doctor who time travel bbc

Doctor Who Season One Premieres 11th May 2024

March 15, 2024

A simultaneous global premiere date is revealed as the Doctor launches into the Whoniverse on BBC and Disney+.

Doctor Who is set to make an explosive return on 11th May as the TARDIS will make its global premiere around the Whoniverse.

No time travel required! Doctor Who returns 11th May 2024. 

For those in the UK, for the first time ever, the Doctor will land with two episodes premiering on BBC iPlayer at midnight, before arriving on BBC One later that day right before the Eurovision Song Contest Grand Final.

At the same time, those outside of the UK can watch the Doctor and Ruby on their epic adventures as the TARDIS is set to land on Disney+ where available. Viewers in the UK will now be able to watch whenever and wherever they choose, with the option to stream at midnight on BBC iPlayer or tune in at primetime on Saturday nights on BBC One.

The new season of Doctor Who will see Ncuti Gatwa return as the Fifteenth Doctor , alongside Millie Gibson as Ruby Sunday , it comes after they made their highly acclaimed debut on Christmas Day in The Church on Ruby Road .

Within the upcoming series, audiences will see the Doctor and Ruby travel through time and space on adventures to unknown lands, to the Regency era in England, to outer space worlds and the sixties. This season will also see the return of Michelle Greenidge as Carla Sunday, Angela Wynter as Cherry Sunday and Anita Dobson as Mrs Flood as well as featuring an array of special guest stars including Jinkx Monsoon, Aneurin Barnard, Yasmin Finney, Jonathan Groff, Bonnie Langford, Jemma Redgrave, Lenny Rush and Indira Varma with more to be announced soon.

Russell T Davies, Showrunner said:

“At last, it’s my great delight to unleash a whole new season of the Doctor and Ruby’s adventures together. Monsters! Chases! Villains! Mysteries! And a terrifying secret that’s been spanning time and space for decades. Don’t miss a second!”

The BBC is the exclusive home of Doctor Who in the UK as it premieres at midnight on May 11th on BBC iPlayer and will then air on BBC One that evening. Outside the UK, Doctor Who begins streaming 10th May at 7:00 p.m. ET on Disney+ where available, giving audiences a simultaneous global launch.

An episode will continue to drop on BBC iPlayer at midnight, followed by a primetime slot on BBC One each week following that.

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Is time travel possible.

• Post author: dan-marius
• Post published: March 21, 2015
• Post category: video
• Post comments: 0 Comments

Is Time Travel really possible? In the following clip, part of  The science of Doctor Who series, the professor Brian Cox – a confirmed Doctor Who fan – undertakes an experiment with a light showing that time moves faster for a stationary clock than a moving clock, which appears to move more slowly over the same length of time. His conclusion is that time travel is possible, but only into the future!

We only need a TARDIS to show how wrong he is. 🙂

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Doctor Who Is Finally Addressing A Classic Time Travel Trope

Is Doctor Who changing the laws of time? Again?

The oldest science fiction series — that still produces new episodes — is easily Doctor Who . In 1963, the inventive time travel series debuted on the BBC, and on Friday, May 10 , this venerable show relaunches anew with a brand-new set of adventures featuring Ncuti Gatwa as the 15th Doctor. But this Doctor Who is coming back as “Season 1,” meaning that although the show is honoring its long and wibbly-wobbly continuity, this new season feels like a bit of a back-to-basics season, complete with one very old time travel trope.

In the new trailer, Doctor Who references a time travel concept nearly as old as science fiction itself — the butterfly effect. Here’s how this very specific reference pulls from Ray Bradbury, and what this brand of time travel could mean for the future of Who canon.

Doctor Who Season 1 (2024) trailer

The latest full-length trailer for the new 2024 season of Doctor Who features a joyful version of David Bowie’s classic track “Changes,” as we see the Doctor and Ruby (Millie Gibson) travel through various historical periods; from the 1960s, to the 1800s regency era, to the prehistoric time of the dinosaurs in the Mesozoic era. And it’s in those dino-days that Who drops a very pointed Ray Bradbury reference, that might give a clue to the direction of the entire season.

The timey wimey butterfly effect

As the Doctor and Ruby stand outside the TARDIS near a large sauropod (probably a Brachiosaurus), Ruby says, “What if I change history by stepping on a butterfly?” The Doctor responds, “That’s not gonna happen is it?” But then, a butterfly is stepped on, and Ruby becomes a reptilian humanoid — similar in appearance to Who creatures known as the Silurians.

