TV Review: Doctor Who, season 1

TV #28 of 2024:

Doctor Who, season 1

We have, for some reason, started over again with our numbering for this long-running science-fiction franchise, so that there now exists Doctor Who season 1 – 26 (1963 – 1989), Doctor Who season 1 – 13 (2005 – 2021), and a new Doctor Who season 1 – ? (2024 – present), along with all the holiday specials, spinoff shows, canonical-except-when-contradicted licensed novels and audio dramas, and so on. It’s a lot to keep track of, and while I understand the reasoning behind setting the count back to season 1 to make the series seem more welcoming to fresh audiences, that sort of flies in the face of a show about the fifteenth-ish incarnation of its time-traveling alien hero, who regularly references the adventures he’s had in previous lives (and who was introduced in the course of an episode last year that brought back… okay, you know what, never mind).

The point is, modern Doctor Who is a glorious mess, and I’m not sure calling this run season 1 instead of season 14 or season 41 actually renders the situation any less confusing. But let’s dive in!

If you are a newcomer, I’d say this is as fine a place to start as any, near the beginning of a specific protagonist lineup. As noted above, the Fifteenth Doctor made his debut in December 2023’s The Giggle, with his companion Ruby Sunday following later that month in the subsequent special The Church on Ruby Road — which Disney+ currently lists as both a separate “Special 4” entry (paralleling “Special 1” The Star Beast, “Special 2” Wild Blue Yonder, and “Special 3” The Giggle) as well as episode 1 of the current season. The doubling-up is as weird as the rest of this marketing, but I do think Church fits cohesively with the episodes that follow, establishing not only the Doctor’s latest costar, but also her family, a certain neighbor, and her mysterious past. Start there, rather than with “Space Babies,” when the series picked back up this May.

The youthful energy on-screen is fun. Millie Gibson is the first Gen Z lead for the show, while Millennial star Ncuti Gatwa — first Black actor to play the main role — is, at 31, only a few years older than Matt Smith was for his own TARDIS debut and substantially younger than most of the other Doctors have been. Together, these two friends travel the stars as is the program’s typical MO, navigating the Doctor’s time machine across reality, stumbling into strange circumstances, and rectifying whatever evil they find there. It’s a familiar formula for long-time fans, but pretty well-executed throughout. My biggest complaint is that a few of these episodes feel as though they’ve been somewhat cut down in the final edit, perhaps because the producers thought they’d have a longer runtime available. Thus we often start these plots with the heroes already on the scene in media res, rather than interacting casually in the TARDIS before leaving to get their bearings and notice the weekly threat. Generally the stories aren’t too hurt by this change, but it’s noticeable and unwanted, at least for this viewer.

The episodes themselves are good, although I want more of them; there’s only eight, not counting Church, which is part of a wider trend towards shorter TV seasons in recent years that I’m not especially fond of. Even with such slim pickings, however, a few entries like Boom (a Steven Moffat script that keeps the Doctor stuck standing on a landmine for most of its runtime), 73 Yards (a Doctor-lite episode to accommodate Gatwa’s filming commitment on Sex Education that becomes a powerhouse folk horror showcase for Gibson in his absence), and Rogue (a Bridgerton sendup featuring a male love interest for the Time Lord) stand out as likely classics for this young era. Meanwhile a mystery of a repeating cameo guest star plays out largely in the background, which feels of a piece with previous season arcs from returning showrunner Russell T. Davies. It all wraps up satisfyingly enough, though probably more so if you’re a fan of the old Fourth Doctor years of the show in particular, given the ultimate identity of the villain in the finale. Audiences who haven’t seen the Classic program should still get the general gist, however, much as was the case during “Utopia” and the episodes that followed it in 2007. And there’s even a thread or two left purposely open to feed future speculation at the end, which is always nice.

Overall: Doctor Who is back, baby! With just six months to go until a Moffat-penned Christmas special and season 2 (as I suppose we must learn to call it) having reportedly already wrapped filming. It’s a great time to be a fan.

[Content warning for gun violence, body horror, racism, and gore.]

★★★★☆

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