'Doctor Who': Accepting the new Doctor is never easy

Ncuti Gatwa as the Doctor smiles and puts his arm around Millie Gibson as Ruby Sunday on "Doctor Who."

By Mary McNamaraCulture Columnist and Critic

May 17, 2024 3 AM PT

I’m four episodes into the reign of Ncuti Gatwa’s Fifteenth Doctor ... well, five if you count the “Doctor Who Special 4” in which he met his companion Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson) ... well, five and a half if you also count the “Doctor Who Special 3” in which he emerged, via the world’s first bi-regeneration, from the side of the Tenth-turned-Fourteenth Doctor (David Tennant).

In any case, I’m burrowed into this season of “Doctor Who” and as per regenerative usual, I’m feeling conflicted.

Not with Gatwa, who is an absolute delight; I’m just in the final stage of grief/acceptance that is required of all Whovians every few years. The previous Doctor — Jodie Whittaker (Tennant’s special-episodes Doctor notwithstanding) — is gone and it’s time to let go and embrace the new one.

It’s always a bittersweet process. “Doctor Who” gives its fans much, but with a lead character who is a regularly regenerating Time Lord, it also asks a lot, perhaps more than any other television series in history.

Every few seasons, the person you have come to know and love as the Doctor is going to be replaced by someone completely different.

Well, not completely different — still the Doctor, with two hearts, the TARDIS, sonic screwdriver, Gallifrey trauma, pacifist leanings and psychic-paper credentials — but still very different. In mien, in dress, in catch phrase and in temperament.

“Doctor Who” began in 1963 as a family show designed to entertain and educate by exploring, via time travel, the glories and pitfalls of science and historical moments. William Hartnell was the First Doctor. When his health began to fail, the producers came up with the notion of “renewal” (which would eventually become “regeneration”) to allow him to be replaced by Patrick Troughton but still remain the Doctor.

I have seenonly bits and pieces of the original show, which featured eight Doctors over 26 years. Like many modern fans, I began watching in 2005, when it was, um, regenerated by Russell T Davies.

Christopher Eccleston was Davies’ first Doctor (the show’s ninth) but for reasons of his own, he lasted only one season. Then came Tennant, who, if pressed, I would still identify as my Doctor. Even with his penchant for fish fingers and custard, it took me a while to warm up to the Eleventh version, Matt Smith. But soon he was very much the Doctor, bow tie, fez and all. A 50th-anniversary special united Tennant and Smith, while introducing John Hurt as the War Doctor before providing a mere glimpse of the next in line. Which may be the reason it took me nearly half a season before I truly accepted the Twelfth Doctor (Peter Capaldi). Companion Clara (Jenna-Louise Coleman) spoke for many when, in her shock at seeing Smith turn into Capaldi, said, “I don’t think I know who the Doctor is anymore.”

But of course she did, and so did we. And then, just as it seemed that Capaldi had always been, would always be, the Doctor, hey presto, Whittaker appeared as the Thirteenth.

And don’t get me started on the ever-shifting lineage of inevitably engaging companions — I still miss Martha (Freema Agyeman), for whom I watched “Law and Order: U.K.”), and I was so glad to see Donna (Catherine Tate) in last year’s specials — or the changing faces of that other pesky Time Lord, the Master (or Mistress — come back, Michelle Gomez).

For someone who loves deeply or not at all, it’s a lot of emotional turnover. Particularly for an art form founded on the promise of familiarity and consistency.

Long before “Game of Thrones” and other modern “prestige” dramas began killing off leads in the name of shock and authenticity, “Doctor Who” has continued to bend, if not break, the cardinal rule of television: Create characters whom audiences want to invite into their homes for seasons on end. Sure, those characters could change — age, face crises, grow (or devolve) — a bit, but not so much that audiences did not recognize them.

Can you imagine if James Gandolfini had been replaced as Tony Soprano every few seasons?

While other shows blur the line between TV and film — “It’s like a 10-hour movie” is something showrunners really need to stop saying — “Doctor Who” straddles television and theater.

The Doctor is a character, like Hamlet or Willy Loman, Dolly Levi or the Phantom of the Opera, who exists not to be defined by any one actor but to be inhabited and reinterpreted by a dizzying array of performers. (Many of whom are, not surprisingly given the Britishness of the show, accomplished stage actors.)

The change is part of the show’s magic and delight; anticipation and speculation swirl among fans and the media as each Doctor approaches his or her final season — who will be next in line?

The one-two punch of Whittaker and Gatwa (finally) broke the long line of white, male and presumably heterosexual Doctors. This provoked tedious cries of “wokeness” from the deeper, damper parts of the cultural cave, complaints made even more ridiculous by the modern history of the show, which has included Black, brown and queer companions galore.

Still, as the first Black and openly queer Doctor, Gatwa is being celebrated for ushering in a “new era” of the series. Overseen once again by Davies, who has returned as showrunner after handing over the reins to Steven Moffat in 2009, “Doctor Who” is now a co-production between Disney, BBC and Bad Wolf with a new home on Disney+ and hopes of appealing to a new and broader audience.

Hence Gatwa’s Doctor taking time to carefully explain to Ruby, a young woman in search of her birth mother, all the Time Lord basics, including several references to the first Doctor and his granddaughter/companion Susan (Carole Ann Ford) who may, if you can believe Reddit, become a character once again in this season.

I’m hoping that Davies will bring back Jenny, the Doctor’s “daughter.” A clone created with his DNA in Tennant’s day, Jenny was played by Georgia Moffett. The daughter of Peter Davison, who played the Fifth Doctor, Moffett went on to marry Tennant in what may be the best real-life twist of any cinematic franchise ever. In “The Doctor’s Daughter,” Jenny appeared to die only to revive after the grieving Doctor had left; last seen she was rocketing through space in search of adventures of her own.

Giving the Fifteenth Doctor a very young companion was a smart move and not just in a Disney sense. At 19, Ruby not only harks back to the modern version’s first companion, Rose Tyler (Billie Piper), she also allows the Doctor to be patiently expository (as opposed to Capaldi’s Doctor, who initially referred to humans as “pudding brains”).

This Doctor also appears to be the most self-aware that we have seen, quickly sharing information about his history and origins (though not, of course, his real name) that previously had to be pried out of him or her. Gatwa’s unbridled exuberance makes this an easy sell and serves as a data bridge between new viewers and old. Mentions of the first Doctor reassure die-hard fans; the appearance of powerful new opponents creates an original shared experience for all.

But still it’s a change and change is hard even when it’s part of the bargain and part of the fun. The Doctor is a magical creature — both singular and universal. The Doctor is very much him/her/themself, but also all of us everywhere.

We are each on an adventure through space and time, and we dare to love deeply even though all love ends in loss of one sort or another. Even so, as “Doctor Who” reminds us every few years, regeneration is always possible.

It will always look different, wear different clothes, say different things than it did before, but it is love just the same.