Doctor Who has returned once more to our screens for its fourteenth season on the air – or rather, the first of its latest iteration, since it’s as ‘Series One’ that the new run of episodes have been promoted within the show’s marketing and on the BBC’s streaming service, BBC IPlayer – as well as on Disney Plus for international viewers.
This newest ‘season one’ acts as a soft reboot for the franchise, after several years of troubled production and dwindling ratings. Kicking off with the previous Christmas special, The Church on Ruby Road – the season has been pitched as a fresh starting point for a whole new audience, giving viewers their first proper look at Ncuti Gatwa’s incarnation of the Time Lord, as well as Millie Gibson in her role as companion Ruby.
The newest season has been overseen by Russell T. Davies; the perfect candidate, one might think, for giving the show a new lease of life, since it was he who had first brought it back in 2005 after it had been off the air for 16 years. Certainly, the eight episodes in this newest run feel like a breath of fresh air, with a fast-paced and varied set of stories that tackle a range of different styles and setups. But much of this newest run feels all over the place, and it’s hard to imagine it will attract many newer viewers to what is a franchise that increasingly appears to be running out of steam.
The stars of this newest season are what carry much of it. Gatwa in particular is able to quickly make the role of the Doctor his own, not only bringing to it a real sense of youth and exuberance, but also proving himself more than capable of tackling some of the more serious sides to his character but also bringing across a level of vulnerability in a way that’s rarely been seen prior.
Gibson meanwhile is also great throughout as Ruby Sunday, a young girl from modern-day Earth who, having been adopted, is on a quest to find her missing birth parents. One of numerous actresses who’ve come over to Doctor Who from soaps, she is able to give a real natural feeling to much of her performance. That being said, the character herself still feels lacking in development, with little of substance made clear about her beyond her fear of abandonment.
Often throughout the season, it seems as if the narrative has simply skirted around important moments of development for these two characters. In the early episodes of the season in particular, the two instantly become the best of friends, each acting as if they’ve known the other for ages. The obvious chemistry between the two actors goes some way towards selling this, but in terms of the writing, there is little done to actually illustrate their getting to know each other, or to flesh them out any further from the audience’s perspective.
Much of this, it seems likely, is a symptom of the much shorter runtime for this season – in spite of the extra budget from Disney, this season has been reduced to just eight episodes in total, and unquestionably, it does suffer from this. Not only in the character development but the plots themselves, many of the episodes here feel like a speedrun of a Doctor Who season, flying from one thing to the next.
The first few episodes in the season, including the earlier Christmas special, are perhaps the most dramatic examples of this. They have an incredibly camp tone and virtually non-existent plots, all of which seems poorly suited to attracting anyone not already invested in the show. The first episode in particular, ‘Space Babies’, is perhaps one of the least watchable episodes in recent years – a mostly aimless runaround, complete with talking babies and a literal ‘bogey-man’ that seems at times too juvenile even for this show’s mostly child audience. Meanwhile, the second episode of the bunch, which sees a entity fuelled by music taking over ’60s London, is perhaps a bit more fun in terms of pure camp, but overall it’s so overblown and fantastical that it pretty quickly kills any genuine investment in what’s actually going on.
These earlier episodes are clearly aiming for a light, fluffy introduction to the show and its premise, but at the same time rely heavily on exposition and broader plot threads. The episodes run at a frenetic pace, attempting to sell viewers on this new relationship between this Doctor and their companion – but rarely stopping to allow for any space in which to breathe.
There’s numerous scenes throughout this run that almost exactly mirror ones from previous seasons – whether that’s the scene in episode one, where Ruby has her phone magically boosted so as to be able to speak to her mum across the centuries, or another in the subsequent episode, where the Doctor shows her an alternate future. But here it seems like these moments only to fill a check list of necessary beats. Previous seasons might take only a few extra seconds over them, but these would often make all the difference, as they would allow for viewers to see the impact these moments have on the characters, to allow for some degree of tension, and to make it feel that more real – even when the rest of the episode was similarly camp or over the top.
Similar problems with pacing and tone affect many of the later episodes in this run, with several having some really promising ideas and moments, but failing to wrap things up in a satisfactory way, and mostly falling apart towards the end. Episode three, ‘Boom’, has received perhaps the most hype of all the new episodes, marking the return of former showrunner Steven Moffat, who’s previously written some of the show’s best episodes.
The premise is undeniably great – the Doctor, stuck on a landmine, is unable to move for almost the whole of the runtime. Forced to think and to talk their way out of the situation, the episode allows for Gatwa to show off a bit more of the savage side to his Doctor, whilst the episode itself allows for some neat commentary on topics like capitalism, war, and faith. Moffat masterfully demonstrates throughout his understanding of what makes the character tick – here more than any other episode so far, this feels like the same character that we’ve been following for sixty years, with some wonderful dialogue throughout.
At the same time, there are gaps in much of the logic behind the plot, as we’re told setting off the mine would somehow destroy half the planet, in a moment that feels designed purely to ramp up the stakes, when it would have been a premise best suited to a small scale story, with just the Doctor’s life at stake. The end also feels very lazy, love ultimately being what saves the day in what had become an all-too-common trope during the Moffat era.
The fourth episode, ’73 Yards’, is another that starts out really interestingly, as Ruby finds herself being followed by an unknown spectre, always at a distance. It’s a setup that allows for some genuinely creepy moments, and Gibson gives an amazing performance throughout. It’s one which again seems to fall apart as it goes on however, as halfway through it abruptly switches from an atmospheric folk horror to political thriller. A lot of it still really works – Aneurin Barnard is brilliant as politician Roger ap Gwilliam, and the implications of certain scenes might be up there as amongst the darkest stuff Doctor Who has tackled. But ultimately, it feels as if it’s trying to be too many things at once, with an ending that feels to give any kind of explanation or resolution as to how it all links together.
The latter half of this season is by and large much more cohesive, with its final run of episodes mostly being a lot more consistent in tone and storytelling. Episode five, ‘Dot and Bubble’, is perhaps the best of the season – a Black Mirror-esque story that comments not only on social media, but also on racism, elitism, and individualism, as we follow a young woman, Lindy Pepper-Bean, who is quite literally surrounded by her social media bubble, one which does all her seeing, walking and talking for her – leaving her blind to the monsters eating people alive in the streets. It’s a really solid premise, which crucially is given the time to slowly develop – what if there was a society that simply did not deserve to be saved? Callie Cooke is brilliant here as the vacuous and utterly self-centred Lindy, and her and Gatwa’s final scenes in particular are an absolute gut punch.
The penultimate story, ‘Rogue’, also is a lot clearer on what it’s trying to say. Overall, it’s a much simpler, far more run-of-the-mill Doctor Who episode, but perhaps because of this, feels a lot more like the show simply being itself, with romance that works surprisingly well considering how quickly it has to develop. The two part finale that follows, however, soon descends into a lot of the same issues that plague earlier episodes, starting out with an intriguing setup, but with an ending that feels utterly nonsensical in the face of everything that’s been set up, and is full of endless fan service that must be utterly bewildering to casual viewers.
Ultimately, whilst it has its high points, this is a season that feels disordered and lacking in any real depth. It definitely has its moments, and without a doubt is more entertaining than the show has generally been in recent years. But, as a potential jumping on point for a new era, it still feels woefully lacking, with little to keep viewers engaged. Rather than a fresh start, the show is one that feels increasingly tired, and well past its peak.
READ NEXT: 15 Best PS2 Open World Games Ever Made
Some of the coverage you find on Cultured Vultures contains affiliate links, which provide us with small commissions based on purchases made from visiting our site.
