Why Doctor Who Season 14 Features A New Style of Villain Explained By RTD
Doctor Who season 14’s villains are a departure for the series, according to Russell T Davies. Ncuti Gatwa will lead the season as the Fifteenth Doctor, the latest incarnation of the beloved Renegade Time Lord, while Millie Gibson will portray new companion Ruby Sunday. Across eight episodes, the Doctor and Ruby will travel from the far reaches of space to Regency-era balls to the height of 1960s Beatlemania, making friends, fighting foes, and saving the universe.
With Doctor Who season 14 set to materialize, returning showrunner Davies revealed to Screen Rant how the newest season’s new villains compare to the likes of the Daleks and other classic monsters. Davies states the aliens and monsters of these new adventures would push the stakes and scope of the universe further than before, taking advantage of the untapped potential to create wild, unpredictable foes like Jinkx Monsoon’s Maestro and Neil Patrick Harris’ previously seen Toymaker. Check out Davies’ response below:
We might always return to the classic iconic monsters, but not yet because with a new Doctor and new Companion, I want new threats. I simply wanted to expand the scale of the threat. As you can see when you watch my old Doctor Who [episodes], I love it when the scale gets epic, like Titanic. There’s nothing I love more than vast armies of Daleks threatening the Doctor, but you’ve got to find new ways to do that. You can only use the phrase “vast armies” so many times, and you’ve got to look for something new. I wanted to stretch the program in new directions. Everything I’m talking about, its energy and its wildness, I wanted to fit onto the villains as well.
Just stepping into fantasy felt like a very natural direction. It’s always been on the edge of Doctor Who. You could not be closer to Narnia than with Doctor Who. In Narnia, you step through a door in a wardrobe into a magical land. That’s a wooden door, and in Doctor Who, the wooden door, is the TARDIS. It’s always been very, very close to that kind of thing. It’s had werewolves. I’ve written a werewolf into Doctor Who with a vague hand wave, saying, “Yes, it’s a lupine alien-like form.” Let’s be honest, it’s just a werewolf. And that’s one of the best episodes we ever did. I love that episode.
It’s always had little nods towards making a science fictional sense of fantasy elements, and I just decided to start dropping the nods and not even pretending that there’s any rational exposure to this. Wild forces are at work in the universe manifesting themselves into the shape of Neil Patrick Harris and Jinx Monsoon. Who doesn’t want that? Who doesn’t want that? I can promise you more Gods to come as well. We have not finished with this.
Is The Doctor Prepared For Season 14’s Pantheon of Gods?
As stated by Davies, Doctor Who has always toed the line between fantasy and sci-fi, with the aforementioned Werewolf, ghost-like Gelth, and Carrionite witches from the early days of the universe, among many other characters. However, the 60th-anniversary adventure “Wild Blue Yonder” saw David Tennant’s Fourteenth Doctor make a gamble that reshaped the universe, invoking superstition on the edge of existence and welcoming untold, unexplainable foes into reality. And while the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Doctors may have vanquished the Toymaker, more difficult challenges are yet to come.
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As seen in Doctor Who‘s 2023 special “The Church on Ruby Road,” new creatures making their way across the universe are offering the Doctor unfamiliar challenges. Alongside strange new mechanics such as the Goblins’ rope-based technology and their more unpredictable, probability-based hunting techniques, the Time Lord is left to rely on his wits to beat his foes in the midst of conflict. And with the Goblins merely being scavengers moving through time, it is likely the Time Lord and Ruby have yet to see the truly terrifying potential the vastly changed universe can offer.
With Davies confirming classic aliens won’t be among Doctor Who season 14’s cast of characters, Gatwa’s debut season truly feels like a new era for the show. New foes will not only encourage new generations of fans to tune in, but give longtime fans threats unlike anything they’ve seen before. However, with a whole new pantheon of monsters making their way into the universe, viewers may wonder how familiar empires and factions may deal with the new hierarchy of the Whoniverse.
Doctor Who season 14 will premiere its first two episodes on Disney+ on May 11 for international viewers, and on BBC iPlayer for UK viewers on May 10, followed by a later broadcast on BBC One.
