{"id":22454,"date":"2025-04-08T08:50:22","date_gmt":"2025-04-08T12:50:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/worldscreen.com\/"},"modified":"2025-04-09T12:07:54","modified_gmt":"2025-04-09T16:07:54","slug":"russell-t-davies-on-doctor-whos-new-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/russell-t-davies-on-doctor-whos-new-season\/","title":{"rendered":"Russell T Davies on\u00a0Doctor Who\u2019s New Season"},"content":{"rendered":"

Doctor Who<\/em>\u00a0landed on its new global home of Disney+ last year with Ncuti Gatwa stepping into the shoes of the iconic time traveler and an old friend of the show at the helm with Russell T Davies back as showrunner, returning to lead the BBC Studios franchise he successfully rebooted in 2005 and stayed with through 2010. Ahead of Disney+\u2019s second season premiering on April 12 (with a simulcast on BBC iPlayer in the U.K.), Davies caught up with\u00a0TV Drama<\/em>\u00a0to discuss the new episodes, which see Varada Sethu joining the cast as the Doctor\u2019s new travel companion, Belinda Chandra.<\/p>\n

TV DRAMA: <\/strong>Tell us about what\u2019s in store for your second season back on\u00a0Doctor Who<\/em>.
\nDAVIES:<\/strong>\u00a0We\u2019re coming in with wilder swings than ever! The beautiful nature of\u00a0Doctor Who<\/em>\u00a0means it never sits still; it keeps moving. Of course, it\u2019s an anthology show, but it\u2019s an anthology with teeth. It\u2019s never the same. Every week, it changes genres. We start with a great big space opera story: robots, lasers, spaceships and explosions! Episode two then goes to Miami in 1952, where a cartoon has come to life. I\u2019m not even sure what genre that is! Episode three is much scarier. It is one of those great\u00a0Doctor Who<\/em>\u00a0adventures on a hostile planet 500,000 years in the future. It\u2019s deserted. A colony has been found dead. Episode four is about whatever happened to Ruby Sunday. Ruby is left at home happily at the end of the last season. What is life like after\u00a0Doctor Who<\/em>? Surely, there\u2019s a bit of PTSD. There\u2019s also a love story. We\u2019ve never had a chance to tell a love story. How do you find a man who replaces the Doctor in your life? I\u2019ll tell you how. You get Jonah Hauer-King in. That\u2019s easy! Goodbye, Doctor. Hello, Jonah. That\u2019s just half the series. It keeps rolling on and rolling on, with bigger swings than ever. We\u2019re always delighted to be different every week. And this went madly different every week. I hope it keeps hopping. I hope it keeps fun. I hope we keep it lively. I\u2019m very excited. I can\u2019t wait for you to see it.<\/p>\n

TV DRAMA:\u00a0<\/strong>We talked last year about why you wanted to come back and your ambitions for the show. Were there lessons learned from your first season back, and your first with Ncuti on Disney+, that you\u2019re bringing to this season?
\nDAVIES:<\/strong>\u00a0Doctor Who<\/em>\u00a0is always a work in progress. It\u2019s not so much [about] lessons as it is keeping it varied again. We all loved Millie [Gibson] as Ruby Sunday. There may be a danger that it becomes a little bit Professor Higgins and Eliza Doolittle, so we\u2019re bringing someone who\u2019s more Ncuti\u2019s age to balance that out. Someone who doesn\u2019t accept what he says so easily, who challenges and provokes him while keeping Millie on board because she\u2019s loved and adored. You wait until the end of the series, where you see a Ruby Sunday showing strength like you\u2019ve never seen before. That\u2019s really what she learned on board the Tardis. It has callbacks all the way to her very first adventure in [the first episode of last season] \u201cThe Church on Ruby Road.\u201d It\u2019s very powerful stuff. So, it\u2019s a constant process of learning, but it\u2019s not a radically new series\u2014you can tell we have confidence in the show, and that confidence is rolling along. That show you loved is still there.<\/p>\n

