Doctor Who is back for season 2, so catch up on the best moments from season 1

VWORP! VWORP! Either your microwave is on the fritz or that’s the sound of the TARDIS preparing to land, because Earth’s longest running sci-fi TV show returns to Saturday nights for more action-packed adventures, terrifying monsters and probably a few corridors and quarries. We’re of course talking about Doctor Who. 

Depending on your level of fandom, we’re either into season 41 (the entire run, 1963-present), season 15 (new Who, 2005-present) or season 2 (the Whoniverse, 2024-present). Wherever you land – and hey, sci-fi fans are normally a calm and reasonable bunch – we’ve never been more ready for a new batch of episodes.

Watch the latest trailer below and then read on…

Ncuti Gatwa (Sex Education) returns as the charming, emotional, heart-on-his-sleeve clothes horse that made us all fall in love with his effervescent Fifteenth Doctor. Through Gatwa, we’ve seen a side to the Time Lord we’ve never seen before, all while embodying the same character quirks from William Hartnell through to David Tennant.

After the devastating season 1 finale that saw Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson) reunite with her birth mother and leave the Doctor flying solo, he’s joined this season by a new yet familiar face to fans of the show, Varada Sethu (Andor).

Sethu played Mundy Flynn in the Steven Moffat episode Boom, but returns as new companion, Belinda Chandra. It’s a path followed by the likes of Karen Gillan (who appeared in David Tennant-era episode The Fires Of Pompeii before joining the show as Matt Smith companion Amy Pond) and Freema Agyeman (who appeared in 2006 episode Army Of Ghosts before joining the show in the next season as Martha Jones).

This time around the Doctor will be setting off on an epic quest to get Belinda back to Earth. But a mysterious force is stopping their return, and the time-travelling duo must face great dangers, ferocious enemies and wilder terrors than ever before.

Alongside the TARDIS team, including the returning Millie Gibson, they will be joined in their adventures by a whole host of new guest stars including Alan Cumming, Rose Ayling-Ellis, Rylan, Freddie Fox, Kadiff Kirwan, plus returning favourites like Anita Dobson, Bonnie Langford and Jemma Redgrave.

Doctor Who season 2 will begin on Saturday 12 April 2025, coming to BBC iPlayer (Apps > BBC iPlayer) at 8am and later that day on BBC One HD (CH 101) at 6.50pm.

Can’t wait until then? There’s a whole Whoniverse to explore on BBC iPlayer. 

Ahead of season 2 (we’re calling it), let’s look back on the best bits of the Fifteenth Doctor’s first season (a River Song warning: spoilers are contained below, sweetie).

What episode? All of them

What is the walking epitome of the fire emoji? It’s a rhetorical question because the answer is Ncuti Gatwa’s Fifteenth Doctor. Anyone who follows Gatwa on Instagram knows the guy is fashion, and that has also trickled down to how they have styled the character so far. That man is a human Pinterest board of dreams.

Previously, the Doctor wore a costume, with slight variations (think: different coloured shirt, bow tie or suit variation). Heck, he even wore decorative celery at one point, so fashion was never high on the time traveller’s agenda.

Now it’s kilts, leather trenches and regency finery. If David Tennant ushered in an era of geek chic with skinny suits and Converse trainers, then Gatwa is serving up the sex appeal.

What episode? Rogue

When dashing bounty hunter Rogue (Jonathan Groff) entered the Doctor’s life in a plot involving aliens who wanted to live out their Bridgerton fantasy in 1813 England, sparks flew between the pair. Big time. After trying to out-brood each other and some flirtations, the episode led to Ruby in a seemingly inescapable bind that would leave her in an alternate dimension.

Rogue manages to rescue her while sacrificing himself, but not before kissing the Doctor goodbye. Very rarely does someone enter the Doctor’s hearts on a romantic level, but Rogue entered that small group of individuals that the Time Lord has loved, then immediately lost.

Will Rogue live on? We don’t know. Although we’re sure the bounty hunter has probably lived on in quite a lot of the internet’s Doctor Who fan fiction…

Watch the moment here

What episode? The Legend Of Ruby Sunday

At what point did you spot her? Throughout season 1 and the David Tennant anniversary specials, an actor brilliantly named Susan Twist kept appearing in episodes; a tea lady in The Devil’s Chord, an AI system in Boom, a hiker in 73 Yards, the mother of Lindy in Dot And Bubble, a painting in Rogue, plus other appearances. Then, in The Legend Of Ruby Sunday, she played a character called Susan Triad, head of S Triad Technology.

