Doctor Who Season 14 Review: Ncuti Gatwa & Russell T Davies Usher In Exciting, Compelling New Chapter
SUMMARY
- Doctor Who’s new budget boosts visual effects quality.
- Ncuti Gatwa shines as the Doctor in an engaging mystery.
- The show’s shift to more fantasy over sci-fi elements is promising.
Doctor Who is back with a brand-new reset. This time, the longest-running sci-fi series leans in to some more fantastical elements. Russell T Davies helmed the revival of the series back in 2005, and while the show has since enjoyed almost 20 years back on the small screen, RTD has returned to pick it up from another slump. While the story is picking up where the previous season ended, and the Doctor Who 60th anniversary episodes bridged a gap, the series is not exactly as it’s always been and there are some clear differences going into the new season 1.
Originally premiered in 1963, Doctor Who is a sci-fi series that follows a powerful being known as a Time Lord, referred to as the Doctor. Using an interdimensional time-traveling ship known as the TARDIS, the Doctor travels time and space with various companions as they solve multiple problems and help avert catastrophe as much as they almost cause it. Though the Doctor is always the same character, they experience regenerations, allowing them to be recast every few seasons as a unique immortal being with new personality traits.
- The increased budget makes a big difference to the special effects.
- Ncuti Gatwa is wonderful in his performance as the Doctor.
- An engaging mystery is slowly unfolding.
- It is a big shift from everything that came before.
- Sometimes the fantasy elements overtake the sci-fi.
Doctor Who is an enormous undertaking as a series that has decades’ worth of history behind it, and a fanbase that includes multiple generations. While the show undergoes changes with each new Doctor taking over the TARDIS, the difference in this new era is perhaps the biggest departure yet. Sci-fi shenanigans are swapped out for fantastical fantasy, and while it feels reminiscent of modern Doctor Who, it is also distinctly different.
Russell T. Davies discusses his return to Doctor Who, upcoming answers about Ruby Sunday, and fully leaning into fantasy with the new villains.
The new season has better effects than before
In both of the season 1 premiere episodes, “Space Babies” and “The Devil’s Chord,” there is a noticeable change from previous seasons in terms of quality, visual effects, and ambition. In the first few moments of “Space Babies,” this can be seen with outstanding effects that are only briefly used, before diving into a completely different adventure. This is highly promising for the future of Doctor Who as bigger stories can be told.
The last two decades have established the show as investable for a giant like Disney, which earned them the budget to go wild.
However, a show relies on more than money to make an impression. Doctor Who has always been brilliant because the cast and crew get creative, and come together to make something special, even when the odds are against them. That is how the show began, and it’s how it kicked things off in 2005. The last two decades have established the show as worth investing in for a giant company like Disney, which earned them the budget to go wild, but this could potentially lead Doctor Who down a tricky path as the stories become more ridiculous than ambitious.
The first of the two premiere episodes certainly appears to lean more into this outrageous style, as many could guess with a title like “Space Babies.” However, RTD manages to keep it fun, and build a credible and entertaining story. The repeated exclamations and heavy exposition, which come about due to the nature of a reboot, can become slightly tedious, but Ncuti Gatwa and Millie Gibson are outstanding and engaging throughout.
In commentary and interviews with RTD, there have been multiple references to including more fantasy elements, including gods, beasts and monsters. However, the show has not completely abandoned its sci-fi roots. The Doctor remains an alien with highly advanced technology and knowledge of the wider universe, and this hasn’t changed. But there are definitely more fantasy elements within the series building on those introduced in the 60th Anniversary episodes.
The show will need to find its footing, but with the incredible talent involved, it’s in a strong position to do just that.
Doctor Who has always included elements from a wide range of genres, but the show remained at its core a sci-fi series. RTD appears to have an intense desire to expand the range of adventures and stories which can be told, beyond the confines of all time and space and into the realm of myth and legend. This ultimately feels like a natural and positive direction for Doctor Who to take, but it may take some time to get used to.
As the season progresses, and the show continues to establish this new era for Doctor Who, hopefully, it will be able to blend both sci-fi and fantasy in a way that doesn’t feel like everything that came before disappears, but that both can exist side by side. For now, it appears that there is still room to grow, and the show will need to find its footing. But with the incredible talent involved, it’s in a strong position to do just that. And, after a bleak few years for the show, Doctor Who is undoubtedly back.
