| Special (2023): What Child Is
This? |
|
|
Ncuti Gatwa (bio) made his first appearance as the
Doctor in The Giggle (December
2023).
|
| Companions and Recurring Characters |
|
A foundling who longed to know her biological parents' identities, Ruby Sunday joined forces with the Doctor to rescue
her adoptive mother's foster child from the wicked Goblins.
Millie Gibson (bio) made her first appearance as
Ruby in The Church On Ruby Road
(December 2023).
|
|
|
|
Carla Sunday was a kind-hearted foster mother
who cared for dozens of children through the years, although Ruby was
the only one who ever stayed with her for good.
Michelle Greenidge (bio) made her first appearance
as Carla in The Church On Ruby
Road (December 2023).
|
|
|
|
Mother to Carla and grandmother to Ruby, Cherry
Sunday maintained a positive disposition despite being bedridden
-- except when it became an obstacle to obtaining a cup of her precious
tea.
Angela Wynter (bio) made her first appearance
as Cherry in The Church On Ruby
Road (December 2023).
|
|
|
|
Seemingly the elderly neighbour of Ruby, Carla and Cherry Sunday, Mrs Flood soon exhibited an unusual knowledge of,
and interest in, the Doctor.
Anita Dobson (bio) made her first appearance
as Mrs Flood in The Church On Ruby
Road (December 2023).
|
|
|
|
|
The Church On Ruby Road by Russell
T Davies, directed by Mark Tonderai
An airship lurking in the skies above Great Britain is home to a mob of
Goblins -- temporal troublemakers who thrive on coincidence. The target
of their mischief is Ruby Sunday, a foundling whose adoptive mother,
Carla, regularly fosters children. Christmas Eve is Ruby's nineteenth
birthday... and it also happens to be the day that Carla takes in
newborn Lulubelle. When the Goblins kidnap the infant, Ruby sets off in
pursuit, and she soon finds unexpected help in the form of the Doctor.
But even if the Doctor and his new friend manage to save Lulubelle, can
they stop the Goblins from unravelling Ruby's own history?
|
|
2023 saw Doctor Who return to BBC One's Christmas Day schedule
after a seven-year absence. The Church
On Ruby Road also marked the first time since the original
Doctor Who holiday special -- 2005's The Christmas Invasion -- that the
festive broadcast showcased the first full adventure for the newest
Doctor.
|
| Season Forty (2024): Gods And
Monsters |
|
|
Space Babies by Russell T Davies,
directed by Julie Anne Robinson
When a trip to see dinosaurs in the distant past nearly goes
disastrously wrong, the Doctor and Ruby instead travel eighteen
millennia into her future. There the TARDIS lands on a space station
which serves as a baby farm for the colony world of Pacifico Del Rio.
But the facility has been abandoned by its crew, leaving only a small
number of hyper-evolved infants to keep it running. To make matters
worse, the lower decks are haunted by a monster whom the babies call the
Bogeyman -- a creature so frightening that even the Doctor cannot help
but be terrified.
|
|
|
The Devil's Chord by Russell T
Davies, directed by Ben Chessell
Ruby wants to see The Beatles record their first album at the facilities
that will become London's famed Abbey Road Studios. But when she and the
Doctor arrive in 1963, they find themselves in a world bereft of song,
where the Fab Four are not artists on the verge of stardom but men
embarrassed that they're resorting to music to earn a living. The Doctor
soon discovers that humanity turned against its melodies as far back as
the Twenties -- and the culprit is the otherworldly being known as
Maestro, a child of the Toymaker. Without song, Cold War hostilities are
mounting... and Earth is destined for an imminent nuclear winter.
|
|
|
Boom by Steven Moffat, directed by
Julie Anne Robinson
On Kastarion 3, human forces are ensnared in a war against an unseen
foe. Blinded in battle, John Francis Vater is returning to base where
his young daughter, Splice, waits for him. But when he encounters an
Ambulance, the autonomous robot determines that Vater is too badly
injured -- and kills him instantly. Hearing Vater's final scream, the
Doctor goes to help, only to step on a landmine that transforms him into
a living bomb. While he desperately searches for a way to defuse it,
Splice arrives looking for her father. Then she's followed by another
soldier, Mundy Flynn, who thinks the Doctor and Ruby may be the enemy...