The idea of a time traveler stepping on a butterfly in dinosaur times and thus altering the present comes from the 1952 Ray Bradbury short story “A Sound of Thunder.” In that story, members of a time-traveling safari step off their designated path, step on a butterfly and return to a present that they don’t recognize. The Back to the Future version of this was the Sports Almanac, and the trope exists in tons of sci-fi stories in all sorts of mediums.

But, Doctor Who has never really gone all-in on the butterfly effect. In previous eras, including the reign of the 10th Doctor (David Tennant) we were told certain points in time were “fixed” and thus, unchangeable, while other times were in flux. In “The Fires of Pompeii,” the Doctor was unable to prevent the eruption of the volcano but became part of a predestination paradox that made him and Donna part of history. Conversely, in “The Waters of Mars,” the Doctor tried to change a fixed point in time by rescuing astronauts from Bowie Base One (David Bowie reference again!) and found time itself rebelling against what he’d tried to change.

Of course, Doctor Who would frequently lampshade the butterfly effect, like in the 12th Doctor (Peter Capaldi) episode, “Thin Ice,” in which companion Bill Potts (Pearl Mackie) wonders if she would change the future by stepping on a butterfly, only for the Doctor to joke, “That’s what happened to your friend Pete.” (There is no Pete.)

Is Doctor Who changing time travel canon?

The Doctor and Ruby surrounded by dinosaurs...and butterflies.

Throughout its 61 years, Doctor Who has played a bit fast and loose with the butterfly effect relative to cascading changes in the timeline. Interestingly, although the classic era (pre-2005) finds the various Doctors showing up in historical eras, or traveling to the far future, the number of classic Who episodes that are actually focused on time travel paradoxes are much smaller than you think. While “The Day of the Daleks” (1972) and “City of Death” (1979) both deal with bootstraps paradoxes, it really wasn’t until the modern version of the show that the rules of Who time travel started to get codified.

However, this trailer seems to suggest that the newly launched “Season 1” of Doctor Who may go back to basics and put everything on the line when it comes to the domino effects of even tiny changes in history. Later in the trailer, the Doctor warns “...the whole world could slide into the pit,” and we see various timelines in which it appears that history, or at least the present, has been changed on a massive scale. The Doctor states clearly, “This is what we’re trying to stop.”

In this way, it seems that the new season of Doctor Who is making the role of the Doctor more than just the defender of Earth. Since he’s still the Last of the Time Lords, it appears that this time, he’ll be the guardian of history as we know it.

Doctor Who Season 1 (2024) hits Disney+ on May 10.

• Science Fiction

Doctor Who Just Pulled Off A Time Travel Plot That Shouldn't Have Worked

This post contains spoilers for the latest episodes of "Doctor Who."

It turns out love really is all you need. Well, love and a Time Lord willing to fight off the spirit of music through a delightfully campy song battle that sees literal musical notes fill the air. The showdown between the Fifteenth Doctor ( Ncuti Gatwa ), Ruby (Millie Gibson), and the chaotic being known as Maestro (Jinkx Monsoon) in the new season's second episode might be one of the goofiest things that's happened on "Doctor Who" recently — and it's not even the most over-the-top part of the episode. "The Devil's Chord" takes some deliciously weird risks, the biggest of which is centering its drama on "characters" who aren't exactly historical figures yet: The Beatles.

Of course, the long-running BBC sci-fi series (which recently made the move to Disney+) is known for crafting plotlines that see its central heroes mucking around in history and coming face to face with some of Earth's most influential figures in the process. The show has featured everyone from William Shakespeare to Abraham Lincoln to Francis Bacon, but its timey-wimey plots rarely splash around in the zeitgeisty parts of real recent history. "The Devil's Chord" went for it, though, breaking with tradition to include an influential real-life person who's still alive today — Paul McCartney — in the episode's main plot.

The Devil's Chord features a historical figure who's still very much alive

The closest the modern iteration of the show has gotten to doing something like this before was most likely in "The End of Time," a two-part episode from 2009-2010 that included an actor playing then-president Barack Obama. That time around, the political leader's face was obscured, perhaps because it would seem a bit too on the nose to actually try to portray the sitting President on "Doctor Who." Both episodes could certainly be accused of jumping the shark, but "The Devil's Chord" pulls its tricky portrayal off thanks to its strong lead performances and a clever script by Russell T. Davies (who coincidentally also wrote "The End of Time").

