'Doctor Who' Gets Season Premiere Date With New, Standard Disney+ Timeslot
Alan Cumming has been announced to guest star in the second episode in a voice role
Disney+ and the BBC may very well be emphasizing the “alien” in alienation in slotting the new season of Doctor Who. The pair have announced that the former’s second season will premiere on Saturday, April 12 at 8 AM UK time on BBC iPlayer, and simultaneously in the rest of the world on Disney+. If you know your time zones, that’s 3 AM Eastern and midnight Pacific. That’s when standard content traffic happens on the Disney-owned platform.
Of course, it will still have its linear airing in primetime on BBC One later each week. The first Disney+-broadcast season had midnight iPlayer releases that became Friday 7 PM Eastern/4 PM Pacific premieres stateside on Disney+. It’s unclear what benefits or for whom this new arrangement has. This time, at least it’s a single episode premiere, so a May 31 season finale should be expected. The premiere date was actually originally discovered by viewers of a Scotland-England U-20s Rugby game where the end tag had the April 12 date. Even hit BBC Press, but it wasn’t a lot to stand on its own for an article without heavy regurgitation. A general April premiere was first revealed, probably accidentally, by one of the season’s writers, Inua Ellams, and a Disney+ 2025 roster graphic positioned it between Daredevil: Born Again (premiering March 4) and season 2 of Andor (premiering April 22). He also revealed the season would be dropping in April and May. All-singles weeks that began in either week after April 12 would have bled the season into June, which would have been indicated.
The new season sees the Doctor, played by Ncuti Gatwa and new companion Belinda Chandra, played by Varada Sethu begin an “epic quest” to get her back to Earth. However a mysterious force is preventing their return and so they must face great dangers, bigger enemies and wider terrors than ever before. Episode 2 will see that Sethu isn’t the only previously-appearing actor to return in a new role, and while not American himself, he is very familiar to American audiences. Alan Cumming, star of The Good Wife with a film resume as far back as GoldenEye and now lauded as host of Peacock’s The Traitors, is returning to the series after playing King James I in the series 11 Thirteenth Doctor adventure “The Witchfinders” in 2018. This time it’s just a voice role, as the old-timey cartoon character “Mr. Ring-a-Ding”. He’s from a happy, funny, singalong cartoon, and lives in Sunny Town with his friend Sunshine Sally. However, in 1952, after years of his cartoons playing in theaters he looks beyond the screen and sees the real world outside, to terrifying consequences.
Cumming himself did not provide comment, but showrunner Russell T. Davies did, saying “Only Alan Cumming could give a runaway cartoon so much wit, malice, danger and fun. He makes the whole universe of Doctor Who wilder and madder than ever, and it’s an absolute honour to welcome him on board the TARDIS.”
The new season will feature appearances by last season’s companion Ruby Sunday, played by Millie Gibson, still given star billing. Today’s announcement did confirm that Michelle Greenidge will return as her adoptive mother Carla Sunday, but still no word on Angela Wynter as her mother Cherry Sunday or even Faye McKeever as Ruby’s birth mother, Louise Miller. What we do have is Cumming joining a list of guest stars that includes Jonah Hauer-King and Archie Panjabi, while Rose Ayling-Ellis and Christopher Chung as Cassio are reportedly appearing in the same episode titled “Five Miles Deep”. Other returning characters this season include Anita Dobson as Mrs. Flood, Jemma Redgrave as Kate Lethbridge-Stewart, Alexander Devrient as Colonel Ibrahim, Ruth Madeley as Shirley Anne Bingham, and Susan Twist as Susan Triad. Cumming’s episode will premiere on April 19, while “Five Miles Deep” is said to be third and therefore premiere on April 26.
Source: Doctor Who