Varada Sethu. As with all new arrivals I was unsure what to make of Belinda at first, but she grew on me as the series went on. She never really got the time and opportunity to flourish in the way that Ruby did though, which was a pity as she did have some good moments. Still, overall this series is better than the previous one I think, as the storylines have felt stronger.

So I hope you enjoy my review of this latest series. I also have a long playlist of videos on Youtube as usual, including highlights, behind the scenes material, interviews, reactions and more, if you want to check that out as well.

Contents

Blu-ray Steelbook

The DVD & Blu-ray box sets for Season 2 were released on 18 August 2025, and as always I brought the Blu-ray steelbook, which has a similar style of packaging to the Season 1 release, unsurprisingly.

The artwork on the outside looks very nice, with the Doctor and Belinda on the front this time, while the back shows the Rani, Mrs Flood, Mr Ring-A-Ding and Conrad. Last year’s release only had the Doctor on the front and Ruby on the back, so having more characters this time makes it look more interesting.

Cover spread for the Doctor Who Season 2 Blu-ray steelbook. The front cover, on the right, shows the Doctor, played by Ncuti Gatwa, with companion Belinda Chandra facing us, as they both look with concern at something in the distance off to our right. The Doctor is holding his sonic screwdriver in his right hand. The back cover shows other characters from the series, including the Rani, Mrs Flood, Mr Ring-A-Ding and Conrad, all standing in front of a large clock face.
The front of the Blu-ray steelbook for Doctor Who Season 2, in its cardboard pocket sleeve that has the Doctor Who logo at the bottom. The cover shows the Doctor, played by Ncuti Gatwa, with companion Belinda Chandra facing us, as they both look with concern at something in the distance off to our right. The Doctor is holding his sonic screwdriver in his right hand.
The back of the cardboard sleeve for the Blu-ray steelbook release of Doctor Who Season 2. At the top left is an image of the Rani, Mrs Flood, Mr Ring-A-Ding and Conrad standing in front of a large clock face. To the right is a description of the series and the contents of the Blu-ray. A banner below says that there is over 3 hours of additional material, including Doctor Who Unleashed episodes and other special features. Then below that are the usual credits, technical information, copyright warnings, logos, etc.

The interior is less exciting as all 7 discs, which are arranged in 2 stacks, carry the same artwork, this time showing a ravaged planet or moon near to the Earth in space. And behind the discs, the inner wall of the case shows the Doctor reaching out as he floats through space, which is difficult to see through the panels that hold the discs.

Blu-ray discs in the steelbook for Doctor Who Season 2. They all carry the same artwork, showing a planet or moon covered in red patches as if it's being destroyed, while a burning meteor flies towards it from our direction. Planet Earth is in the top right.
The interior of the Blu-ray steelbook for Doctor Who Season 2, when the discs have been removed. Behind the panels holding the discs is an image of Ncuti Gatwa as the Doctor reaching out as he floats through space with a look of alarm on his face.

The menus show relevant images from the episodes on the disc, set against a backdrop of the clock face from the finale, accompanied by the theme tune.

Main menu for the Blu-ray of Doctor Who Season 2, showing the Doctor Who large in the centre of the screen. Across the bottom are options for Play, Scene Selection, Special Features, Audio and Subtitles.
Main menu for the Blu-ray of Doctor Who Season 2, showing a large clock face, with the time showing as 5 minutes to midnight. Across the bottom are options for Play, Scene Selection, Special Features, Audio and Subtitles.
Main menu for the Blu-ray of Doctor Who Season 2, showing a large clock face, in the centre of which is an image of the Doctor smiling in the Tardis. Across the bottom are options for Play, Scene Selection, Special Features, Audio and Subtitles.
Main menu for the Blu-ray of Doctor Who Season 2, showing a large clock face, in the centre of which is an image of the Doctor looking serious. Across the bottom are options for Play, Scene Selection, Special Features, Audio and Subtitles.

Accessibility is the same as last year’s release, with audio navigation on the menus, audio description on the episodes, and subtitles on all the episodes and bonus material. The episodes on BBC iPlayer have audio description, subtitles and sign language available. The extra features on the Blu-ray are listed later in this post.

Episodes

Special: Joy To The World

This is the 9th Christmas special written by Steven Moffat, and it’s pretty good. Not exceptional by any means, but a decent enough way to spend nearly an hour, and some major aspects of it become an unexpected but important part of the series finale.

The title refers to the character of Joy, played by Nicola Coughlan. She’s best known for her roles in Derry Girls and Bridgerton, two shows I’ve never seen, so I didn’t know her prior to this, but she’s good here. Being alone for Christmas, Joy decides to check into a hotel, only to discover what’s behind the mysterious locked door that’s present in so many hotel rooms, when the Doctor bursts through it. He’s been investigating strange behaviour at a Time Hotel from the future, where guests check into vacant rooms in different periods of history through time portals.

A mysterious briefcase has been changing hands at the hotel, forcing each new owner to say an ominous phrase, and disintegrating the previous handler each time. And inevitably it ends up on Joy’s wrist at one point. The Doctor is able to relieve her of it and save her life, and he discovers that it’s a case belonging to the Villengard arms company. They were previously mentioned in Season 1’s Boom, and it’s not the last time we have a callback to that story this series.

It contains the seed of a star that will allow the organisation to harness an immense amount of energy when it explodes, but it will take an incredibly long time to grow first, hence using the portals in the Time Hotel to speed things up. But when it does explode, it’ll destroy everything on Earth as well, so the Doctor has to get rid of it – which is made rather difficult when a dinosaur swallows it!

They do eventually get it back and save the planet, obviously, but Joy is at the heart of the solution. By deliberately making her angry, the Doctor forces her to reveal a tragic story about her mother that she’s felt guilty about, and that leads to a touching resolution at the end, which will resonate with many people who have lost a loved one. And then there’s a revelation about where Joy ultimately ends up, which you can see coming if you pay attention, but it still feels very apt, both for her and for Christmas. And it has further relevance later in the series.

All of which makes for a good adventure, although there isn’t time for us to get to know Joy really well, not just because it’s a one-off episode, but also because she’s absent for a big chunk of it. When the Doctor is trying to stop the briefcase killing Joy, he gets the solution from his future self, and the only way to make that happen is to live out an entire year on Earth before the portals to the Time Hotel reopen.