Anagram fans will point out that “S Triad” also spells “TARDIS”. The Doctor wondered whether it might mean Susan was his granddaughter (it’s a long story, new Who fans), also called Susan. But she wasn’t. Instead Susan, alongside all the other variants, had been created by Sutekh, the god of death, in every place and time the TARDIS had landed to wipe out all forms of life across the universe by releasing his “Dust of Death”.

Susan Triad was among the people saved in the finale. Even though she had been created by a giant death dog as both a trap and an “Angel of Death”, she’s now free to live a normal life – and will return in season 2.

What episode? Rogue

If you expected a Doctor Who list without a little bit of geekery, then we’re not sure what planet you’re from (it’s Clom, isn’t it?). The episode Rogue wasn’t just significant because of the kiss and love story, it also subtly revealed that a version of the Doctor played by Richard E Grant (Withnail & I) is part of the Time Lord’s personal history.

Grant appeared in the title role of the 2003 animated web series Scream Of The Shalka, playing the Ninth Doctor before Christopher Eccleston became the official canonical Ninth Doctor when the show returned to TV in 2005. But a scene in Rogue showed the character’s past incarnations via hologram and it excitingly included Grant’s Shalka Doctor. 

While there are no plans for the Shalka Doctor to return, it’s a pleasing bit of fan service that pays tribute to the man who piloted the TARDIS during the years when the show was off the air. It also opens the door for other Doctors we may not know about in the future.

Watch the moment here

What episode? Empire Of Death

In a season that felt like Ruby’s birth story was going to be of cosmic significance, it was… and it wasn’t. Sutekh, the god of death, kept the Doctor and his friends alive because he was so interested in the name of Ruby’s mother. That mystery was also his undoing, allowing the Doctor to reverse Sutekh’s deadly dust and throw him into the time vortex. 

In the end, we meet Louise, a regular woman from present-day Earth who left Ruby on the steps of the church on Ruby Road aged 15 due to her age and difficult family circumstances. The Doctor warns Ruby against a reunion, but she ignores him, and they reconcile in a sweet moment, wrapping up the storyline perfectly.

It also speaks to a perennial theme in Doctor Who: that everyone is significant, and that’s a beautiful message.

What episode? Dot And Bubble

The most Black Mirror episode of Doctor Who of all time? Dot And Bubble sees a future where residents in a city named Finetime live within a social media interface, a literal bubble projected around their heads by floating “Dots”, little robots that also direct their every movement. As you’d expect with a Doctor Who adventure, not all is fine, because there are also giant slug-like creatures chowing down on some of the citizens.

However, with the Doctor set to save the day and take the survivors to a new home, they refuse, implying that his appearance makes him inferior, and they opt to take their chances rather than let him help. As the cogs turn, you realise every face on screen until that point – bar the Doctor – had been white.

It’s a moment that both talks to this version of the character – a character who had always been white – and ask some deeper questions of us as an audience. But the moment belongs to Ncuti, with all the pain and anger etched onto his face. He plays every beat so perfectly, and it’s an ending that stays with you.

Watch the moment here

What episode? The Devil’s Chord

Despite its many, many years on the telly, Doctor Who has yet to do a fully musical episode. For a show, especially since its return in 2005, so synonymous with music – so much so, it even has its own Proms concert – it’s perhaps a little bit surprising. But in this episode where the Doctor meets The Beatles, it’s the closest we’ve ever come.

With god of music Maestro (Jinkx Monsoon) defeated and music returning to the world, Ruby, the Doctor and the whole cast break into a full song and dance number about how the Time Lord’s stories always have a twist at the end. Hard to imagine any other Doctor pulling this off with as much swagger as Gatwa.

What episode? 73 Yards

In a season of memorable episodes, 73 Yards was Doctor Who at its best, rooted in horror and set against some sharp social commentary. When the Doctor accidentally steps on a fairy circle on a Welsh cliffside, it leads Ruby to live a Doctor-less life, stalked by a mysterious woman who appears exactly 73 yards away from her at all times. Every person who talks to the woman flees in terror and becomes hostile to Ruby.

After saving the world from a dangerous candidate for UK Prime Minister who would have brought the country to the brink of nuclear war, we – along with Ruby on her death bed – discover that the old woman was, in fact, Ruby all along. In that moment, she is transported back to the cliffside all those years ago to warn her younger self and to stop the Doctor from breaking the circle. 

Everything resets. Apart from our brains.

Watch the moment here

Doctor Who season 2 will be released on Saturday 12 April 2025, coming to BBC iPlayer (Apps > BBC iPlayer) at 8am and later that day on BBC One HD (CH 101) at 6.50pm.

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