As for The Beatles themselves, they're initially not used as much as expected (the show clearly didn't actually license any of their songs, as we just hear them talk, play a funny fake tune, and tinker at the piano), but they get the chance to let the music flow during the episode's climax. When demon-like Maestro says the world can only be saved by the discovery of a secret chord that can bind them, there's much made of the fact that only a musical genius can get it right. Fifteen and Ruby can't, and it seems like Paul can't on his own either, but when John Lennon takes a spot beside him at the keyboard, the two make magic together.

A Beatles spotlight feels a bit pointed on Disney+

The Abbey Road-set episode doesn't get overly creative with its portrayal of The Beatles, but its bold flashback to a not-that-distant pop cultural moment works in part because it ultimately reveals a sincere understanding of the band's talents. They may seem like restless, borderline boring boys here as they record their first album, but there's something inside them that knows how to make music that can change the world — and it only works when they're together. It's a sentiment that goes hand in hand with the loving, complex portrait of McCartney and Lennon that emerged from Peter Jackson's "Get Back" documentary in 2021. 

That's another reason "The Devil's Chord" shouldn't have worked: its reference to a relationship that's highlighted most clearly in another Disney+ property (in addition to "Get Back," the streamer is also home to Mary McCartney's doc about Abbey Road Studios) should feel like overt cross-promotion. Yet the whole thing is earnest and fun enough that by the end, any inkling that we might be being sold something has fallen away. The Beatles are as acclaimed as the 17th, 18th, and 19th century artists the show has visited before, so it makes sense for them to appear, even if the show's streamer also feels like the unofficial streaming home to the band. It's clear that these episodes are meant to sell something, though: "Doctor Who." The series' jump to Disney+ has opened it up to a new audience, and these intro episodes very purposely feature both a kid-friendly zaniness and intrigue and drama that would appeal to new adult viewers, too.

The show makes it work with joy, camp, and good acting

Where "The Devil's Chord" should have been corny, it instead delivers high camp, wacky humor, and another gorgeous performance from Gatwa, whose warmth and just-below-the-surface sadness as The Doctor is complemented perfectly by Ruby's selfless friendliness. The episode also taps into something universal and emotional, imagining music as a form of expression that makes the world go 'round and positioning fear of new forms of art as antithetical to how humans naturally feel. The Beatles cameo may feel more out there than the show's usual antics, but like most of its history plots, it's grounded in a whole lot of love and empathy.

The show's decision to visit a still-living historical figure is just one of several in-universe rules the new series, which features a Pantheon of fantastical beings and has even introduced a concept by which the Doctor can regenerate into two bodies , has already enthusiastically broken. "Doctor Who" is getting a makeover, and while it might be a risky one in a series known for its constants, it's also been a whole lot of fun so far.

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Doctor Who confirms BBC time slot and story for Steven Moffat episode

Moffat's episode will likely be explosive.

Titled 'Boom', the episode will the third in Ncuti Gatwa's debut series as the Time Lord and will premiere on BBC One at 6:50pm on Saturday, May 18 . The episode will also be available to watch early on BBC iPlayer and Disney+ from midnight.

'Boom' will see the Doctor and companion Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson) travel to the planet of Kastarion 3 during a devastating war.

The Doctor is tasked with stopping the conflict from engulfing the planet, however there's catch - he's unable to move due to stepping on a landmine.

Related: Doctor Who's Millie Gibson shares the "terrifying" scene she wanted to end while filming

Can the Doctor save himself, Ruby and the entire planet without moving?

Joe Anderson, Majid Mehdizadeh-Valoujerdy , Caoilinn Springall, Bhav Joshi and Susan Twist will also feature in the episode, which has been executive produced by Russell T Davies. Julie-Anne Robinson has directed.

Gatwa's first full season as the Doctor - billed internationally as Doctor Who season 1 - is set to premiere this Saturday (May 11).

The premiere will feature the first two episodes of the season, 'Space Babies' and 'The Devil's Chord', with the latter featuring a guest appearance from Drag Race winner Jinkx Monsoon .

Related: Doctor Who stars tease "scandals" in Regency episode with Jonathan Groff

Teasing what fans can expect from her villain Maestro, Monsoon revealed that her character is "exceptionally powerful."

