{"id":24592,"date":"2022-10-26T15:28:09","date_gmt":"2022-10-26T13:28:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiotimes.com\/?p=1728653"},"modified":"2022-10-26T16:03:16","modified_gmt":"2022-10-26T14:03:16","slug":"so-what-the-hell-is-going-on-with-ncuti-gatwa-in-doctor-who","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/rss_feed\/so-what-the-hell-is-going-on-with-ncuti-gatwa-in-doctor-who\/","title":{"rendered":"So what the hell is going on with Ncuti Gatwa in Doctor Who?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Steve O’Brien\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Wednesday, 26 October 2022 at 12:00 am<\/p>

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\u201cWill somebody tell me what the hell is going on here?\u201d<\/p>\n

That may have been the Fourteenth\u2026 sorry, Fifteenth Doctor\u2019s single line in that agonisingly brief Doctor Who trailer<\/a> that aired on Sunday, but it was also the question we were asking at home. What. The. Hell. Is. Going. On. Here?<\/p>\n

Of course, the first surprise occurred in those closing seconds of The Power of the Doctor, when David Tennant\u2019s perfectly coiffured Doctor<\/a> emerged from that gush of regeneration energy.<\/p>\n

There had been fan speculation that it might be Tennant\u2019s face that appeared in those final moments, ever since he was announced as returning to Doctor Who back in May. At the time, incoming showrunner Russell T Davies teased: \u201cWhat on earth is happening? Maybe this is a missing story. Or a parallel world. Or a dream, or a trick, or a flashback.\u201d<\/p>\n

Well, within minutes of this latest regeneration, the BBC confirmed that, crazily, David Tennant was officially the **Fourteenth** Doctor (that\u2019s on top of being the Tenth).<\/p>\n

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David Tennant as the Fourteenth Doctor in Doctor Who.<\/span><\/figcaption> BBC<\/i><\/span><\/div>\n

\u201cThe path to Ncuti\u2019s Fifteenth Doctor is laden with mystery, horror, robots, puppets, danger and fun,\u201d RTD said in a statement. \u201cAnd how is it connected to the return of the wonderful Donna Noble? How, what, why? We\u2019re giving you a year to speculate, and then all hell lets loose!\u201d<\/p>\n

So, who is this latest Doctor and why did his clothes regenerate with him<\/a>? OK, so the Time Lord\u2019s togs changed in between the First and Second Doctors and his boots inexplicably transformed into shoes during the Fourth Doctor\u2019s regeneration into Five, but that was more of a continuity screw-up than something vital to the story.<\/p>\n

This was actually intentional, with the new Doctor even patting down his new threads.<\/p>\n

So why has the Doctor regenerated into an already-used body? We know that the Doctor can subconsciously affect who he or she regenerates into.<\/p>\n

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Peter Capaldi as the Twelfth Doctor in Doctor Who.<\/span><\/figcaption> BBC<\/i><\/span><\/div>\n

In The Girl Who Died, the Twelfth Doctor finally remembers where he\u2019s seen himself before. \u201cI know where I got this face, and I know what it\u2019s for,\u201d he says, recalling Lobus Caecilius (also played by Peter Capaldi), whom he\u2019d saved from the fires of Pompeii. \u201cTo remind me, to hold me to the mark. I\u2019m the Doctor and I save people!\u201d<\/p>\n

Is this another example of the Doctor sending himself a message from his subconscious? Is it that there\u2019s unfinished business with Donna Noble that only this \u201clong streak of alien nothing\u201d can sort out? Maybe it has something to do with the \u2018Time Lord Victorious\u2019, that short-lived title the Tenth Doctor gave himself at the end of The Waters of Mars? Or maybe it\u2019s as simple as just wanting to revisit \u201can old favourite\u201d, as the Curator (Tom Baker) might say?<\/p>\n

Conversely, there\u2019s much scuttlebutt online that this has nothing to do with the Doctor\u2019s subconscious and that this is all the Celestial Toymaker\u2019s doing<\/a>. Course, it hasn\u2019t even been confirmed that Neil Patrick Harris\u2019s character in the upcoming special(s) *is* the Toymaker, so this is conjecture upon conjecture, but that might explain why the Doctor\u2019s costume changed as well.<\/p>\n

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Neil Patrick Harris in Doctor Who<\/span><\/figcaption> BBC<\/i><\/span><\/div>\n

And so where does Ncuti Gatwa fit into all of this? The word from Who HQ is that the new Doctor\u2019s \u201cfirst official Doctor Who episode is due to air over the festive period in 2023\u201d. Is that short clip of him in the trailer from that \u201cfirst official episode\u201d or a tease from one of the David Tennant-centred specials?<\/p>\n

And where exactly is Ncuti\u2019s Doctor in that shot and in the only photo of him so far in character? Is it the Doctor\u2019s \u2018mind palace\u2019 or some version of the \u2018edge of existence\u2019 as seen in The Power of the Doctor? That\u2019s definitely the Tenth\u2026 sorry, the Fourteenth\u2019s tie and shirt there, so is this post-regeneration or is the Fifteenth Doctor stuck in limbo somewhere, until the Toymaker is done with his David Tennant-shaped experiment?<\/p>\n

Whether it\u2019s the Toymaker \u2013 or someone else entirely \u2013 who\u2019s responsible for this latest regeneration, we know it\u2019s a bona fide incarnation. It\u2019s official now that David Tennant is the Fourteenth Doctor and Ncuti Gatwa is the Fifteenth.<\/p>\n

But this isn\u2019t a regeneration like we\u2019ve ever seen before. Will the Fourteenth and the Fifteenth Doctors even have a moment between themselves, as one passes the baton to the other? It\u2019s never happened before, but neither has the Doctor ever regenerated into a former body, so all bets are off. The only thing we know for certain is we\u2019ve got a tortuously long wait to find out what the hell is going on here.<\/p>

Read more about Doctor Who:<\/strong><\/p>\n