First Black ‘Doctor Who’ Ncuti Gatwa Injects Life Into Flagging Series

The latest season of Doctor Who—the BBC show’s debut on Disney+, with its first-ever simultaneous worldwide release—comes with a lofty goal. Can it generate a new audience for this decades-old series, now on its fifteenth iteration? A charming new lead in Barbie’s Ncuti Gatwa, a celebrated showrunner, and guest stars like Jonathan Groff and RuPaul's Drag Race’s Jinkx Monsoon go a long way toward achieving that aim. But for viewers not already onboard with the TARDIS-hopping Time Lord (or sure what that even means), the newly anointed Season 1 might not immediately convince you to come along.

Premiering May 10, Episode 1 picks up right after December’s Christmas special, in which Gatwa was introduced as the newest Doctor. (There have been 16 actors in this role over the years; Gatwa is the 16th, but canonically referred to as the Fifteenth Doctor.) But a quick recap will bring newbies up to speed: The Doctor is the last being of his kind, an alien from a now-extinct faraway galaxy in the future who can “regenerate” into new forms upon death. They are, in that way, immortal—although with each regeneration, they lose the memories of their recent past. Unmoored without a home planet, the Doctor travels through time at their leisure, with the help of a classic blue police box that doubles as a spaceship.

But to combat the obvious loneliness of a life spent on the road across space and time, the Doctor traditionally recruits a different human companion or three to come along for the ride. This season, the Doctor has partnered up with Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson), a spunky teen whose life he saved from dancing aliens in the special. Together, Ruby and the Doctor jet set into the past, present, and future, meeting and helping people—Ruby conveniently has few Earthly responsibilities to hold her back, plus the blessing of her adoptive mother.

Every season of the show shares this basic premise, dating back to the 1960s. But each one has its own subplots to give the story shape. In this case—based on the two episodes sent for review—the Doctor is devoted to finding Ruby’s birth mother, who abandoned her as a baby. But the plot development largely takes a backseat to the fun and games, which aren’t always as fun for us as they are for the Doctor and Ruby.

The first episode in particular suggests a rough start for Gatwa’s stint. Doctor Who’s creative team, including returning showrunner Russell T. Davies, have been upfront about this show being as much for kids as it is for families. But the series’ silliness is best tempered by its leads’ performances, like David Tennant’s iconic turn as a casually wacky Time Lord. Even someone as charming as Gatwa, however, can’t spin material about talking “space babies” into something more than inane. But the season premiere forces the Doctor to walk Ruby through the brass tacks of Time Lord-dom while bouncing hyper-intelligent infants from the future—whose mouths creepily move when speaking their dialogue—upon his knee. The episode’s monster-of-the-week bad guy’s low-budget design doesn’t help matters. It’s a shocking misfire of an installment at the most-important moment, forcing new viewers to suspend their disbelief beyond what may be humanly possible.

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It’s understandable if they want to turn off after this first episode, but if they’re tickled enough by Gatwa’s rhythmic movements and instant chemistry with Gibson, they’ll be happy they stuck around for the second. Episode 2 is the preceding hour’s polar opposite: It’s Doctor Who at its most playful, winsome, and euphoric. A trip to 1963 Liverpool finds Ruby and the Doctor decked out in stylishly mod outfits, mingling with the Beatles, and facing off with a villainous supernatural interloper (Monsoon). It’s an energetic hour that sets the season back on a much more endearing course. Monsoon’s outsized performance, including a musical number and chilling monologue, is especially great; it’s the kind of infectiously fun, highly campy stuff that genre shows like this one do best.

Doctor Who often drops in on historical moments to inject a little flavor into familiar scenes, which is a far more enjoyable, playful sci-fi than the blandly futuristic jaunts. It’s the best way to use the show’s time-travel concept, especially for a newbie who doesn’t care or know what “Gallifrey” is. And considering Gatwa gets an entire song-and-dance moment, one can only hope that this episode is way more in line with the rest of the adventures to come—and less like the space babies drama.

One bad episode would be much more forgivable if there weren’t so much riding on this iteration of Doctor Who. Gatwa is the first Black man and openly queer actor to assume the role; showrunner Davies, who helped reboot the show the first time back in 2005 and presided over the beloved Tennant years, returns to placate fans who dogpiled on the past two seasons. (The previous Doctor was the show’s much-maligned, first female lead; one can assume the kinds of critics Gatwa’s season is up against.) Whether the team can stay spirited without devolving into inanity or convolution will determine its success, and help bring this stumbling show back to life. But two episodes in, the new Who is off to a promising start.

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