"The thing I love about a villain is that they can't think they're doing something wrong, or if they do think they're doing something wrong, it's justified because it's for something greater that they've planned," she said.

"What I love about Maestro is that while objectively evil, they are an artist, they have a mission statement. And that was really lovely to play."

Doctor Who will return for its 14th series on May 11 at midnight, airing on BBC One in the UK and Disney+ elsewhere. Classic episodes of Doctor Who are available on BBC iPlayer in the UK.

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Reporter, Digital Spy Brenna Cooper is a freelance journalist, who currently specialises in entertainment reporting. She joined Digital Spy in 2022, writing TV and movies stories for the site. After graduating with an NCTJ accredited Journalism Masters from the University of Sheffield in 2020 she has since embarked on a freelance career. 

Brenna previously produced lifestyle content for Checklists.co.uk and has a specific interest in music, reviewing live acts and interviewing bands such as Confidence Man and Amyl and the Sniffers.

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Time Travels (Doctor Who) Hardcover – January 1, 2007

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NEWS... BUT NOT AS YOU KNOW IT

What time does Doctor Who actually air in the UK?

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British sci-fi institution Doctor Who returns to television this week, marking the debut series of Ncuti Gatwa ’s Timelord.

Gatwa took the leading role in the long-running series last year, claiming the mantle from David Tennant in the show’s first ever bi-generation.

His Doctor then returned on Christmas Day for his first solo episode, titled The Church on Ruby Road, opposite new companion Ruby Sunday , played by Millie Gibson .

The Doctor and Millie return for a full series this weekend, making it the show’s fourteenth series since its revival in 2005.

The series marks its return with a special double-bill, broadcast simultaneously around the world to celebrate the Doctor’s latest adventures.

But what time is Doctor Who on tonight?

What time is Doctor Who on TV tonight?

The first two episodes of Doctor Who landed on BBC iPlayer at midnight last night, coinciding with its global release.

The first episode, Space Babies, will air at 18:20 on BBC One today. It will then be followed by the second, titled The Devil’s Chord at 19:05.

The first episode will see Ruby learn more about the Doctor when he takes her on a trip to the future, where she meets the titular space babies and a mysterious boogeyman.

Meanwhile, The Devil’s Chord follows Ruby and the Doctor as they are distracted from a trip to meet The Beatles when they encounter a being known as The Maestro.

Is it on Disney Plus in the UK?

A collaboration between the BBC and Disney, season fourteen of Doctor Who is out on Disney+ in all regions except for the UK and Ireland.

Because it is a BBC property, it will air exclusively on BBC One and BBC iPlayer, with repeats on BBC Three and BBC Two throughout the week.

This means that it will not be available on Disney+ in the UK for the timey-wimey being.

When is it next on?

Although Doctor Who returns with a double bill, fans don’t have to wait an extra week for the show’s schedule to catch up – episode three is still set to air next Saturday.

Titled Boom, episode three will air on Saturday 18 May at 18:50 in the UK. In this episode, time – and the Doctor – stands still when he steps on a landmine. Can the Doctor save the world without moving?

In keeping with the show’s simultaneous worldwide release, season thirteen episodes will continue to drop on BBC iPlayer at midnight every Saturday.

Season fourteen will consist of eight episodes in total, airing on a weekly basis up until Saturday 22 June.

Unfortunately, this all-new release schedule means fans run an increased risk of having episodes spoiled for them before they can tune in.

‘I’m not making light of this,’ showrunner Russell T Davies told Doctor Who magazine. ‘I can hear the worries. It’s easy to say “stay offline” when your health or job or nature might make that impossible. And I’m sorry, because then, yes, spoilers will fly.

‘Unfortunately, there’s always been a subset of viewers hitting the spoiler problem, like the tons of people who work Saturdays and on night shifts. They’ve had to negotiate this for years. So there has never been a transmission pattern in the digital age that’s perfect for everyone.

‘And to be honest. If you’re that online, and cannot change… folks, you stand a high chance of getting spoiled anyway. Before transmission. That’s the modern world. Beyond my control,’ he added.

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'Doctor Who' Episode 1 Recap: Space Babies, Boogeymen, and New Beginnings

Ruby and the Doctor don't reinvent the wheel, but they do take audiences on a cosmic joyride.

Editor's Note: The below recap contains spoilers for Doctor Who Season 1, Episode 1, "Space Babies."