So he’s forced to live a linear existence, with the days running in order for once, and to get him through the year he befriends Anita, the hotel manager. She’s played by Steph de Whalley, in what Russell T Davies says is her first ever TV role in the Behind The Scenes video, and she too is very good. The whole B story about the Doctor’s year is beautifully summarised without feeling rushed, as he and Anita form a great connection, one which he becomes very grateful for at the end of the series. So the episode is as much about Anita as it is Joy really, and they’re both good characters.

So altogether it’s a nice episode, weaving together a couple of interesting stories, with plenty of humour, cultural references, action and effects, without feeling too heavy for Christmas. And given what we now know about the series finale, it will feel even more important when rewatching it in the future.

1. The Robot Revolution

This episode introduces us to Belinda, who has some interesting similarities with Martha Jones from Series 3. Firstly, they’re strong black female companions who work in the medical profession, as Martha was in training when the Doctor met her, while Belinda is a nurse. And secondly, they both find themselves transported away from Earth against their will by aliens in their opening episodes.

But also, both actresses had already appeared in Doctor Who, each playing a different character in the previous series to the one where they became a companion, and the link has been acknowledged within the show. Freema Agyeman had appeared in the Series 2 finale as Adeola, who Martha later said was her cousin, while Varada Sethu appeared as Mundy Flynn in last year’s Boom, and Belinda is one of her ancestors. When the Doctor learns about Belinda’s connection with Mundy, he realises that it’s very significant and is curious to find out why. Naturally it’s not explained until the series finale though, when we discover why Belinda’s daughter is important, thereby providing the link that gets passed down through the family tree to the 51st century.

Anyway, that’s jumping ahead a bit. Belinda’s opening story is quite a strange one, but still better than last year’s opener Space Babies (and one character from that story proves important later in this series). Belinda is kidnapped from her home by robots who take her to another planet that’s been named after her, because they deem her to be their queen. They’ve based that belief on a star certificate that was given to her for her birthday 17 years previously by her then boyfriend Alan (Jonny Green), which they’ve somehow got hold of thanks to a fracture in time and interpreted as some kind of ancient legend. The robots therefore want her to marry and merge with the so-called “Great AI Generator”, which had commanded the robots to fetch her.

The Doctor, however, is of course present to help her. He too has been affected by the time fracture, having been chasing after her before being thrown back in time 6 months and having his Tardis taken away. So he’s had to bide his time on planet MissBelindaChandra One (which orbits her star) while awaiting her arrival, working to become the official historian. He takes Belinda to the underworld where he’s been working with the rebels, who have been at war with the robots for some time, and Belinda is prepared to help out with her nursing skills. The Doctor also uses some clever X-ray sheets to show her that he has two hearts.

They do eventually confront the Great AI Generator though. And typically for Russell T Davies there’s a bit of sneaky word play going on, as it’s not the initials A.I. at all, but the first two letters of Alan. Belinda had previously mentioned him being responsible for the star certificate, so the robots had passed through the time fracture and taken him as well, but 10 years earlier. Alan had then agreed to become part of the machine world and kicked off the war, treating it like a game. Belinda refuses to merge with him though, and touches her copy of the star certificate to his, thereby triggering a rather psychedelic paradox as they’re the same piece of paper from different time periods. The Doctor saves her before it harms her, but Alan is reduced to just a sperm and an egg, which a robot hoover amusingly gobbles up.

The Doctor then tries to invite Belinda to travel with him, but she puts her foot down and demands to be taken home, as well as scolding him for testing her DNA without permission. However, the Tardis is somehow prevented from returning to the day she left, and the Doctor says they have to take the long way round. This is unusual, because it’s quite common for him to take companions home on different dates to their initial pick-ups. But Belinda has to be back at a very specific time as it is, for which we later learn the reason. And as the Tardis dematerialises, many items from Earth are seen floating in space, including a taxi, calendar and the star certificate, without any sign of the planet itself.

And then of course there’s Mrs Flood (Anita Dobson), who seems quite happy that the robots are taking Belinda, and breaks the fourth wall again by telling us that we haven’t seen her. We never found out who she was last year, but there’s a huge revelation to come later in this series. There are certainly a lot of things set up in this episode that don’t become fully clear until the finale.

So it’s a good start to Season 2. It’s not necessarily the best opening episode or companion introduction in the grand scheme of things, but it does the job it sets out to do well, and lays intriguing foundations for the rest of the series.

2. Lux

When I learned there was going to be a cartoon character in this series, I had no idea what to make of it at first. Was this some strange gimmick to appease Disney? Would it seem too silly? How would it be incorporated into the reality-based setting of the show? It could easily have felt like a step too far. But thankfully, with Russell penning the script, it was actually cleverly done, with some big surprises too.

It transpires that Mr Ring-A-Ding is connected to the Pantheon Of Discord, a group of gods that Russell has been incorporating since the 60th anniversary specials to expand the story possibilities. So in this case the character is under the control of Lux Imperator, the God of Light. He’s voiced magnificently by Alan Cumming, an award-winning veteran Scottish actor who had previously appeared as King James in the Witchfinders episode of Series 11. He’s beautifully animated as well, and apparently some of the animators had worked on the 1988 film Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, which is also about cartoon characters entering the real world, so it’s lovely to have that connection with a classic movie.

The Doctor and Belinda encounter Mr Ring-A-Ding in Miami in 1952. They’ve arrived there by chance, and the Doctor takes the opportunity to set up his vortex indicator (or vindicator for short) that he’s invented. He uses it at each of their destinations during the series, in the hope that it will figure out the necessary information to get Belinda home.

While they’re waiting for the vindicator, however, they learn about mysterious disappearances at a local cinema, and the Doctor naturally wants to investigate. Belinda is initially reluctant, but gives in and tags along – perhaps a bit too easily, given how adamant she was to get home at the end of the last episode, and how overwhelming the Doctor’s lifestyle can seem. But it’s not like she has much choice either, and this story does allow them to learn a lot more about each other, so they’re closer friends by the end of it. They’ve also landed at a time when racial segregation was still the law, and that’s acknowledged and incorporated here, which is important for historical context.

So after meeting Lux in his form of Mr Ring-A-Ding, the Doctor and Belinda learn that all of the missing people have been trapped in a reel of film, before they’re turned into cartoon characters themselves, which look really cool. This kicks off an enjoyably surreal sequence of events in the middle of the episode, as Lux creates fake realities for them.

To begin with the Doctor and Belinda figure out how to give their 2D characters more depth to restore their 3D bodies, before finding their way back to the cinema, only to discover it’s a fake recreation of it. So they then push through the screen – literally breaking the fourth wall – to find themselves in a room of Doctor Who fans!

