Pop Culture Happy Hour - Doctor Who

Episode Date: April 15, 2025

The last season of the venerable British science fiction series Doctor Who brought a lot of change. The Doctor is now played by Ncuti Gatwa, who is Black and openly queer. And it marked the return of the showrunner who birthed the modern era of Doctor Who. The show just returned for a new season on Disney+, so today we're revisiting our conversation about the series.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

The venerable British science fiction series Doctor Who is about an alien who travels through space and time in a blue box. Last season brought a lot of change. The Doctor is now played by an actor who is black and queer and who was born outside of the UK. And it marked the return of the showrunner who birthed the modern era of Doctor Who. What did this mix of new and old mean for this science fiction institution? Doctor Who just returned for a new season on Disney Plus, so we thought it was the perfect time to revisit our conversation. about the series. I'm Glenn Weldon, and today we're talking about Doctor Who on Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. Joining me today is NPR TV critic Eric Degans. Hey, Eric. Hey, Eric. Hey. Also with us is NPR's How I Built

This Producer J.C. Howard, Hello. Hello. Hello. And rounding out the panel is filmmaker, Pop Culture Critic, and I Heart Radio producer, Joelle Monique. Hey, Joelle. Hey, Joelle. Hey, Glenn. Hey, let's get to it. This is going to be fun. We are not going to outline a history of a television show that launched in 1963. Trust me, there's a wiki for that. I'm out of here. I wanted to talk at least about Tom Baker. Come on.

We are going to get in the weeds, and the weeds are going to be thick. But basically, the doctor is a time lord. He is the last of an alien species who could travel anywhere in the universe thanks to a machine called a TARDIS. Time lords can also regenerate themselves, taking on new appearances and personas

every time they do, which is to say, the show very early on figured out an ingenious way to swap out Let's lead character and keep going and going and going. The latest doctor, the 15th, if you're keeping score, is played by Nchutti Gatwa. Gatwa is of Rwandan's Scottish descent. His doctor is young and vibrant and intensely passionate about doing what the doctor does, which is saving lives. He is also black.

Name the doctor, occupation, not a doctor. Current status just passing by. Envoyor, myself, address that blue box over there. Now, if you don't mind, I just got... No mind, and I would like to go home. His traveling companion this season is the brave and resourceful earthling Ruby Sunday, played by Millie Gibson. The season also marks the return of showrunner Russell T. Davies, who was known for creating the modern era of Doctor Who. He revived the series back in 2005 after it had been off the air for many years.

Dr. Who is streaming on Disney Plus here in the States. J.C. kick us off. What do you think? Okay. So I have to say, for longtime listeners of PCHH, you will know that in the past year or so, at least two or three of my what's making me happy's have been Doctor Who related. So this is true. This episode is my jam.

I have been a Hoovian for, I think, 15 years or so and have gone deep, deep into the lore. And for a few years, I will say that Doctor Who was not exactly cool, but kind of nerd chic. When you had, like, David Tennant and Matt Smith in this era of boyish charm. But by and large, over the last 60 years, years, over the 60-year history of the show, it was weird, you know? And in some ways, I feel like we're getting back to that with this season. The first couple episodes of this season were a good reminder to me that Doctor Who is kind of supposed to be weird and niche and a little bit embarrassing to explain to people. We'll get to the space babies. Yes, we will. Yes, yes. We'll get to the space

babies at all. But this is an invitation to me, again, to just let the doctor be weird. And I will say since the third episode or so, I feel like things have leveled out and gotten to a kind of a norm. And I'm super into it. I have qualms about the writing. And I feel like the episodes could have been ordered differently. But by and large, I think that this season is meant to be an on-ramp for new audiences. And that is super exciting to me. Like, you don't need 60 years of lore to start.

If you have that lore, if you've been watching since 2005 or since the 80s or the 70s, great. There's going to be pay off for every. one, but it's an on-ramp for everybody. That's interesting. That's an interesting approach. I hadn't thought about it that way. Joelle, what about you? How do you like in this so far?

Babe, it's so gay. Okay. All right. Y'all are the PCH listeners you know is usually my lead for a show that I really enjoy. Representation, it matters. We have drag queen singing and trans people making music and outfits that are so good. So many cool outfits. So many.

Yes. That really evolved. the character of the doctor quite a lot. I love the doctor. I love a man on an arc. I love a man dealing with his trauma. And I'm really excited to move sort of beyond the repressed rage we've been feeling with doctor for a long time.

