The Cybermen will also be absent from season 14, Russell T Davies has revealed.
The Daleks and the Cybermen might be the Doctor’s most iconic foes – but Russell T Davies has confirmed that incoming Time Lord Ncuti Gatwa won’t have to do battle with them in his first season of Doctor Who.
Speaking at a Q&A event after a press screening for the first of the upcoming 60th anniversary specials, The Star Beast, the returning showrunner revealed that the Doctor won’t need to worry about being exterminated or deleted in season 14.
Speaking about the season as a whole, Davies explained: “It’s very new. Ncuti’s new and Millie [Gibson] is new and it was new to us with Disney and the whole new era, as it were.”
He added: “So I didn’t want to look… there are no Daleks, there are no Cybermen, I didn’t want to look back too much.”
However, he reiterated that he “loves” the Daleks and would be happy to bring them back later on during his second tenure helming the series.
“I do think we’ve had a lot of Daleks lately,” he said. “Because, actually, lovely Chris Chibnall’s Christmas specials have all been Daleks.
“So I think they’ve been done a lot, so people are expecting them every year now. So I think they need a good pause.”
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Meanwhile, Davies added that the Fifteenth Doctor will be facing some brand new threats that he hopes could eventually become iconic antagonists in their own right.
“Hopefully there’s some enemies and things that will become new classics,” he said. “But it’s always good to move on!”
Gatwa is set to take over as the Doctor at the end of the third of the 60th anniversary episodes, receiving the torch from David Tennant – who is returning for a second stint in the TARDIS.
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