There are timey-wimey shenanigans at play with the future of Doctor Who, and we’re not just talking about Disney+ landing the international streaming rights to the franchise (does that make The Master a Disney villain? He does have a Disney villain song). Back in October, Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor regenerated, the thing that happens to all Doctors when the star is ready to move on to something else, but instead of turning into Sex Education star Ncuti Gatwa—as previously announced—she turned into… previous Doctor Who star David Tennant, with incoming new (old) showrunner Russell T. Davies confirming that Tennant is the 14th Doctor and that Gatwa will be the 15th. We still don’t know what the hell that means and we probably won’t until late next year, but the BBC is still hyping up Gatwa’s upcoming run in the TARDIS.
This weekend, the official Doctor Who Twitter account released the first promotional images of Gatwa in his Doctor costume alongside new companion Ruby Sunday, played by Millie Gibson. The Ruby Sunday outfit seems vaguely like something Billie Piper’s Rose Tyler would’ve worn, but that could just be the blonde hair tripping us off. Meanwhile, Gatwa’s Doctor suit seems a little more muted that Whittaker’s lovably wacky combo, but it’s hard to deny that you’d think “that person might be The Doctor” if you saw him… running through a hallway on a spaceship that looked suspiciously like a warehouse in Cardiff.
He’s wearing a fuzzy-looking orange shirt and a brown stripey suit, but some photos in the replies to the main post show that he also has some cool rings on that seem exactly like the sort of unique pop that a Doctor costume usually has (see also: suspenders, scarf, tennis shoes, the aforementioned bowtie).
Tennant’s second run as the Doctor will begin in November of 2023 with three special episodes that also feature Catherine Tate reprising her role as Donna Noble (we say this every time, but that’s going to require some explaining). We don’t know when Gatwa will officially take over, but—again—there are timey-wimey shenanigans going on here, so there’s really no use trying to predict anything anyway.