The Big Picture

• Ncuti Gatwa infuses even the most ridiculous scenarios with sincerity, grounding the wild adventures.
• Millie Gibson shines as Ruby Sunday, proving to be a strong and worthy companion to the Doctor.
• Russell T Davies excels in turning ordinary people like Golda Rosheuvel's hero into extraordinary figures worth cheering for.

Whether you call it Series 14 or Season 1, Doctor Who has returned with a new Doctor and companion duo fit for a new era. With showrunner Russell T Davies back in the driver's seat, the first episode, titled "Space Babies," serves as an entry point for new viewers — and the first season available to stream worldwide on Disney+. In addition to introducing Ruby Sunday, and by extension the audience, to the Doctor and the TARDIS, "Space Babies" sets up what will likely be a season-long mystery and delivers a front-row seat to a wildly fun adventure .

Following their impromptu run-in with a horde of goblins back at Christmastime, this episode serves as Ruby ( Millie Gibson ) and the Doctor's ( Ncuti Gatwa ) first off-world adventure with each other. In classic Doctor Who fashion, "Space Babies" is as silly as it is serious, and despite its outlandish concept, the episode delivers moments of horror, tense action sequences, and even a hilarious happy ending .

The show follows the adventures of a Time Lord “The Doctor” who is able to regenerate, and the Doctor’s human friends. The Doctor and companion’s journey through time and space in the TARDIS – a time-traveling ship shaped like a police box – saving the universe with a combination of wit, bravery, and kindness.

'Doctor Who' Formally Introduces One of the Franchise's Best Duos in Years

The episode picks up just moments after the end of the Christmas special, "The Church on Ruby Road," as Ruby joins the Doctor in the TARDIS. Gatwa's Doctor, with an unparalleled amount of rizz, delivers the quick and dirty breakdown of his standard backstory — he's the last of the Time Lords from the destroyed planet Gallifrey, and he travels the universe in his bigger-on-the-inside blue box. To prove that they can go anywhere (and any when), the Doctor takes Ruby to the middle of Wyoming at the height of the Jurassic era to show her the dinosaurs — and really flex the show's new and improved budget. Doctor Who gets delightfully meta in this sequence as Ruby accidentally alters the course of history by stepping on a butterfly, immediately after verbally worrying about doing so. And as much as I love Rubathon Blue of the 57th Hemisphere Hatchling, the Doctor thankfully breathes life back into the little insect and time goes back to normal.

Gatwa and Gibson's chemistry is immediately off to the races once they pile back into the TARDIS and Ruby picks a year in the distant future to fly off to. While continuing to learn about how time travel works, Ruby uses Star Trek to contextualize being transported to a different place. Doctor Who has mentioned its fellow long-running sci-fi franchise many times in the past, but this is the first time that the Doctor refers to the series as if it really happened — the historical documents, if you will (thanks, Galaxy Quest ). Set to more of Murray Gold 's gorgeous score, Ruby and the Doctor stumble head-first into an encounter with a terrifying fanged creature in the depths of the space station they've landed on. The scene is tempered with humor as the Doctor and Ruby squeeze into an escape tube and find safety — and babies galore — above.

Mistaken for "mommy and daddy," Ruby and the Doctor are greeted by a whole crew of babies, running a baby farm and seemingly abandoned by their parents. While the talking toddlers are certainly a little bit silly, Gatwa makes it work beautifully. The Doctor is both endlessly kind and deeply haunted, and he takes all of that experience to make these children feel seen and cared for exactly as they are. Davies also ties in some "Timeless Child" lore by further establishing the Doctor's unique and unknown origins . And his history — or lack thereof — continues to link him to Ruby as time somehow slips the two of them back to the night of her birth with snow falling around them in space and the Doctor's memory of the night's events changing. The episode doesn't dwell on the moment too long, but this new piece of the puzzle points to the possibility that something is still in flux about Ruby's birth.

We're promptly treated to another clue, as the mystery woman from "Wild Blue Yonder" and "The Church on Ruby Road" appears in a video of the ship's crew members dissenting about their mandated evacuation of the ship. No longer Mrs. Merridew or a drunk in a bar, she's now a comms officer called Gina Scalzi. While we see her, the Doctor has already moved on to the next problem, keeping her just adjacent to him but never in his line of sight. While it's still hardly clear who or what she is, it's clear that her appearance wherever the Doctor goes is no longer a coincidence .