I had no idea this was coming, so it was shocking yet fascinating to see the show go all meta in this way, as it’s a really bold move that could easily have backfired if handled wrongly. But as an obsessive fan of the show himself, Russell totally gets it. His brilliant writing is full of affectionate humour, as they make references to old adventures, online leaks and general fan mentality.

It’s amusing, for example, how they’re unanimous in saying that their favourite episode is Blink from way back in Series 3, a story written by Steven Moffat that the Doctor only had a minimal role in. And to be fair, it is still one of the very best. There are also lots of Easter eggs relating to the show in the costume and set design, which are fun to try and spot.

At the end of the scene the fans are revealed to be fake of course, created by Lux – but then during the credits it becomes apparent that they actually still exist, which is a nice tip of the hat to the show’s undying and loyal fanbase.

When our heroes do eventually get back to their own reality, the Doctor is held captive while Lux tries to steal his regeneration energy to gain a proper body that can survive in the world outside the cinema. But Belinda gets the owner Reginald Pye (Linus Roache) to burn his reels of film, and the resulting explosion causes Lux to be bathed in sunlight, which draws him like a magnet up and away from the planet as he expands and is absorbed into the light of the universe.

All of the missing people are then released from their celluloid cells, so the Doctor and Belinda are able to depart now that everything’s returned to normal. And then Mrs Flood appears again, with another cryptic message referring to the date of the series’ penultimate episode.

So I really enjoyed this story, as it’s fun and different with quite a bit of humour, and I love the section with the Doctor Who fans. There are nice cultural references too, including gags about Scooby Doo, a nod to Disney’s Three Little Pigs, and the inclusion of a couple of old songs even though they weren’t released until several years later (Roll Over Beethoven by Chuck Berry from 1956 and California Soul by Marlena Shaw from 1969).

3. The Well

Back in 2008, the Midnight episode of Series 4 was a psychological thriller, as the 10th Doctor faced an unseen enemy who played mind games with the passengers of a shuttle on a planet covered in diamonds. For some people it’s one of their all-time favourite episodes, and while it’s not quite that high in my personal rankings, it is still very impactful and nicely acted.

The Well is a solid sequel to that, as the Doctor lands on the planet again, although he doesn’t realise that’s where he is until later in the episode.

It’s now 400,000 years later, so it’s no longer covered in diamonds and has been renamed to 6767. But when he first drops to the ground, we do hear a little snatch of the 10th Doctor’s theme, giving a little clue that he’s been there before, which is a nice touch. There are snippets of music and fleeting clips from the Midnight episode that are included occasionally as well. And also, when the Doctor and Belinda are changing clothes in the Tardis at the start of the episode, there’s a bit of Toxic by Britney Spears, which was previously used in the second episode of Series 1 with the 9th Doctor way back in 2005.

Anyway, the Doctor and Belinda end up on the planet with a mining crew, who are after the diamonds buried beneath the surface. And while every living being on the planet appears to have died, they encounter one survivor – Aliss Fenley, played by deaf actress Rose Ayling-Ellis, who is fabulous in the role. I loved her as one of the presenters on Channel 4’s coverage of the Paralympics last year, so it’s great to see her as a guest here, and she gives real depth and feeling to her character given the terror she’s put through. The Doctor also knows sign language of course (which Ncuti had to learn, and there was a consultant on set to ensure it was accurate), and everyone on the mining crew has a device that shows captions to Aliss so she can understand them.

And incidentally, I can also highly recommend Code Of Silence, ITV’s new crime drama that came out in May, in which Rose plays the central role brilliantly. So she’s making quite a name for herself as an actress, which is great.

Anyway, it transpires that the unseen foe is always behind Aliss, like an invisible parasite, and anybody who tries to go behind it or attack it is immediately murdered. It’s been driving everyone on the planet mad, to the point where all the mirrors have been destroyed and they’ve killed one another – but by killing the person the enemy has been clinging on to, it simply moves behind the murderer instead.

So it’s an enjoyably tense story, one that I would say is better than the Midnight episode. Aliss is freed from the enemy eventually, but it comes at huge cost to someone else, and even then it doesn’t look like it’s defeated.

Other key takeaways from the story are that nobody in the mining crew has ever heard of Earth or the human race, implying that it’s been removed from reality in the past – seemingly on the date that Belinda left, when it looked like the planet had disappeared. And Mrs Flood’s appearance at the end shows her as some kind of commander, who a member of the crew reports to via video link. She seems very happy that the Doctor is using his vindicator device on each of his trips, as he continues his attempts to figure out how to get Belinda home.

4. Lucky Day

This is the Doctor-lite filler episode of the series, filmed at the same time as The Robot Revolution, and it’s the weakest of the bunch, relatively speaking. It’s still fairly good in its own way though, especially as it means we get to see how Ruby Sunday’s getting on since she returned to life on Earth, along with Kate Lethbridge-Stewart (Jemma Redgrave) and the rest of UNIT.

To begin with, the Doctor and Belinda arrive in London on New Year’s Day 2007, where they meet a boy called Conrad (Benjamin Chivers). That inspires the young man to keep looking for the Tardis and eventually, 17 years later (now played by Jonah Hauer-King), he sees the Doctor and Ruby. He takes a picture of her and shares it online in order to find out who she is, and the following year, after she finishes her travels, she learns about his search for her and agrees to do a podcast interview with him. That in turn then results in them dating each other.

They end up staying together in a village, where some monsters attack the local pub and UNIT swarm in to try and help. But the aliens turn out to be fake, and it’s revealed that Conrad has been lying to Ruby. He’s actually the leader of an activist group intent on exposing UNIT’s so-called ‘lies’ online, claiming that all the talk of aliens is nonsense and they’re wasting taxpayer’s money.

He then later on finds his way into UNIT’s headquarters, only to discover that the threat of aliens is very real, courtesy of the Shreek that he’d seen Ruby with before, although he still refuses to accept it as truth. And he remains steadfast in his opinions despite the Doctor then bringing him in to the Tardis and severely telling him off for treating Ruby so badly – and Ncuti is great at playing an angry Doctor, it has to be said. Conrad is then sent back to his prison cell after that, where Mrs Flood turns up to release him – and we find out why in the series finale.

So the story is an accurate reflection of today’s social media climate, where certain people will lock on to a conspiracy or false belief fuelled by misinformation, and will not shift their views no matter how blatantly and undeniably false their perception is proven to be. Some people are just too cowardly to admit that they’re wrong, and really it’s all about clicks and money at the end of the day. They’re so greedy that they’re using hate to get noticed and earn their keep, irrespective of whether they truly believe what they’re saying. It’s a sad life they lead really, if that’s all they can offer the world, but it’s certainly a topical issue for Doctor Who to address.

