Iconic TV director and BBC veteran Russell T. Davies has now revived Britain’s iconic sci-fi serial Doctor Who for the second time. Following Chris Chibnall’s rough treatment of the series, Davies’ new-new-Who is attempting a bold revitalization of the series with a larger focus on fantasy elements, but underlying issues are causing the series to fall flat.
The latest season of Doctor Who, for the first time in decades, simply lacks a strong hook. The Eccleston and Tennant eras’ Time War edge brought a modern, almost-HBO appeal to the series, Matt Smith’s era focused on exploring The Doctor’s relationship with his companions and the brilliant Capaldi era explored whether or not The Doctor is actually a good man with some of the best conflicts the series has ever seen. Whether it was Doomsday or The Name of The Doctor, Heaven Sent or The Doctor Falls, individual episodes always furthered that season’s central theme.
With the current era of Doctor Who, we’re instead reverting to a flat Monster of the Week, albeit with only eight weeks of monsters. It’s not only flat, but disappointing, with most episodes not so much flowing together but instead just sitting alongside each other. There’s a throughline somewhere, hidden through special effects excess and Murray Gold’s jaunty music, but it’s wasted on a season that treats its heroes like action figures battling other action figures instead of daring to drive a wedge between them.
With a shorter-than-average season length of just eight 45-minute episodes, compared to the 13 episodes of the 2005 era, Doctor Who’s series-wide story arc is undeniably rushed. Following on from the events of The Giggle, the threat of The One Who Waits (who we now know to be Sutekh from Pyramids of Mars) is supposed to stew in the background, although it very rarely rears its head in a way that adds intrigue to the overall narrative.
Despite a standout cast with Ncuti Gatwa as The Doctor and Millie Gibson as companion Ruby Sunday, the current season of Doctor Who’s latest revival fails to capture the thrills of Davies’ original era or the brain-teasing There’s almost a complete lack of conflict surrounding its main cast, and sometimes even its villains.
After simply sidestepping The Timeless Child and The Flux storylines instead of directly addressing them, Davies’ newest attempt at bringing The Doctor to the screen has scrapped almost all conflict surrounding our main character. The darkness surrounding prior incarnations of the Time Lord has been washed away with Gatwa’s Doctor only allowed fleeting moments to flex their dramatic chops. Instead, Gatwa’s Doctor is whimsical, bright, and always cheery even in the face of demise. Which is fine in itself, but every other character also follows this same one-note tone.
In the series’ debut episode Space Babies, the central conflict of the on-board monster is solved by simply forgiving it. The Devil’s Chord’s supporting cast never interacts on-screen with the central villain Maestro; Dot and Bubble’s adorable space slugs are passive to the supporting cast until the very end; and Rogue’s villainous Chuldur species barely gets a chance to face off against our heroes.
It doesn’t help that the majority of the new season’s cast lacks the depth of even the one-off characters introduced during Moffat’s era. For example, Rogue offers an interesting dynamic between The Doctor and the titular Rogue, showing a potential romance between the two we haven’t seen since The Husbands of River Song. The chemistry between the two is red hot, and we start to see a hint of romantic conflict as ideals clash over bounty hunting versus saving civilians. Then, in an instant, Rogue is gone, and The Doctor bounces back, and the loss of that potential spark barely registers in the storytelling.
The only character that seems to have some form of conflict worth examining in Davies’ return to Doctor Who is the enigmatic Ruby Sunday, a new mystery box in the same vein as Moffat’s Clara Oswald. An impossible girl surrounded by intrigue, Ruby’s conflict is one of family, longing to know where she comes from and who she is. In 73 Yards, we see this conflict examined slightly further as she’s abandoned by her adopted mother, Carla. In Boom, we see her express the pain a lack of family has caused her, yet this conflict never arises aside The Doctor.
Several scenes in the new season of Doctor Who have brought up the existence of Susan, The Doctor’s granddaughter who appeared in the show’s debut season back in 1966. The Doctor explains that he hasn’t gone to see Susan in hundreds of years, essentially abandoning the one family member that might still be alive. For Ruby, a child of abandonment who desperately wants to connect with her birth parents, this should be a clear wedge between the two characters. How can Ruby and The Doctor both feel so strongly about her mother abandoning her and also not feel conflicted by the latter’s abandonment of their own family?
Thankfully, it seems that some conflict is starting to arise within the show’s finale, tying together the show’s surprisingly loose links with the big-budget Davies two-parter fans expect. With The Legend of Ruby Sunday, we’ve seen The Doctor upset Kate Stewart after the loss of barely-remembered-solider #1 and a few minor conversations regarding The Doctor’s abandonment of his family.
Hopefully, Doctor Who’s upcoming finale, Empire of Death, will be a great bookend to a rushed and underwhelming return. If not, at least it will offer the same spectacle the show’s finales have always managed to offer, especially with its new Disney Plus budget.