You know, for understandable reasons, he survived a genocide. But we're moving into a space where I really feel like this is a doctor who's out of the closet, not in a queer way, but in a very this is who I am. I am now very comfortable. with this identity of myself, and I'm embracing the reality of my choices in the past,

which we've seen the doctor do a lot of running if you're a frequent watcher. Sure. You don't get the sense of fleeing anymore. Like, this is a very grounded doctor in a way I think we haven't had in a long time.

And in Shutee, like I follow him off a cliff. What a magnetic personality. What a face? Be careful about that now. You might have to go off a cliff. Would do. Would do. He is,

an incredible performer and he makes you believe all the things you need to believe in order for this show to work, which is that this is a person who, above all else, really loves human beings and believes in the best in them. It's really a challenge, I think, for an actor to get into that level of, I don't even want to say emotional vulnerability, but like purity, like, there's a, there's a belief, a hope in him and like, you trust it, you trust it. I hope we get him as a doctor for a very long time. I'm very much enjoying this series. Yes. Excellent. Excellent. How about you, Eric? Yeah, well, I'm going to co-sign all of that. And I'm an odd Doctor Who fan in that I've been watching the show since Tom Baker was the doctor making new episodes. Yep, me too. As a very long time. But I'm also not somebody who gets caught up in the minutia of things. And I haven't watched it, you know, with that level of detail the whole time since the mid-70s. Good for you, trust me. It's a lot to keeping your brain. Yeah. It is a lot. It is a lot. And I could be like Donald Noble in my head would just explode if I.

If I pay too much attention to it, there you go. Don't mention it. Can I get my blurred crack now? Can I get my blurred card? Anyway, I do love what they've done with this show. I will admit, it took me a little while to warm up to this new vision of the doctor, particularly in the Space Babies episode, which I love for a lot of reasons, but also it is very elementary school-level doctor.

You know that they're spoon-feeding you, the backstory, so that all the new people who might be attracted by being on Disney Plus can jump on board and understand the stakes, and that's awesome. When you've been watching it for a while, it could feel a little tedious sometimes. I get the feeling that the show is revving up. It's like slowly engaging. And the episodes are getting more complex. They're asking deeper questions.

I will say that I've always felt that the most compelling character in Doctor Who is the doctor, and I feel like the show does lose its way when it loses sight of that. And I want to learn more about this doctor. who does not want to learn more about himself because of all the stuff he'd have to face once he does that. So I'm looking forward to years of exploring this, but I do think that's key to making the show as good as it can be. Yeah, that's a great point. You know, guys, I miss our friend and colleague Petra Mayer so much. But watching this, I felt that very keenly because she was so passionate about the show.

She was a passionate about what Russell T. Davies brought. She was even more passionate, not always in a good way, Stephen Muffet brought to it and had thoughts about the treatment of women on this show but I was worried, right? Yeah. I'm a fan of Russell T. Davies

but returning to a property a decade after you launched it that way doth phantom menace lie and I was not looking forward to it. Do not dare speak that name. Harsh. That was the danger, right?

I mean the Christmas episode which launched a season didn't really connect with me because I thought we were back in that first companion. We were back in Rose Tyler, territory. Are you coming for Rose Tyler now? What is even happening to our relationship, Glenn? Like, I'm just very confused right now. I don't want to go back to Rose Tyler. I want to move forward, Joelle, forward into, evidently space babies were there were these babies and crawlers on a spaceship and I...

A bad guy made out of boogers. Oh, come on. Yeah. The literal boogeyman. A fart to save the day, Glenn? Does it get better? I kind of hated everything about it. But, um, friends. Frankly, it was space babies that made me worry that we were watching the Disneyification of who. Because in the UK, Disney is just another streaming service. But here in the States, it's got a whole family-friendly thing. And who has always been a show for the whole family, right? But in the UK, they're perfectly fine with their kids cowering behind the couch in abject fear. That's not our vibe here in the States, right?

Disney is known for inflicting emotional trauma here, Kill Babi's Mom, but not terrifying children. That's a UK thing. Right. And then the double score, Jinks Monson's Great. I'll always go, I'm here for a dance number, but I felt like we're still flailing around. I wasn't getting a bead on this new doctor, who he is. Yeah. But from then on, for me, anyway, it's been all hits, no skips.

I mean, in the episode, boom, the doctor steps on a landmine and gets to go off on the military industrial complex. And he goes off on faith. He calls faith an excuse for allowing yourself not to think. I mean, most armies would notice that they were fighting smoking shadows, but not this lot, Ruby. You know why? Because they have faith. Shut up, faith! The magic word that keeps you never having to think for yourself.