5. The Story & The Engine

This episode has a different feel, in a good way, partly because it takes place in Lagos in Nigeria. Having observed that he now gets treated differently in some places because of his black skin, the Doctor sets out to meet his good barber friend Omo (Sule Rimi). But he discovers that Omo and several other people are being kept captive in his shop by another man known only as The Barber (Ariyon Bakare).

Special time compression technology means that while people can enter the shop from Lagos, they cannot leave again, because they find they’re in deep space travelling on the back of a huge spider. And the Tardis seems to know that something’s up, as it starts flashing red inside and sounding an alarm, to the concern of Belinda who’s stayed behind to give the Doctor some space. So she goes looking for him and ends up trapped in the barbershop as well.

Each person has to tell a story while getting their hair cut, in order to power the engine of the spider to keep it moving, and visuals for these stories are generated in the window of the barbershop. In the pre-titles, for instance, Omo recalls how the Doctor saved him from a fire, and this is brought to life with some lovely animation. But when the Doctor is forced to take his turn in the chair, rather than recalling his own adventures he tells a story of Belinda’s work as a nurse, which is shown as normal footage – during which we see a meaningless cameo from Mrs Flood, who’s popped into the hospital to get some pills but doesn’t say anything significant.

A far more surprising and interesting cameo comes when the Doctor is talking to the Barber’s assistant Abby (Michelle Asante). To begin with the Doctor recognises her but can’t place why, but it transpires that she’s the daughter of Anansi, and he’d abandoned her during his period as the Fugitive Doctor. We learn this via a brief glimpse of Jo Martin in that guise, the first time she’s returned to the series in the role since The Power Of The Doctor in 2022. I had absolutely no idea she would be appearing, so it was a nice surprise. It really would be great to explore her story further one day, rather than just brief appearances in random episodes, but it’s still not clear if that’ll ever happen. However, Jo is interviewed in the Behind The Scenes video and a special Q&A on Youtube, so it’s nice to hear a bit more from her there.

Anyway, the Barber is trying to reach the centre of a huge web, called the Nexus, on which the spider is travelling. He had helped to create it for various gods using people’s stories, but is now seeking revenge against the gods after they cast him aside. But given the huge importance of storytelling in culture, destroying the Nexus would have enormous ramifications. So with a bit of help from Abby, the Doctor finds his way to the spider’s engine, and overloads it with the never-ending stories from his own life, meaning we get to see nice little clips of his previous incarnations.

So while the situation itself is quite strange, the episode is actually pretty good. Barbershops and salons are places we’re all familiar with, where people often like to talk and share stories, and in some cultures they’re cherished spaces for that reason. So it makes perfect sense to set an episode about storytelling in such an environment, and it works really nicely because there’s a great cast at the heart of it. Plus the Nigerian writer of the episode – the first black man to have written for the series – is a poet and playwright as well, and you can sense that’s had an influence on the script too. The whole thing just has a nice feel to it.

6. The Interstellar Song Contest

Very appropriately, this episode was broadcast on the same night as the Eurovision Song Contest. But it was in real danger of not being shown at all, as it was sandwiched between Eurovision and the earlier FA Cup Final. If the football had gone into extra time and muscled its way into Doctor Who’s assigned slot, there would have been no time to show it, as there was no way of delaying Eurovision. So it would have been relegated to the iPlayer only. But thankfully that didn’t happen, not that it mattered to me personally as I already watch it online.

Here we get to see a futuristic version of Eurovision, called the Interstellar Song Contest, with the ever-cheerful Rylan Clark being brought out of the deep freeze as the host. It’s certainly a faithful tribute to it, and it’s clever how they managed to make it look huge and glitzy with hundreds of thousands of people present.

The songs are the highly varied mixture you’d expect as well. Writer Juno and showrunner Russell worked together on the lyrics for most of them, with Murray Gold setting them to music – but Murray himself somehow came up with the lyrics and music for the bizarre earworm Dugga Doo!

But of course, things don’t go according to plan, as a couple of Hellions called Kid (Freddie Fox) and Wynn (Iona Anderson) hijack the space station on which the contest is being held. They turn off the oxygen dome, which causes almost everyone to float off into space – including Rylan, Mrs Flood (who is seen in the crowd early on) and the Doctor. They remain alive but become frozen thanks to the station’s mavity field – and it’s interesting to see them still using the alternate word for gravity that was established back in Wild Blue Yonder in 2023. Only Belinda and a few other people remain trapped on the station.

It’s here that we get our first big shock of the episode, as the Doctor finds the energy to unfreeze himself when he has visions of his granddaughter, Susan Foreman, telling him to wake up. Susan was the original companion of the first Doctor when the show launched way back in 1963, and she’s one of only two credited people from An Unearthly Child who are still alive (along with director Waris Hussein). Her last appearances were in the 1983 anniversary story The Five Doctors and the 1993 charity special Dimensions In Time.

So for the legendary Carole Ann Ford to return more than 60 years after her character’s debut, and over 30 years since her last outing, especially now she’s in her 80s, is absolutely marvellous, even if it is just a brief cameo. Sure, I’ve never seen most of her episodes, having not dived into the Classic Era properly yet, but I can still appreciate a legend when I see one, I know full well who she is.

Anyway, thanks to Susan the Doctor is able to use a confetti cannon floating nearby to blast himself back to the space station in style, much to Belinda’s relief. And from there he sets out to stop Kid and Wynn, who are preparing to kill all 3 trillion viewers of the contest with a delta wave. But with some ice still lodged inside him, the Doctor is angrier than ever and takes things too far, torturing Kid until Belinda turns up and stops him. It’s always quite tense and fascinating when the Doctor loses control a bit, and Ncuti plays it really well.

By that point, Belinda has befriended another Hellion called Cora (Miriam-Teak Lee). She had disguised her identity in order to be able to sing at the competition, because the Hellion race has been treated extremely badly, which is also the underlying reason for Kid wanting revenge against the corporation. Once the Doctor has helped to bring everyone back down from the dome and unfreeze them though, she gets her chance to perform, with a beautiful, powerful song about her home planet.

With everything sorted out, the Doctor and Belinda make their way back to the Tardis, only to be greeted by a hologram of Graham Norton, who informs them that the Earth was instantly destroyed for some unknown reason on 24 May 2025. That’s the date of the next episode, which had also been stated by Mrs Flood earlier in the series (more on her shortly). Graham is of course the commentator on the UK broadcast of Eurovision, having replaced the late, great Terry Wogan, so it’s only fitting that he’s involved with this futuristic version of the contest.