'Doctor Who' Turns Reality Into a Fairytale

While the babies are magically capable of running the ship on their own, it becomes apparent that they haven't been totally abandoned. One of the best things about Davies' writing is how he turns ordinary people into heroes, because ordinary people become heroes every day . Enter Jocelyn Sancerre aka Nan-E, played by the incomparable Golda Rosheuvel ( Bridgerton ). With a dig at pro-lifers, the tragedy of the birthing station becomes apparent as the government both abandoned the children but refused to turn the baby machine off, and Jocelyn has been their only hope for the past six years.

While they're within shouting distance of a refugee planet, they seemingly don't have a way to get there, and Davies throws in another biting critique of the government, having Jocelyn point out the irony of refugees having to rescue themselves. That swiftly becomes a problem for later, though, when one of the babies decides to take on the Boogeyman on his own, inspired by Ruby's bravery. Gibson really gets a chance to shine here as Ruby doesn't even hesitate or wait for the Doctor before she jumps into action to go save the kid. From the moment she darts into the depths of the ship and starts chaotically drawing the Boogeyman away from the baby, it's almost impossible not to love Ruby. With the babies sent safely back to the upper levels, Ruby continues to prove she's more than worth her salt. When the Doctor tries to send her away so he can go all self-sacrificial, Ruby does her predecessors proud and practically laughs in his face (with love!) and jauntily leads the way into the creature's lair.

In the belly of the beast, Ruby gets Nickelodeon slimed with what later turns out to be literal boogers. She and the Doctor bounce ideas back and forth as they put the whole story together and discover that the machine created both the babies and the monster in a twisted sort of space fairytale. It's worth noting that part of the reason the creature is so frightening is that it's literally designed to be scary, with its roar calibrated to the exact pitch to strike fear into anyone who hears it. The episode's climax runs the full gamut of human emotion as Ruby and the Doctor now have to fight Jocelyn to also rescue the Boogeyman. In the hands of a lesser actor, it could become ridiculous to watch the Doctor risk his life to save a monster made of actual boogers, but Gatwa's sincerity makes it believable . Gibson also gets another really lovely moment as she helps Jocelyn realize she doesn't have to kill the creature to save the babies. The mission is capped off with one last joke as the Doctor sends the space station flying toward the refugee planet with a giant fart.

'Doctor Who's New Season-Long Mystery: Who Is Ruby Sunday?

With the day effectively saved, the Doctor is already ready to make Ruby his long-term companion by giving her her own TARDIS key. It's a right of passage that Davies always included for each companion, and one that Ruby has absolutely earned already. However, traveling with the Doctor naturally comes with a few terms and conditions. Knowing that Ruby's biggest desire is to find her birth mother, the Doctor has to break her heart almost immediately by confirming they can never ever go back to the night she was born to find her mom . It's also a subtle callback to the time the Doctor took Rose back to the day her father died and nearly got caught in a paradox. Despite the wind dropping from her sails a bit, Ruby rolls with the punches and chooses a trip home as their next destination. In a move Donna Noble would be proud of — and right out of "Partners in Crime" — Ruby goes to see her loved ones before galavanting off into the stars with the Doctor.

Continuously looping in Ruby's family, Carla and Cherry Sunday, Davies fills out her world beyond her connection to the Doctor, making Ruby all the more complex for it. Meanwhile, before formally introducing himself to her mother as an alien, the Doctor lingers for a moment having the TARDIS analyze Ruby's DNA — much like he did with Amy in Season 6. The episode ends before she reaches any conclusions, but the snow returns to add another layer of intrigue to the mystery that is Ruby Sunday . "Space Babies" doesn't reinvent the wheel, but it's a solid starter episode with a lot of charm and rewatchability. With Gatwa and Gibson's joyful banter leading the way, it looks like we're in for one hell of a season.

Doctor Who kicks off Season 1 with an entry point for new viewers that is a hell of a lot of fun for long-time fans.

• Ncuti Gatwa makes even the most ridiculous concepts feel grounded with his sincerity.
• Millie Gibson shines as Ruby Sunday, holding her own against the Doctor.
• Golda Rosheuvel's ordinary hero is one worth rooting for.
• "Space Babies" is a well-balanced season starter without reinventing the wheel.
• Jokes about farts and boogers aren't going to work for every viewer.
• The social lessons, while good and right, are just a little heavy-handed.

New episodes of Doctor Who will air on Disney+ on Fridays at 7 PM ET.

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