In the UK, which is a very secularist Anglican country, that line is going to breeze by without hitting anybody. But here in the U.S. and on Disney, a line like that felt kind of, I mean, to me, bracing and kind of a mission statement and I kind of leaned forward on the sofa. That just stuck out to me. Am I making too much of that, do you guys think? Not at all. Not at all. I feel you in that if we get a Disneyification of Dr. Hu that we're getting it. getting an Americanized version of Doctor Who, which is not at all palatable to me.

Like, it is steeped in its Britishness for a reason. It has to remain in that way. And so, and what we can talk about as more as we talk about some of these newer episodes, later episodes, but it definitely seems like somebody was planting flags to be like, what we're not doing is moving from this space like this is Doctor Who. But they also feel like they tucked it back a little in a way so that this is a show that has dealt with its fandom, that understands an occasional when we come at crossroads And we know what that, you know, as Star Wars fans, what that can do to a fandom?

It's really detrimental. And so to tuck some of the more potentially controversial episodes a little later, I think it's really brilliant. It allows you to sort of come into the show, get used to this idea of the new doctor, which is going to be jarring for some folks. And then plant the flag to say, hey, not only is this the new doctor, but we're really standing behind. It feels like we're also standing behind this performer with some of these themes. One thing that I would say is that Doctor Who has always had an element of being a kid show. I felt it was more Davies saying, we're never going to lose sight of the fact that this started as a kid's show. And part of its identity is that it appeals to kids in an odd way.

And to odd kids. Yeah, to odd kids, like me. So that's part of it. But that statement about faith that I thought was interesting, it's also an irony because the doctor has faith in humanity. And that's what distinguishes the character so much. So to have him sort of give a little shade to faith, while he's also very much the image. embodiment of faith in humanity was also, I thought, kind of brilliant. Now, the thing that strikes me about the show now, and maybe we'll see this change in the future,

I interviewed Davies, and he says they're going to talk about race more directly on the show. It talks way more about being queer than it does about race. And in a way you can justify it by saying, you know, this alien is sort of beyond that. But this is a show, even though it's about the story. the stars, it is very much grounded in being British, and it is very much grounded in reflecting humanity, even in the alien societies that it operates in. So to have the show kind of shrug off race, that's the one thing that doesn't make a lot of sense. And at some point, they got to deal with them. Well, Eric, if I can, we have had queer moments with the doctor. Never anything

a little bit direct, a little bit with Jack. There's a lot of heavy flirtation. There's a lot of heavy flirtation. A lot of happy paddy. Yeah. The character of Jack Harkness, yes. Yeah. So we know for a fact that, like, queerness in general for this doctor is something the show's dealt with, understands, it's something the fan base has already had to come terms with.

I think leading with queerness makes sense. And also, I think when the show does dive into race and you haven't gotten there yet, but when it does, it does it in such a truly mind. Can we just talk about the episode of Dot and Bubble? Yes. Okay. I, too, had been growing impatient with this show's unwillingness to address the doctor race. And one could argue, like, in a world of, like, murderous salt shakers and slug monsters and

those people, you could make the argument that skin color is a distinctly human hangup and you can just plow past it. And, Eric, when you watch the episode, Dot and Bubble, as this episode begins, we are on this world where everybody is kind of addicted to social media. And it seems like, well, I don't know, you guys tell me, it seems at the beginning we're getting a very boomer disdain for Genzi and their cell phones and their avocado toast. Yeah, it feels like just a black Mirro episode that's just about how how these kids are so stuck on their phones. Yes, exactly. It changes.

It changes, I would say, kind of several times. It does confront it head on in a way that's subtle, which is something that we haven't really gotten in the past of Doctor Who when it has dealt with things like race. I think back to the episode Rosa from the Chris Chibno era, and it was so ham-fisted. This is a criticism that Chris Chibnall got all the time, the last showrunner, Chris Chibnall got all the time. And there are some that have that same criticism for Davis now is that the Doctor Who has gone too woke because of the queer and trans characters and, you know, the doctor dealing with capitalism. Have they been watching the show at all? Right, exactly.