|
|
|
73 Yards by Russell T Davies,
directed by Dylan Holmes Williams
Soon after landing atop a cliff on the coast of Wales, the Doctor
accidentally damages a fairy circle. Ruby finds letters referring to
someone called “Mad Jack”, but then she discovers that the
Doctor has vanished, and her TARDIS key won't work. Stranger still, an
old woman stands in the distance, uttering indistinct words. Making for
the nearest village, Ruby realises that the woman is always there,
exactly seventy-three yards behind her. Anyone who approaches the woman
soon flees from Ruby in terror and loathing, leaving her to embark upon
a very long odyssey for which she is almost -- but never quite --
completely alone.
|
|
|
Dot And Bubble by Russell T Davies,
directed by Dylan Holmes Williams
Finetime is an idyllic city, populated by rich young adults from a
neighbouring planet. Amongst them is Lindy Pepper-Bean who, like her
peers, spends every waking moment immersed in a social media Bubble
generated by her hovering robotic Dot. One day, Lindy's contact list is
invaded by two strangers: the Doctor and Ruby. They're trapped outside
Finetime, but have reason to believe that its citizens are in terrible
danger. Indeed, Lindy is vaguely aware that some of her Finetime friends
have recently gone missing. Can she be persuaded to leave the familiar
comfort of her Bubble and face the monsters invading the real world?
|
|
|
Rogue by Kate Herron and Briony
Redman, directed by Ben Chessell
The Doctor and Ruby attend a party at the estate of the Duchess of
Pemberton in 1813. Amongst the merry dancing and whispered scandals,
they soon discover that they aren't the only interlopers. The Doctor is
drawn to a bounty hunter calling himself Rogue, who's hunting a
shapeshifting Chuldur. Unfortunately, he believes the Doctor himself is
the Chuldur -- and he's determined to inflict a death sentence.
Meanwhile, Ruby's investigation brings her perilously close to the real
Chuldur: not a single alien, but an entire family lurking amongst the
guests.
|
|
|
The Legend Of Ruby Sunday / Empire
Of Death by Russell T Davies, directed by Jamie Donoughue
Eager to get to the bottom of Ruby's origins, the Doctor takes her to
UNIT. There he hopes that their Time Window technology will help to
unlock the truth about the events which took place at the church on Ruby
Road on Christmas Eve 2004. At the same time, the travellers are
determined to discover why the same woman keeps appearing everywhere
they go. This mystery proves much more straightforward to solve, because
UNIT is already tracking the woman's present-day doppelganger: a tech
entrepreneur called Susan Triad. But the fact that her company --
“S TRIAD” is an anagram of “TARDIS” seems
impossible to ignore. Is this the Doctor's long-lost granddaughter? Or a
harbinger of something much darker?
|
|
With Ncuti Gatwa now firmly ensconced in the title role, Season Forty
etched a new milestone for Doctor Who, marking the first time
that the series star was a person of colour. Also revolutionary was the
seismic change to Doctor Who's broadcast methodology. No longer
was the programme principally designed for over-the-air broadcast on BBC
One; now it was a product of the streaming era, with each episode
debuting simultaneously on BBC iPlayer and around the world on Disney
Plus. The fragmented nature of its release made an assessment of Season
Forty's success harder to quantify than ever before. But with production
already wrapping on the 2025 episodes even before the entirety of the
2024 run was available, Doctor Who would have an extended
opportunity to demonstrate that it still had a place in a transformed
television landscape.
|
|
Production on Season Forty-One began on October 23rd, 2023. The episodes
will air in Spring 2025, and the recording block will also include the
2024 Christmas special.
After months of rumours, the BBC confirmed on April 12th that Varada
Sethu (bio) will be
joining the cast as a new companion. At the San Diego Comic-Con in July,
Russell T Davies announced that the character would be called Belinda
Chandra. Millie Gibson will also continue to appear as Ruby Sunday in
episodes during 2025.
The following directors have been confirmed for Gatwa's second year:
- Amanda Brotchie (bio) (Block Three, consisting of
episodes two and three)
- Peter Hoar (bio) (Block Two, consisting of episodes
one and four), who previously directed 2011's A Good Man Goes To War
- Alex Pillai (bio) (Block One, consisting of the 2024
Christmas special)
It's also believed that Ben A Williams (whose credits include the
2021 version of War Of The Worlds) is directing a recording
block, which appears to include the season's sixth episode, while
another is being directed by Makalla McPherson (whose credits include
Doctors and Apple Tree House).
|
|
