'Doctor Who' Writer Reveals New Season Premiere Month
Guest star Rose Ayling-Ellis also talks about what her world was like after the announcement
It was just about a week ago that long-running British sci-fi series Doctor Who unveiled the four writers other than showrunner Russell T. Davies who would be writing on the upcoming second season to star Ncuti Gatwa as the Fifteenth Doctor. They are Pete McTighe, Juno Dawson, Sharma Angel-Walfall, and Inua Ellams. Well it turns out Ellams has an email newsletter, and he got to celebrate getting to talk about it in his latest sent out to subscribers. However it seems he’s likely said even more than he was supposed to, as he revealed when the season, already anticipated sooner than last season’s May-June 2024 rollout, will be airing this year: It’s going to be an April-May season.
In his newsletter, he wrote “FINALLY, FINALLY news dropped last Monday – about the hardest secret I’ve ever had to keep – that I wrote an episode on the upcoming series of Doctor Who! Guys, I’ve been watching this show since I was 10 yrs old in Nigeria – for 30 years! Getting to write an ep was a dreams, no, was several of my wildest fantasies come true! There is so much MORE I wish I could tell you right now, but I’ve signed NDAs so vast, they blanket the universe and exist in the past, present and future. I have to stay schtum. The new series drops in April and May. Until then you’ll just have to enjoy this picture of your boy in the TARDIS.” This lines up with its placement on a Disney+ release timeline that hasn’t had official distribution. It’s between Daredevil: Born Again (premiering March 4) and Andor season 2 (premiering April 22). That 7 weeks after the weekend of April 18 is the weekend of June 6 and June is not mentioned at all means it cannot be April 18 unless there is any week that doubles up on episode releases, so it's likely going to be either of the two previous. Of course, “the weekend of” is being used here because it is unknown if Friday evening releases in the continental United States that equate to midnight iPlayer uses in the United Kingdom will be continued with the new season.
On his Instagram announcing the newsletter in a postscript, Ellams wrote even more about his being overjoyed about his place in the show, writing “So! I still can’t believe RTD, Bad Wolf & BBC allowed a Nigerian into the TARDIS! 🤣😅🤪 I wanted to do a heap of silly things… travel back in time and copy the blueprints for the pyramids, rewrite Ghana’s Constitution in Nigeria’s favour, or just give Henrietta Lacks a hug. But I had to be responsible! 😜 You’ll have to wait see what I actually did. Thanks for all the messages and love ya’ll showed! Really overwhelmed and humbled, thank you so much! I’m gonna have to organise a crossover poetry event or something – watch this space! I’ve always loved the show, I’ve been watching since I was 10! It’s about a displaced refugee from a war-torn planet who arrives on Earth with a screwdriver - not a gun or a shield, calls himself the ‘Doctor’ - like so many Good Immigrants* I know - a title that’s fundamentally about alleviating pain and suffering. His main superpower is empathy! The Doctor FEELS so much he needs (and has) two hearts just to process everything, and, there are 15 versions of him! To quote Walt Whitman, The Doctor “Contains multitudes”. HE has always been THEY, always been SO inclusive and welcoming.”
The new season of Doctor Who will not only continue to star Gatwa and Millie Gibson as companion Ruby Sunday in some unclear capacity, but a second companion, Belinda Chandra, played by one of last season’s guest stars Varada Sethu. We will finally learn what the deal is with Mrs. Flood, played by Anita Dobson. Known guest stars so far invlude Jonah Hauer-King, Archie Panjabi, and Rose Ayling-Ellis, who recently spoke about the gig to The Hollywood Reporter. “All my friends talked about that,” she recalls, calling the role a special treat. “I genuinely was a fan of Doctor Who growing up as a kid. It was a thing that I watched on a Saturday with my mum and my brother on telly, and we’d get excited about it. I’ve been watching it for a long time. So, I was so excited when they offered me this role. I said yes, 100 percent.” She did have to spread her knowledge to help teach a friend. “I had to travel on a train up to Wales [where the series shoots] and I had my interpreter with me, but she doesn’t know much about Doctor Who,” Ayling-Ellis remembers. “So I sat her down to explain everything, like that the Doctor regenerates. So, genuinely, I am a big fan of Doctor Who and it was just an incredible experience. I really wanted to, and had to, keep it a secret for a long time because we filmed it in February last year.”
The Doctor Who Production News and Doctor Who Filming Locations Twitter accounts were able to find that the February 2024 filming period, the episode that Ayling-Ellis will star in is “Five Miles Deep”, the season’s alleged third episode, directed by Amanda Brotchie and written by Sharma Angel-Walfall.
Sources: Cultbox, The Hollywood Reporter, Doctor Who Production News and Doctor Who Filming Locations