Doctor Who showrunner Russell T Davies recently confirmed that two of the franchise’s most popular villains won’t show up in Season 1 / Series 14.
Gatwa’s first batch of episodes as the Fifteenth Doctor is slated to premiere sometime in 2024. It will pair the Sex Education star with fellow Doctor Who newcomer Millie Gibson, who plays the Doctor’s companion, Ruby Sunday.
While the pair’s debut is officially known as Doctor Who Series 14, Davies recently announced that the show’s creative team has rebranded it as “Doctor Who Season 1.” This change is apparently meant to reflect the “reset” that the Davies/Gatwa-era represents, although it’s currently unclear whether the “Season 1” moniker will be used externally as well as internally.
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But even if Gatwa’s tenure in the TARDIS does revamp the established Doctor Who chronology, it’s also poised to reinstate at least one lapsed tradition, too. As revealed by the BBC’s new Doctor Who international distribution partner, Disney, the Doctor Who Holiday Special will drop on December 25, instead of New Year’s Day as had become the norm in recent years.
Two iconic Doctor Who villains won’t appear in Ncuti Gatwa’s first season
Davies is otherwise focused on breaking new ground with Doctor Who’s next season, however. The showrunner said as much following a recent press screening for the 60th anniversary special ‘The Star Beast’ (via Radio Times), adding that this mentality will extend to the villains the Fifteenth Doctor and Ruby face – or rather, the villains they don’t.
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“It’s very new. Ncuti’s new and Millie [Gibson] is new and it was new to us with Disney and the whole new era, as it were,” Davies explained. “So I didn’t want to look… there are no Daleks, there are no Cybermen, I didn’t want to look back too much.” He added that the Daleks in particular have featured heavily in recent Doctor Who series, so it made sense to put them back on the shelf for a while.
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“I do think we’ve had a lot of Daleks lately,” Davies said. “Because, actually, lovely [former showrunner] Chris Chibnall’s Christmas specials have all been Daleks. So I think they’ve been done a lot, so people are expecting them every year now. So I think they need a good pause.”
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The BBC to air colorized version of Doctor Who’s first Dalek story
That said, Davies’ Dalek hiatus doesn’t extend to the current Doctor Who 60th anniversary celebrations. On the contrary, the Welsh scribe is one of those overseeing the BBC’s recently announced colorized feature-length version of classic Doctor Who serial “The Daleks,” which first introduced its titular baddies.
“I absolutely love [the colorized version of “The Daleks”],” Davies said in an interview with Doctor Who Magazine. “I really think it validates everything we set out to do.” Davies then indicated that another Doctor Who serial will receive the same treatment in 2024, although he declined to elaborate further.
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