Technically this is Graham’s third appearance in the series, although this is the first time it’s actually been intentional! When the show was revived in 2005, audio from his microphone in the Strictly Come Dancing studio was accidentally fed into the broadcast of the first episode, when Rose was exploring the basement of the department store. Panic ensued behind the scenes, but fortunately he was cut off just seconds before the Doctor made his big entrance. Russell later made reference to it during an online rewatch of the episode in 2020, and Graham also talks about it in the edition of Doctor Who Unleashed that accompanies The Interstellar Song Contest.

His other appearance was then in 2010, when the BBC ruined the big cliffhanger at the end of The Time Of Angels by flashing up an animated version of Graham to promote his show Over The Rainbow. The fans were outraged and complained in their thousands, forcing the BBC to apologise for running the banner 20 seconds early. But Graham was a good sport when he joked about it on his chat show.

So it’s great that he’s finally appeared in an episode of Doctor Who properly, this time serving an important purpose in a cliffhanger rather than disrupting it!

The Doctor and Belinda then enter the Tardis, with the vindicator device now ready to take her home. But when they arrive, the Tardis goes into distress mode and the doors explode, instantly going into the credits.

Only that’s not it, because we then get a mid-credits scene, where Mrs Flood is the last person to be unfrozen, and we finally discover who she really is. She reveals that she’s a Time Lady, and the experience has had such an impact on her body that she’s forced to regenerate. But just like David and Ncuti at the end of The Giggle, it’s a bi-generation. So another lady emerges (played by Archie Panjabi), who reveals that she’s the Rani, a big villain from the Classic Era. Mrs Flood is now the previous iteration, and immediately it’s clear that there’s an interesting dynamic between the two, with the new Rani taking charge and treating Mrs Flood with contempt. It also explains the name Mrs Flood of course, with Rani being an anagram of rain.

For fans of the Classic Era, it’s a momentous moment. The Rani only appeared a few times on screen, played by Kate O’Mara in The Mark Of The Rani and Time And The Rani in 1983 and 1985 respectively, and the Dimensions In Time charity special in 1993. Then after the turn of the century there were some audio dramas, during which Siobhan Redmond took over the role. But the character clearly made a big impact, given the excitement her return has caused amongst the fanbase, who have been clamouring for her to come back for quite some time.

I’ve never seen those 80s serials, but I do have basic knowledge of the character, and the Doctor Who Youtube channel helpfully posted a half hour compilation of clips back in February, plus a more recent 4-minute highlights reel. So taking all of that on board, as well as her brief introduction at the end of this latest episode and the reactions to it by more knowledgeable fans, I was very excited to see her in the finale, as like the Master she’s practically an equal for the Doctor.

So altogether it’s a great episode, with plenty of light and shade given the darker aspects of the storyline and the plot twists that contrast with the glitz and madness of the song contest. It really sets things up well for the final two episodes.

7. Wish World

This episode is the first part of a jam-packed and crazy series finale, though it does create arguably too many threads to tie up in the closing episode.

We start by seeing the Doctor and Belinda as a married couple, seemingly happy with their perfect life in which they believe he’s an ordinary man called John Smith, who works at a rather different version of UNIT (now called the Unified National Insurance Team). They also have a baby called Poppy (played adorably by Sienna-Robyn Mavanga-Phipps, who had first appeared in last year’s Space Babies, and briefly appeared in The Story & The Engine in this series). Meanwhile Conrad (from the Lucky Day episode) is always on TV, telling stories about a Time Lord called the Doctor. And there are huge dinosaur skeletons roaming the city, although nobody gives them a second glance and they don’t seem to be causing any harm.

There are seeds of doubt in people’s minds, however, expressions of which cause cups to smash on the ground, with a never-ending supply of identical ones to replace them. What’s more, being openly doubtful about the world is illegal, and people are quite willing to report their family members for it, even if it deeply upsets them to see their loved ones being arrested.

Ruby Sunday is particularly troubled by the thoughts she’s having. She remembers someone called the Doctor, though she isn’t sure why, and manages to track him down. But he doesn’t recognise her, and nor does his former companion Mel (Bonnie Langford) who’s a neighbour. Elsewhere in the city, former UNIT member Shirley (Ruth Madeley) doesn’t recognise Ruby either, but they form a bond and Shirley takes her to a large shelter where the disabled and dispossessed are forced to live, with nobody paying them any attention. The group don’t know about the Doctor, but they have concerns about Conrad, and Ruby happily teams up with them to try and investigate, as she somehow recalls him too, again without clarity.

The whole situation has of course been engineered by the Rani, from her palace made of bones high in the sky (which is a very impressive set). She had stolen a baby from Bavaria in 1865, because it was born as the 7th son of a 7th son of a 7th son. This somehow makes it rather special, because it’s called Desiderium and is the God of Wishes from the Pantheon Of Discord. Whoever has the baby can therefore alter reality in any way they desire, so when the Rani first has it she’s able to turn the other members of its family into flowers and animals.

Being a baby, however, its ability to control its powers are severely limited. So when the Rani brings it to the present day, she uses the vindicator that she’d stolen from the Doctor to boost its powers to astronomical levels, and the mind of Conrad to wish for the change in Earth’s reality. But the idea isn’t to make this reality permanent. She actually wants people to doubt its truthfulness – hence cups falling through tables and the patrolling dinosaurs. And in particular she wants the Doctor to question it, because if an all-knowing Time Lord doubts something is real, that’s guaranteed to break a wish apart.

So when the Doctor does eventually come to understand what’s happening – thanks to a surprise cameo appearance by Rogue (Jonathan Groff) from the last series – he’s taken to the Rani, who explains everything to him, even apologising for the amount of exposition she’s having to do about her convoluted scheme. Her ultimate goal is for reality to collapse so that she can access the so-called Underverse and free Omega – one of the founding fathers of the Time Lords who gave them the ability to time travel, but later went mad and became extremely dangerous. His voice is heard as the world starts to melt away (apparently using archive audio of the character rather than anything new being recorded). Unlike the Rani, I have actually seen a Classic Era story featuring Omega before, having watched the Tales Of The Tardis version of The Three Doctors, which was my favourite of those retrospective editions.

And so it ends with Belinda seemingly being erased from existence, London melting away as reality collapses, and the Doctor falling through the air. As he descends, however, he does call out to Rani that baby Poppy is real, the significance of which becomes apparent in the next episode.

