Doctor Who Series 14 is the first full season in the Disney+ era, with the show being available to stream on the service for international audiences. Series 14 acted as a reboot and a throwback, with Russell T. Davies returning as the showrunner.
The Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) has a new companion after saving Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson) on Christmas Day. Together they travel through time and space to stop numerous monsters including a musical being, cosplaying aliens in Regency England, and man-eating slugs. However, everywhere they go, the same woman appears and she could be the sign of a greater threat.
The Chris Chibnall era of Doctor Who was very divisive among fans. The BBC had to perform several Hail Marys to revive the show, so they brought back Davies, and Bad Wolf came in to produce (Bad Wolf was founded by Julie Gardner and Jane Tranter, producers of the initial revival).
The revival team had a strong start with the 2023 Specials and the Christmas Special “The Church on Ruby Road.” They brought back a sense of fun, excitement, and spectacle that had been missing. The first full series under the team then brought back the storytelling of the original Davies/Moffat era. The season used mystery box storytelling involving the woman who has a presence across time and space, and like the Moffat era, there was a fairy tale quality about Ruby’s parentage. Whenever Ruby thought about her birth mother, it started to snow and “Carol of the Bells” could be heard. This storyline made Series 14 feel like an extended Christmas special. Davies seemed like he was influenced by Steven Moffat, who liked to make the companion have an extra special quality.
Series 14 had a “less is more” approach. The season only had eight episodes, and Davies wrote the bulk of them. Most of the episodes were strong, and a vast improvement over some previous seasons. There was a sense of spectacle and excitement, and there was character drama. Disney’s involvement meant there was an increase in the budget, and it showed in the VFX. There was an improvement in the creature effects and CGI scenery. While it may not quite match big American shows, Doctor Who has never looked better. Series 14 brought back the emotion and speechifying from the Russell and Moffat-eras. Gatwa’s version of the Doctor was a fun-loving iteration that had an infectious sense of excitement, adding to the general lighter tone of this era.
The season highlights were “73 Yards” and “Boom.” “73 Yard” was a Doctor-lite episode that showed Ruby getting ditched by the Doctor, and followed by a strange woman who stayed 73 Yards away. Anyone who spoke to the woman developed a fear and hatred for Ruby. It started as a folk horror story because Ruby disturbed a fairy circle, turning into Ruby suffering a life of isolation and investigating a politician that the Doctor warned her about. It was a mashup of story ideas and genres, and it worked, as it played out as this season’s version of “Turn Left.” It was the worst-case scenario for Ruby. “Boom” was the episode written by Steven Moffat, and it was a restricted story about the Doctor being stuck on a landmine in the middle of a war zone. It was a tense setup, as the Doctor had to react to different challenges. The episode was also an overt criticism of the military-industrial complex.
Television has changed a lot since Davies’ first time as the Doctor Who showrunner, and series 14 does acknowledge this with some of its episodes. “The Devil’s Chord” had a sense of self-awareness with the villain, Maestro (Jinkx Monsoon), breaking the fourth wall, and it ended with a cheesy song-and-dance number. It was an episode that embraced being camp. The episode “Dot and Bubble” has been compared to Black Mirror, and there was some credence to that. It was an episode that offered commentary about social media and influencer culture.
Not every episode was a success. The opening episode, “Space Babies” will become notorious. The plot of the episode was about a spaceship being controlled by babies and being threatened by a monster made of snot. It was too silly even by Doctor Who standards. “Space Babies” gave a bad first impression, but Series 14 recovered quickly.
Series 14 was a return to form for Doctor Who. It was mostly a repeat of Davies’ previous run on Doctor Who, but that initial run was popular for a reason.