TV DRAMA:\u00a0<\/strong>I was thinking that when I watched the first episode of last season, with that scene when Ruby Sunday first spots the Doctor dancing in the nightclub. It felt like it was a younger, hipper show\u2014but it also felt like the same show I\u2019ve loved for ages.
\nDAVIES:\u00a0<\/strong>That was a pivotal moment in my creation; my first thought was that she sees him dancing. Before I\u2019d thought of the story, the plot, a word of dialogue: it\u2019s a nightclub, and she sees him dancing. It says a lot without any word of dialogue. It was shot beautifully by [director] Mark Tonderai. And they put [the Doctor] in a kilt and a yellow vest! It\u2019s just glorious. It\u2019s the Doctor in motion. It\u2019s exhausting to make\u00a0Doctor Who<\/em>\u00a0because the Doctor never stops. He never sits still. Murray Gold, the musician, says that 25 minutes into every single episode, everyone starts running, and then they never stop! It\u2019s not a deliberate thing, honestly. But he\u2019s right; he sussed years ago that it\u2019s full of energy, life and action. It\u2019s a moment of stillness as well. It\u2019s a really lovely, perfect combination.<\/p>\n

TV DRAMA:\u00a0<\/strong>This season features a new companion with Varada Sethu as Belinda Chandra. How did you approach making that change?
\nDAVIES:\u00a0<\/strong>I\u2019ve done it a lot of times, and I always love it. Also, we\u2019re reaching a new audience on Disney+. You\u2019re showing off the format of the show. It\u2019s not the Doctor-Ruby show, it\u2019s\u00a0Doctor Who<\/em>. There always is a new companion. That\u2019s the format. We\u2019ve been clever with it this time. We adore Millie Gibson, so she does come back for episode four and the finale. There are gorgeous moments where she meets Belinda. To get the legacy and the history of two companions meeting\u2014it\u2019s like icons meeting to me. I absolutely love that. And the actors love it as well. It just keeps it fresh, it keeps it moving, it keeps it new, and I think the show should always be that way. I think it\u2019ll always keep happening.<\/p>\n

TV DRAMA:\u00a0<\/strong>It\u2019s a challenging time for the content business. How do you see the commissioning sector today?
\nDAVIES:\u00a0<\/strong>Well, it\u2019s an interesting time. I\u2019ve just been watching\u00a0Adolescence<\/em>\u00a0on Netflix. I do not deny that there are problems, and I do not deny there are people out of work, but\u00a0Adolescence<\/em>\u00a0is the most British show you can ever watch, with Northern actors who I\u2019ve been working with here in the north of England. There are actors I\u2019ve worked with for 30 years. All are speaking in their Northern accents. It\u2019s the darkest, most brutal subject matter about all the problems we have in society today. It\u2019s so localized, it\u2019s British, it\u2019s so intense\u2014and produced by Brad Pitt! Something is working there; one of the world\u2019s great names, whose name alone gets things made, is investing in local British talent, presenting a story that goes right to the heart of society today. There is healthy stuff out there. There\u2019s really good stuff. I\u2019ve got a new show next year about the state of gay politics and where we are now. It\u2019s on Channel 4. I got that commissioned kind of instantly. I\u2019m very proud of it. My heart breaks because there will be writers, producers and directors who are out of work listening to this. But honestly, I\u2019m not yet ready to despair because I still believe that a good idea will be made.<\/p>\n

TV DRAMA:\u00a0<\/strong>I did want to talk to you briefly about mentorship and your work bringing new writers into the fold. What\u2019s your message to up-and-coming talent about navigating the landscape today?
\nDAVIES:<\/strong>\u00a0That it\u2019s possible. In 2003, I executive produced [for] three writers having their first dramas on television. Jamie Davis [on the ITVX drama\u00a0You & Me<\/em>].\u00a0<\/strong>Lenny Henry is very famous in Britain but never had a drama series on television before. I helped to get [Three Little Birds<\/em>] on air. And a Welsh writer called Matthew Barry, who\u2019s written an awful lot in America and never had his own drama on BBC One. I was an executive producer on that [Men Up<\/em>]. So, I don\u2019t just talk the talk. Coming up in this series of\u00a0Doctor Who<\/em>, there\u2019s a script by Inua Ellams, a world-famous playwright with plays in the National Theater, who\u2019s never had anything on television before. Juno Dawson is a novelist whose books are on the\u00a0New York Times<\/em>\u00a0best-selling list. She\u2019s only ever had a five-minute little playlet on television before. It\u2019s very important to reach out and get these voices in to make the whole sphere of television richer and more diverse. I\u2019m very proud of the fact that I do that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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