So there’s a lot going on there, but I really enjoyed it. It’s a shame, however, that after all the build-up over 2 series, Mrs Flood didn’t really have much to do, having become subservient to the Rani she bi-generated into. She does have nice little scenes with Conrad and the new Rani though, and is responsible for arresting the Doctor to bring him to the bone palace, but that’s it really. The new Rani is brilliant though, so it’s understandable that she’s taking centre stage, and there were nice little flashbacks to Kate O’Mara in the role as well. We were also treated to one more fleeting glimpse of Susan Foreman as well, although the Doctor didn’t notice it.

It’s a shame that Susan doesn’t play a further role beyond that. She was meant to appear in the finale, but when Ncuti Gatwa decided to quit the show, she had to be written out.

8. The Reality War

This extended 65-minute rollercoaster of an episode brings together several plot strands from this series, and even elements from last year’s as well. So it’s a bit messy here and there, as it tries to cram so much in, and they had to fudge the ending given Ncuti’s decision to leave. However, it is still very entertaining with some great stand-out moments, including a couple of huge surprises that were impressively kept secret prior to broadcast. That said, the BBC wasted no time after it aired to post a spoiler-filled headline on their news site and videos on the Doctor Who Youtube channel that gave things away, without considering those people who were preparing to watch on iPlayer that night or the next day.

The first surprise is that the Doctor is rescued from falling into the collapsing reality by Anita from the Christmas episode. Now working at the Time Hotel, she’s been looking for the Doctor through its many doors, seeing some of his past incarnations along the way, until opening a door in the correct place to save him. So it was lovely to see her again, and she played a pivotal role during the episode, ensuring that reality was being held in place, even if it did mean she was standing in a doorway for a long time. That enabled the Doctor to rescue Belinda and baby Poppy, before restoring UNIT to its proper form, with Kate Lethbridge-Stewart (Jemma Redgrave), Mel Bush (Bonnie Langford), Rose Noble (Yasmin Finney), Susan Triad (Susan Twist) and others making a welcome return as their real selves.

The Rani then also appears at UNIT to explain that her plan is to use Omega to create a new Gallifrey with a new race of Time Lords. She had survived The Spy Master’s destruction of Gallifrey back in the 13th Doctor’s era, but she and the Doctor reveal that the genocide rendered Time Lords sterile, making it impossible for them to have children again – which means Poppy cannot be the child of Belinda and the Doctor, and is seemingly a product of the wished version of reality.

When the Rani then leaves and arranges for the Bone Beasts to attack the UNIT tower – which is a stunning visual set piece as UNIT fight back – the Doctor arranges for Belinda and Poppy to be placed into a “zero room” built by Susan Triad (Susan Twist), so that they’ll be safe even if reality does collapse. Which is great in that regard, but it does mean that Belinda’s shut in a box for a substantial part of the episode, when she deserved to have more involvement.

The Doctor is then able to summon and use the Rani’s own flying machine to zip across the Thames to the Rani’s palace, which is also a beautiful sequence as he dodges the beasts and dives beneath Tower Bridge en route. His crashing arrival then enables Ruby to use the Indigo teleportation device (previously used by Martha Jones in The Stolen Earth) to also go there and face Conrad.

Omega (voiced by Nicholas Briggs) is then revealed as this huge, terrifying creature that emerges from the Underverse (which the Doctor also refers to as having names like Narnia and the Upside Down, the latter being a reference to Stranger Things). I know he doesn’t look like the original Omega, but the Doctor’s explanation for him becoming his own legend after so much time in the Underverse works well enough for me. He certainly looks really menacing, and after asserting himself as the God of Time who feasts on Time Lords, he has the Rani for his first meal, thus disposing of her quite early on in the episode. It’s quite funny the way he just picks her up and drops her into his mouth, as it’s what she deserves.

Mrs Flood then quickly makes her escape – making an amusing two Ranis (i.e. Two Ronnies) joke in the process, a reference that most overseas viewers on Disney+ won’t get! So she’s still out there somewhere. I still think it’s rather a shame that she didn’t have more to do in the finale though, after 2 seasons of build-up, and was so subservient to the new Rani. But it is nice to think we might see her again in the future, I’m glad that door’s been left open.

It also feels underwhelming that Omega is dealt with so efficiently by the Doctor. His method of dispatching Omega back to the Underverse makes sense in the context of the story, but as the show had prepared us for what a substantial threat he’s supposed to be, in an episode with “war” in the title, I was expecting and hoping for a much bigger fight. When the Doctor was backing away towards the clock face, for instance, Omega had ample time to pick him up and eat him as well, or to just escape the confines of the bone palace and attack London. So it felt like a wasted opportunity really. But who knows, it’s not beyond Russell or someone else to find a way to bring him back again one day, with this being merely a tease for a much bigger battle later on.

Ruby then uses the wish god baby to send Conrad off to live a better life and also to reset the world the way it was, while the Doctor discovers his Tardis was hidden away within the bone palace, and he rescues Belinda and Poppy from their containment space. Ruby watches them sadly in quite an emotional scene, as the Doctor and Belinda plan their life together with baby Poppy – only for Poppy and the cot to disappear, along with everyone’s memory of her. Ruby is the only one who remembers that Poppy existed, with the Doctor, Belinda and UNIT refusing to believe her. As with her memories in the previous episode, it does seem that Ruby is able to remember alternate versions of reality better than other people, perhaps because of her experience in 73 Yards last year.

Eventually, however, she is able to persuade the Doctor that there is this other life worth saving, and we do see supposed “flashbacks” in the episode to moments where Belinda was talking about Poppy, even though they’re actually previous scenes with altered dialogue, as if we too have been watching an alternate reality all series. Which kind of makes sense but feels a bit of a cheat as well, as Russell is usually good at planting things in episodes that we’re then reminded of later, even if we hadn’t paid attention at the time, or so we can feel rewarded if we did pick up on them. But these memories are of things that we never saw, so it’s a bit confusing.

The Doctor realises, therefore, that reality is still slightly off-kilter, and needs to be nudged back a degree to properly restore itself. But shifting reality is obviously a big deal, and the only way to do it is by firing regeneration energy into the time vortex, which by definition will cause the Doctor to regenerate. So the last portion of the episode is all about the build-up to that.

