Doctor Who returned for its second season on Disney+ with many elements familiar and unfamiliar. Ncuti Gatwa came back in his second season as the titular Doctor, ready for more "timey-wimey" misadventures. And he had a new companion in tow in Belinda Chandra, though she is a recent familiar face to "Whovians." Her actress, Varada Sethu, had made her debut on the long-running sci-fi series as a completely different character, Mundy Flynn. Her reprise begs the question: Was Mundy always conceived as a character to bring Sethu into this universe in a larger role? Luckily, we were able to talk to someone who had the answer: Showrunner Russell T. Davies.
Check out Parade's full interview with Davies below, as he looks back on 20 years of modern Who and breaks down the Doctor and Belinda's new dynamic, as well as what's to come with that "Earth-shattering" ending.
This year marks the twentieth anniversary of the modern incarnation of Doctor Who, which you helped bring on screen. What have you learned most over the course of working on so many episodes and with so many Doctors?I mean, it's astonishing. I just look exactly the same. So clearly, I'm made of Adamantium. It's funny because actually, a couple of years ago, the BBC said, "You want to celebrate the 20th anniversary." And I said, "We've just had a 60th anniversary!" And on Disney+, it's only two years old, so no, so we chose not to. Now we get to the 20th, and everyone's talking about the 20th. And I feel a bit stupid. We didn't really do anything to celebrate it. Someone at the BBC is making a documentary, so that'll be out in a couple of months. I think about Doctor Who, you learn something new with every single episode. It was different. Now this year, coming out in Episode 2, this year, we go to Miami in 1952, where there's a living cartoon. The cartoon has stepped out of the cinema screen, voiced by Alan Cumming. So, for that, we all had to learn hand-drawn animation. I've worked in television for a million years. And I've done graphics, I've done CGI. I've never actually done hand-drawn animation before, which was amazing. What I did learn is it's 15 times more meetings than anything else I've ever done. [Laughs.] But it's wonderful. I feel like I've learned a lot, and I appreciate the skill of the animator more than ever. And Doctor Who has always done that. Always every week, it's different. I mean, last year, we sort of said to ourselves, "Can we do an episode where the enemy is just an old woman who stands 73 yards away?" And we did, and it worked. So you have to take these very deep breaths and sort of say, "Is this going to work?" And have faith in it. So it teaches you something different every single time. And 20 years whizzes past in a flash.The dynamic between the Doctor and companion is very different this season. When I talked with Ncuti and Varada, they viewed it more like equals. And the dynamic at the end of the premiere is less about going on whimsical adventures and more, "Take me home right now." Talk to me about developing that. And what inspired you to bring Varada back as Belinda after she already appeared in an episode last season?Varada had been in the show last year in one episode, and we loved her. And I didn't write that episode. But I sit in the edit. And when you sit in the edit, you see the episode about 50 times. And believe me, if you haven't got fed up with an actor after 50 viewings, that's a good actor. And every time I sat and watched her, I thought, "Oh, I love her, and I never got to write for her. Damn!"And then suddenly, one day, a veil lifted my eyes. I went, "If you want to work with her, work with her! Get her back and do it again." Which we have done before. There's a tradition of treating a guest star almost like an audition for a bigger part. But the whole point of Belinda is they cast the Doctor in a different light. We can't all be Ruby Sunday, being wide-eyed and thrilled and overjoyed with seeing the endless horizons of the universe. We can all be Belinda saying, "That robot is pointing a laser beam at me and wants to fry my head into cinders. Take me home." So that's it's a perfectly valid reading of traveling with the Doctor, because she's a bit older. I think it's important to say that she's a nurse and works in the emergency department. She works in A & E, so she's seen life. She knows life and death. She's seen how tough things can go. She knows if you break your leg, you're in trouble. So when she arrives in a world in which monsters are firing laser beams, and cartoons are trying to kill you, and monsters are leaping out of cupboards, then she's actually right to want to get home. And that presents a whole new flavor to the show. That puts the Doctor in a new light. That makes all the writers work a bit harder in showing something new. So just keep the whole thing cooking. It stays alive and keeps bristling and buzzing.Doctor Who has always implemented this structure of episodic storylines, but also an overall season arc. We get the indication of what this season's arc might be with the final season of the premiere, which shows the Doctor and Belinda have trouble getting back to Earth because there might not be an Earth anymore. Talk to me about conceptualizing that, and what that means for the season moving forward.There's been some trailers on the BBC actually showing there are mysterious shots of London taxis floating in space, a ruined Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty broken in half, which seemed to imply that something terrible has happened to planet Earth. At the same time, that's exactly the date that the Doctor is having trouble getting Belinda back to. So you can guarantee, across the series, that all those trends are going to pull together for the most earth-shattering finale ever. But don't forget that along the way, Doctor Who is at its best as an anthology show. So there's an overarching story. You will find out whether Belinda gets home or not. You will find out why she can't get home. But along the way, all those pit stops are what Doctor Who is about. The different planets, going to Miami in 1952, going to Lagos, going to the interstellar song contest, going to a terrifying planet called 6767 500,000 years in the future. That's the heartland of Doctor Who. And that's the best in the series, I think.During this premiere, there's a character that's initially to be perceived as AI. And even when it's revealed to be Belinda's ex-boyfriend, she flat-out refers to it as the "planet of the incels." And there's certainly a lot of conversation about how sci-fi can tell the stories of the present through the settings of the future. As you continue to work on Doctor Who, do you feel a responsibility to use the show to talk about modern-day issues in a "timey-wimey" lens?No, I absolutely believe in putting the modern world into every drama I ever write. If I was writing a Dickens adaptation. I have put Shakespeare on screen. I've done a version of A Midsummer Night's Dream for BBC One, and it was absolutely redolent of the present day. It was strangely about the rise of fascism, which I can't think how that plays in the modern venue at all. And so it's it's something I don't even need to think about. It's how I live, it's how I breathe. It's the only way I can exist. It's what I think writing is for. So now, in 2025, when we have a robot story, Doctor Who's been having robot stories since 1963. But now, with your robot story, it would be fallacious and mendacious if you didn't use the letters AI in there because that's what we're talking about. That's going to take all our jobs away. That's going to change the shape of our society. That might lead to enormous riches in the future. Who knows the way AI is going to go? So you have to do that. I don't even have to think about that. I sit here typing, and that just flows out of my fingers and goes onto the keyboard and onto the screen. It's a completely natural way to work. And I'm suspicious of writers who don't write like that. I don't know how they do it.As we're just starting out Season 2 on Disney+, are you already in the planning stages for Season 3?We'll always look ahead to the future if we get the chance to keep running. I've got ideas. "I think I'll do that near [Season] 4 or 5." And that's always the way I've worked on things. So yes, I could promise you amazing stuff at the end of Season 4. There are things we've already mentioned that are going to bear fruit a long time into the future. So that's just the fun of it. That's the fun of Doctor Who. But, to say again, it's the pit stops along the way.
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