That is my biggest problem with it is that, like, I can only meet that critique with the long and ever-arching eye roll because, like, Doctor Who has had queer coded characters since the 80s. The first episode was directed by a queer man of color. So, like, if that's your criticism, you have not been watching. the show. But I will say that the writing in the Chibnall era and even some in this season that we're watching is as subtle as a thumb to the eye. Like, I will admit that even for me, I felt big time cringe with some of it. We're talking about, you know, Russell T. Davis, Stephen Moffat writing some of these episodes. And they're 60-year-old white dudes. So like them writing about progressive issues, the writing isn't exactly what I would have written. Like,

you do not have to tell me that this is a critique. on war and capitalism when you're standing on a battlefield. Like, I get it. I got that already. So I don't think that the show is too woke. That criticism is definitely not merited. But I will say that some of the writing is a little bit too on the nose even for me. Yeah.

Yeah, I get that. What I really enjoyed about Dot and Bubble was the way it sort of switched through genre. Right? If you start off, it's sort of a teen dystopian vibe. then it's maybe like a fantasy romance for a hot second. And then you get a parasite level bomb drop at the end where you're like, oh, I see. This was the critique. It's one of those, at least for me on a second viewing, I was like, oh, not subtle at all.

But the setup for it specifically just that episode, you're just like, oh, all of the layers are really here. And it's really working on a deeper level to kind of point the finger. What I like is, like, if you're going to address race, if you're going to talk about these subjects, and if you are not somebody who has experienced living in a body of a different color, it's a really awesome thing to do to be like, what if I just pointed the finger back at the audience? Exactly. What if I didn't try to embody those shoes, but if I examined what a negative audience might, how they might interact with this series, which I thought was brilliant. Exactly because you're given this opportunity with this character, with the show, to do a thing that literally no other character or show could do, which is why I was so excited when shoot they got what was hired. Because it's like, now he can be a person who has been white and is now no longer white. How does that affect things?

Nobody else. There is no other character you could think of who could do that. And the question is, what does that look like in a show where, again, like everything about it is so British. True. That's what disappointed me. so much about the Chitnell era, is that we had a character who went from being male to being female. They hardly ever dealt with that. Just breeze past it. Exactly. One of the things that I also love about this new iteration, it's shot so well. The special effects are so awesome. And when they're

not, they're deliberately not. And you enjoy it because, again, that's a part of Doctor Who's like Chinty special effects, right? So, no, listen, like I think back to the 2005 revival, and you had the worst special effects, the worst costumes, you know, like the farting aliens in Downing Street. Those rubber costumes were the worst. And that is some of the thing that makes Doctor Who charming. So I was like, oh, no, like it's not going to be this super polished thing, is it? And I will say, again, with Space Babies, a lot of that fear was a leave because, like, I was just like, this is going to be a weird thing. Like, we're staying with the weirdness.

And even the graphics that are better, like especially boom is special. It's beautiful to look at. You know, as a whole, the show can still be weird. I want it to be able to do both. I want it to be as beautiful and as polished as it possibly can be, but intentionally, exactly as you're saying, Eric, intentionally weird. Yeah, I mean, especially when we look at, like, the Church of Ruby Road, the goblins, really do it for me. The design of them really works. I think the shots back in fours are that you're going to look like a lot of isolation.

It still feels like it's being made on a smaller budget. You still get the feeling of like, oh, this is play in almost a theatrical level of play. But it looks good. It looks polished. And that's a lot of fun, I think. And hopefully a little bit easier to convert folks where you're like, I know you would like this if you could just get over the visual landscape of the series. Yeah, the Daleks. You can just get over watching deadly trash cans with plungers attached to the top of them.

So on pepper shakers, baby. I don't know. I'm always going to have a soft spot my heart for the giant invisible space chicken from me. from the Van Gogh episode. Classes. Yes. Vincent and the Doctor. Let me ask you all a question.

Are you who purists? Because this show has never been what anyone would call hard science fiction. But in every episode, up to now, when something seemingly supernatural happens, it's always the Scooby-to-answer.

It's always monsters, aliens, robots. It's always grounded in science fiction. This season is a hard pivot into the supernatural. Now, there is an in-universe cause of that because the previous doctor spilled salt at the edge of the universe. I don't understand it either. But that is a new direction. Does it matter to you that Doctor Who is now going into a little bit of the woo-woo?