And that’s where we get the most exciting surprise of all – the return of Jodie Whittaker! What an absolute thrill it was to see the 13th Doctor back, in a really lovely scene where she gives support to the 15th Doctor as he prepares to make such a big sacrifice. The fact that it wasn’t leaked in advance (or I didn’t notice if it was) made it all the more special. There were so many things to like, including the jokes about how often David Tennant has returned and the redecoration of the Tardis, her giving him a tip that helps him refine what he’s about to do, the “timey wimey” reference, her line about not going in fear, the sweet moment where they talk about her love for Yaz, and the underlying music score that gave a nod to the style of the 13th Doctor’s era.

The Doctor doesn’t regenerate immediately though, instead resisting his body’s attempts to do so, and returning to Earth to find Belinda and Poppy safe and well. It’s then confirmed that Poppy is purely human, born to Belinda and another person, not the Doctor. So it’s lovely that the Doctor and Belinda get a happy farewell scene together. Though by contrast it’s disappointing that Ruby doesn’t get to say a proper goodbye at all. She was so important to the Doctor in the previous series, and played a crucial role in this finale (much more so than Belinda did really), so it feels very unfair for her not to have some proper closure with the Doctor as well.

As for the actual regeneration itself, it’s a lovely touch that the Doctor goes to Joy’s star from the end of the Christmas episode, and there’s triumphant music and great visuals as you’d expect. But it was a complete shock to see him turn into Billie Piper! It is a delight to see her again, but it’s completely baffling as to why she’s appeared. Rumours online suggest that she only stepped in as a late favour to Russell T Davies to get discussion flowing amongst the fanbase, while decisions were made regarding the show’s future. I don’t know if it’s true, but it’s plausible. It does feel as if the BBC locked themselves into the Disney deal too securely, because if they hadn’t been waiting on a decision on future series, there would have been a new Doctor announced with a lot of fanfare.

As it is, it doesn’t look like Billie’s the next Doctor, because she’s not credited as such (Ncuti and Jodie are listed as “The Doctor”, but Billie simply gets an “introducing” credit without a character name). She was of course companion Rose Tyler, who became the Bad Wolf legend after looking into the Tardis, so it does have a connection to her, and a version of Rose represented “The Moment” in the 50th anniversary special, but we don’t know if any of that will be relevant. What does feel likely is that she’ll be the lead in a special episode before the actual new Doctor is revealed for the next series. But who knows?

In any case, it is sad to see Ncuti go, and it feels much too early for him, just as it did for Christopher Eccleston (who actually said that Billie Piper should be the next Doctor a few years ago). Chris only did 13 episodes back in 2005, and because of these shorter couple of series, Ncuti has only done 18. He was brilliant in the role from the outset, and has grown into it even further in this series, so he deserved more.

However, his departure wasn’t entirely unexpected either. Not guaranteed by any means, but certainly a real possibility. It was well known that no decision on Season 3 would be made by Disney until after these last 2 seasons had aired, so they could analyse how well they did. And Ncuti is a young actor in very high demand, with good reason. He’s also said in his recent behind the scenes interviews that 2 seasons was always the plan, given how intense the series is to film.

There have of course been other claims and rumours spread online about events behind the scenes, and there do seem to have been clues that Ncuti was planning to do a third season all along, only for things to change at a late stage, requiring a reshoot of the ending of the final episode. But there’s been no official confirmation on any of that. Maybe more will come out in the future like it did following Eccleston’s exit. But irrespective of that, as with any job, Ncuti would want to have security and certainty for his acting career, rather than waiting around for a decision and missing out on other opportunities as a result, so you can’t blame him for taking on other roles instead.

So thank you to Ncuti for a couple of very enjoyable seasons as the Doctor, I loved the energy and depth he brought to the character and will miss him. He’s definitely gone too soon.

Blu-ray Extras

Just like last year, the Blu-ray set is packed with extras, including a couple of audio commentaries and the full episodes of Doctor Who Unleashed, plus the behind the scenes videos and several other bonus clips from the Doctor Who Youtube channel. And there are more little things exclusive to the box set as well.

Altogether, by my reckoning, there are approximately 8 hours 45 minutes of extras. So, just like last year, it’s strange that the cover undersells this so much, saying that there’s just over 5 hours. Doctor Who Unleashed lasts for just over 4 hours 20 minutes as it is, and the Making Of videos are nearly 1 hours 40 minutes between them, so that’s practically 6 hours between them.

Front side of the leaflet inside the Doctor Who Season 2 Blu-ray set. It depicts Ncuti Gatwa's Doctor with companion Belinda Chandra, viewed from a low angle so they appear to be towering giants, with the Tardis very small in the background. They're standing on a meteor, covered in cracks that reveal lava beneath the surface, as it heads towards a planet or moon that has red patches on it as if it's already been heavily damaged.
Rear side of the leaflet inside the Doctor Who Season 2 Blu-ray set, giving a full list of the episodes and extra features on each of the 7 discs.

Audio Commentaries

Last year there were a few in-vision commentaries available both online and on the Blu-ray. This year, however, there are just a couple of audio commentaries, which are exclusive to the DVD & Blu-ray releases, relating to the Christmas special and Episode 1. It’s a shame there aren’t more beyond that, and we don’t get to hear from Ncuti Gatwa, but what we do have is still worth listening to, as they’re fun and interesting as always:

Unleashed & Making Of Features

Just like the previous season, there are dedicated behind the scenes features for all of the episodes:

  • Doctor Who Unleashed – This documentary series of half-hour episodes is the successor to the old Confidential programme, with Steffan Powell as a delightfully enthusiastic presenter. We get to meet lots of different members of the production crew, and we of course get to see how lots of the stunts and effects were achieved. So it’s a great companion show to the main series, and it’s wonderful that the full episodes are included in the box set, just like last year (whereas Confidential used to be cut down a lot). The Christmas episode is on the same disc as the festive special Joy To The World. But the other 8 episodes for the main series are split equally across discs 6 & 7 to keep them together.
  • Making Of Features – These are extra behind the scenes videos for every episode, lasting between 8 and 14 minutes each (1 hour 37 minutes in total), which were originally shown on Youtube and are also very interesting.

Bonus Clips

There are various other bits and pieces spread across the box set, some of which are also available on Youtube, but it’s good to have personal copies too. These include very interesting scene breakdowns by the directors for a few of the episodes, a nice chat between Russell T Davies and Steven Moffat, “Get To Know” features where stars of the show answer various questions, and behind the scenes tours. There are also various other odds and ends, some of which are too short or of insufficient interest to be worth watching, but others are quite fun.