No, I think from like a literary standpoint, if we look at the larger world just books, like we're seeing a slam it for science fiction and fantasy into each other, where we're crossing the genres back and forth in a very heavy and considerate way. And so I think to do that here, particularly as we look at the other science fiction, shows the series competing with like, you know, Star Trek will always be pure science fiction. That's the aim of it. Star Wars is pure fantasy. Finding a route in between those two spaces, I think is intelligent, especially if you're

going to be boosting this out to the world on the Disney platform. It gives you a space sort of in the middle to cross for people who might be purists on either side. Say there's space for both sides within this IP. I am also not very bothered by it. You have a lot more supernatural element. in this season, the boogeyman, Welsh fairy circles, a pantheon of gods. And I think that's fine. One of the characteristics of Doctor Who is when you think you have all the answers, the doctor

literally changes their face. But I will say the issue that I have with it is I kind of need the companion to be a little bit more like, wait what? But this doesn't exist. Like the companion is meant to be a stand-in for the audience, right? In this case, it's Ruby Sunday. And I just need a little more incredulity when we, when we see Ruby faced with literal baby stealing goblins. Like, I need her to be like, wait, goblins don't exist, you know? Like, I didn't get a lot of that. So I do want the companion to be a little bit more incredulous about it, but I don't mind a little dabbling in the world of supernatural and fantasy. I will push back a little bit on that to say that one of the things that I'm enjoying about the new Doctor Who is that the type of person

who would be a companion to the doctor is the type of person who wouldn't be put off by stuff like that and would be more ready to say, I mean, once you've met a time traveling alien, is anything else really that weird? Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Everything is on the table at that point. Yeah. And so I'm kind of digging the idea that in this sort of altered, you know, again,

weird universe, humans come to accept, you know, that they inhabit a universe that's filled with all this crazy stuff, like much more readily than we would. That's true. And so I'm really enjoying seeing them explore. And in a weird way, having supernatural elements to stories cuts down on all the techno-babel and nonsense that they have to say to get you from point A to point Z in a story. And they can just kind of say it was a God who did that. It makes the storytelling a little leaner and makes more room for some of the character stuff that we're really digging now.

Yeah. I really like Ruby Sunday. She's an interesting character. Even the way we sort of meet her, it's interesting. We always come into a companion's life at a moment of crisis or personal change slash growth where they're in this moment where they're like, I think I need to be doing something different. But when we come into Ruby's life, she's really just trying to learn more about herself in a very, again, grounded way. I find myself drawn to Ruby and I think maybe it's because, you know, we've talked a little bit about like the way the show has explored queerness. The doctor's on a character who easily embraces romantic love. So I don't think we're going to get a lot of that across this series. It's just not really who the character is. So how are we exploring queerness? I think it's through friendship and this idea of a character like Ruby who is immediately just on board. We see her friends before she meets the doctor. They're all very queer. She like performs for lesbians at a bar. Yeah, yep.

It's just, it's a culturally queer friendship, which I really love, which is like, I'm not going to second guess what you're doing. You're on your own trajectory. I just want to, can I just tag along? Cool. I'm with you. Like, let's go. You're my dude. It's kind of wonderful to see this relationship not through the eyes of like two cis heterosexual people.

Even when there isn't sexual tension between the doctor and his companion, there's always just sort of like, are you going to go out with that guy? Are you with him? There's a lot of like, it's just very heteronormative relationships. And again, nothing wrong with that. But to see this sort of queer friendship, even when they're separated, there isn't this desperation of, I have to get back to the doctor. It's such an easy, like, oh, well, maybe this is just what you do and who you are. Okay, I'll accept that. I have to go on.

And I was like, wow. I mean, it was really speaking to me on a sub-level of queer friendships. And I value that. And I really enjoyed seeing it and having it in this series. I will agree. I love Ruby Sunday. And I think that the doctor and Ruby's chemistry is off the charts. What's your name?

Ruby, Ruby Sunday. Hello, Ruby Sunday. And it's a Sunday right now. That's what coincidence it is. I'm the doctor. Hi. I met you before. Yep.

Although I will say Judy could have chemistry with a CVS receipt. Absolutely. That's the next episode. Okay, well, I think we would characterize our collective reaction to this season as bubbling with enthusiasm. I would say dot and bubbling with enthusiasm. Dot and buffing. It was right there. It was right there.

Well, we don't know what you think about Doctor Who. Find us at Facebook.com slash PCH. And that brings us to the end of our show. Joel Manique, Eric Deggans, J.C. Howard. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for having us. Thank you. Thanks, Glenn.

This episode was produced by Hufza Fathema and edited by Mike Katzif. Our supervising producer is Jessica Reedy, and hello, come in, provides our theme music. Thank you for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Glenn Weldon, and we'll see you all tomorrow.