The various features are separated by episode on each disc, and include the following:

There are also many other clips that are exclusive to Youtube, which you can see if you look through Doctor Who’s official playlist and the one I’ve compiled for the series.

Other Stuff

Deleted Scenes

Just like last year, a collection of deleted scenes were posted on Youtube to mark Doctor Who Day (the anniversary of the series) on November 23. It’s disappointing that they didn’t put them on the Blu-ray, but at least we have them here. The 17-minute video includes material trimmed from every episode except The Well.

Some of the scenes are short and not particularly exciting, and you can see why they were cut for time. But there are interesting moments too, with the full version of Belinda’s first scene in the Tardis with the Doctor, Ruby taking Conrad home to meet her family, a story by one of the barber shop customers being deemed inadequate, and some nice scenes between Belinda and the Doctor from the 2-part finale.

Unfortunately, though unsurprisingly, the cut material doesn’t include the original ending to the series, which had to be reshot when they discovered Ncuti Gatwa was leaving. The BBC have never made any official admission that such an ending exists, but nor have they denied it either, because the fans already know about it thanks to a few revelations by people who were involved. So it’s a pity they haven’t released it, as it would have been really cool to see it, especially given Susan Foreman’s involvement. Maybe one day in the far future it’ll see the light of day, but they clearly don’t want us to see it yet.

20th Modern Era Anniversary

It’s 2 decades already since Doctor Who returned to our screens in 2005, and the occasion has been marked by a couple of special hour-long documentaries. Both feature extensive and interesting interviews with Russell T Davies, who was responsible for bringing the show back so successfully, as well as reflections from some of the cast and production team (albeit with notable exclusions):

However, in both of those programmes, some Doctors and companions get much more attention than others, with a few companions in particular getting little to no acknowledgement at all (e.g. Jack, Martha, Donna, Clara, River, etc). It’s quite disappointing really, considering they’ve all played a key part in the show’s enduring success. Perhaps it depended on who was available or willing to be interviewed, but they could still have used archive interview clips if need be.

Plus there’s also the fact that an hour is nowhere near enough to do justice to that length of time on the air, given how much the show has evolved in the past 20 years. It feels like they could have done with at least an extra hour in each case, or perhaps they could have done a separate episode for each showrunner’s era (Davies 1, Moffat, Chibnall & Davies 2), or for each Doctor.

Still, all that said, if you look past the limitations they are nice tributes to the show and the impact it’s had overall, and it’s wonderful to see so many people behind the camera as well as in front of it being lauded for their work.

The Future

So what happens next? Since the series ended there has been a lot of speculation, and as usual the tabloid newspapers and internet haters have claimed that the show is ending, as they like to do every season anyway. But it was clearly not going to end. It was always just a question of how and when it moves forward, not if.

The BBC did eventually put everyone’s minds at rest though. For a start, in August 2025 Chief Content Officer Kate Phillips told the audience at the Edinburgh TV festival:

“Any Whovians out there, rest assured: Doctor Who is going nowhere. Disney has been a great partnership and it continues with The War Between The Land And The Sea next year. But going forward, with or without Disney, Doctor Who will still be on the BBC. The Tardis is going nowhere.”

So that was unsurprising but reassuring news. Then in October it was announced that the show would be continuing with a Christmas special in 2026, so that Russell T Davies could sort out the Billie Piper cliffhanger. But DIsney will no longer be involved from that point forwards, which is no surprise. And for the series beyond that, it’s not yet clear if Russell will stay on as showrunner.

That sadly means we get no Christmas special this year. But there is the UNIT spin-off called The War Between The Land And The Sea to look forward to instead, which is being shown in 5 parts during December, with a couple of double-bills followed by the big finale, spread across 3 weeks. So that looks pretty cool, and marks the final part of the Disney+ deal. And separate to that, the BBC have announced plans for an animated series for pre-school children involving the Doctor, which could help to draw a new generation into the Whoniverse.

So the BBC will continue to make Doctor Who, as they’re clearly still interested in it. After all, it’s far too big an asset for them to just drop it, especially at a time when they need all the revenue they can get. They wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of hooking up with a giant like Disney in the first place if they weren’t that bothered. And it’s not just the modern era that’s popular – even Classic Who still pulls in a significant audience and income stream. Then there’s the rights to all the audio stories, printed books, merchandise, events, etc that they must make quite a bit from.

So I’ve no doubt there are other organisations who would be interested in helping to fund the show, as it would give them a decent bit of publicity and revenue too. After all, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation were involved during Russell T Davies’ first era. And Russell has said that several stories have already been written or mapped out for Seasons 3 and 4 – although given the shake-up forced by Ncuti’s departure, and the BBC’s rethinking about how the show is going to be distributed, we don’t know of his ideas will be carried forward. If Russell doesn’t stay on, it won’t be the end of the world, as his second era hasn’t been as good as his first (2005-2010). But then again, if he’s given more freedom without Disney’s input, that might be to his and the show’s benefit, who knows? The show could probably do with a fresh start though to be fair.

In any case, even if the budget is lower going forward, it’s hardly going to be a showstopper, as they managed perfectly well long before Disney flashed their chequebook at them. The creative team behind the show are just that – extremely creative – as any long-term fans will know, so even with less resources they can still do incredible things. And besides, if certain reports are true, a lot of the extra cash from Disney was apparently needed to ensure the show could be streamed in 4K on their platform, so the BBC would slash their costs by dropping that requirement to start with.

In the meantime, while casting Billie Piper was clearly a last-minute act of desperation, it was probably a canny move nonetheless, as it’s already triggered a lot of discussion to keep the fans occupied, and it buys time for the BBC while they look for the next Doctor. It also means that the 2026 Christmas special is guaranteed to pull in a lot of viewers who enjoyed her previous involvement with the series, even if they’re not huge fans of the show as it is now.

Until then, I’ll enjoy the UNIT spin-off, and I’ll also carry on rewatching the earlier series of the modern era for my ongoing set of reviews. It’s been quite a while since I last watched Matt Smith’s era, so I’m really enjoying going through that again, and it means I’ve got plenty to keep me busy.

Conclusion

So that’s it, I hope you enjoyed my review of the latest series. While it still doesn’t match the peaks of Russell T Davies’ first era, it is better than last year’s series, and I really enjoyed it. It’s a great shame to lose Ncuti Gatwa so soon of course, he deserved to stay on for longer. But it’s going to be really interesting to see what comes next as always.

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Author: Glen

Love London, love a laugh, love life. Visually impaired blogger, culture vulture & accessibility advocate, with aniridia & nystagmus, posting about my experiences & adventures.