‘Doctor Who’: Russell T. Davies Talks the Doctor & Belinda’s Shifting Dynamic, Mrs. Flood Answers & Finale Battle

New season, new companion. Doctor Who returns with its (third) second season on Disney+ on Saturday, April 12, with Ncuti Gatwa continuing to play the Doctor. But while Millie Gibson is still going to be part of the show as Ruby, the Doctor’s going to have a new companion with him.

Varada Sethu, who guest starred in the first season, is back as a new character, Belinda Chandra, whom the Doctor is actually looking for, as showrunner, executive producer, and writer Russell T. Davies told TV Insider after the 2024 Christmas special. Once they meet, the two begin an epic quest to get her back to Earth. But that’s easier said than done since a mysterious force is stopping their return.

Below, Davies teases what’s ahead — and yes, we will be getting answers finally about Mrs. Flood (Anita Dobson).

The trailers show that Belinda wants to get home, but getting her there isn’t easy. She does seem to start to enjoy the adventures, which, I mean, anyone would, going around in time and space with the Doctor.

Russell T Davies: I think so, yeah.

But what does that all mean for their dynamic and how that shifts and evolves?

It’s an interesting dynamic. It’s nice when you’ve got two great lead actors like that — you don’t want to give them one note to play all the time. You want to keep shifting it. It’s a friendship. It’s two friends getting to know each other and bumping up against each other. And some things he says annoys her and some things she says annoys him, and yet they can kind of see how good each other they are, how strong they are. It’s lovely. Ruby Sunday, played by Millie Gibson, was absolutely wonderful, but much more in awe of the Doctor, which then kind of made him more paternal. So in order to bring the changes, I just wanted more equals and a nurse who’s seen everything in A&E is was much more likely to turn around and be rude to him.

Nonetheless, you’re right. I would never make a series in which someone was complaining all the time about being on board the TARDIS, because who wouldn’t want to be on board that ship? I mean, the joy of it and the fun of it, the adventure of it, the romance of it. So we kind of get the best of both worlds. We get someone who wants to get home, who’s absolutely right to want to get home. But another one of the running gags is the moment they turn up in Episode 6 of the Interstellar Song Contest, it’s Belinda who says, “Oh, we’re staying.” She loves it there. So she’s not daft. [Laughs]

James Pardon / BBC Studios / Disney / Bad Wolf

You brought up Ruby, and Ruby is going to be back. How does she approach these adventures differently after what she’s been through?

Well, the point of the Ruby story is that we pause in Episode 4 and find out what happens to a companion once the Doctor’s out of their lives. And I mean, talk about PTSD. We talked a lot about this. You would genuinely have a form of PTSD after that.

Also, that then becomes a love story for her, and that’s something you never get a chance to tell. You don’t get a chance to tell that kind of story when you’re running around with the Doctor, you save a planet from blowing up and then it doesn’t matter if it was full of handsome men, you’re gone. And so it was a nice chance to bring in Jonah Hauer-King as a man called Conrad who is her love interest. I mean, there could not be two more beautiful people on planet Earth, frankly. And what a lovely man he is.

So he comes in as a love interest. How can he ever live up to the ideal of the Doctor though? She’s been with someone who can save the universe with the click of the fingers, and he’s just a nice lad from London. So how on earth can he ever live up to what Ruby Sunday wants? And that becomes part of the story as well. How can she ever calm down and settle and abandon the mad life that she once led? Add to that UNIT and Kate [Jemma Redgrave] and monsters as well, and it becomes a really, really lovely story.

She’s also back for the finale. You do get the absolute joy of Belinda and Ruby fighting the good fight together, which is really exciting. I love that. I love those scenes.

Mrs. Flood remains a mystery. What can you preview about what we’ll see from her and specifically that ominous the Doctor’s “story ends in absolute terror”? Will we be getting the answers this season?

Those words, absolute terror, literally come back. You do get answers. Sometimes you can spin a story out for 10 years. I’ve got to say Anita Dobson, I would love to spin her story out for 10 years. I’ve worked with her forever, but actually I thought, I mean she kind of revealed herself on the rooftop of the end of Series 1. She stood there with a parasol with absolute evil intent talking into camera. There’s not much further to go. Once you’ve done that, you’ve kind of stepped on a path to full revelation, and that is what you get. You get absolutely answers to everything, which I think is surprising. Please stay offline because someone out there has spotted all already like they do. But if you stay and watch it as a surprise, it’s so much fun and so terrifying as well and so glorious to what Anita Dobson let rip like that. It’s enormous fun to come. I love her. I love that woman. I love working with her.

Are there any major callbacks to anything from your first Doctor Who run (2005-2010)?

There are not really. It’s 20 years this year since we came back, and people asked me a couple of years ago, are you going to celebrate the 20th? And I went, no, Doctor Who‘s just had its 60th anniversary. It’s a little bit too timey wimey to then have its 20th, and then we’re here, I kind of regret that actually. A lot of people are talking about that. I thought, “Oh, I should have done something.”

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There’s one weapon from the very first year that comes back that one of the writers put in as a nice little kind of Easter egg. So I’m making that sound very deliberate, but it’s a coincidence. [Laughs] There’s a couple of little things that you might recognize, a couple of little mentions, but not really.

In Britain, I’m very delighted to say we have got a full-length documentary coming out and a full-length radio show coming out about the 20th. I don’t know, I think they might be available on the BBC YouTube channel eventually. So there’s a bit of a celebration here.

What’s different about the Doctor this season?

It’s always different for the Doctor every week. And the joy of it is exploring his character. When you’ve got a lead actor who’s as good as that, it’s our job to keep pushing it. It’s our job to make Ncuti happy to come into work. And I think actors are happy when they’ve got something new. I think if ever they’re repeating themselves, then they might get slightly bored. And it’s hard with Doctor Who sometimes. He is there to save the day and to open the door with a sonic screwdriver and to blow up the robot. So you just lean into the Doctor’s character, and that’s when Ncuti is so limitless and brilliant.

There are moments where he’s more angry than we’ve ever seen him before. And I love that. There are moments of surrealness that we’ve never played before where the Doctor’s so out of his depth and puzzled, we literally show him things he’s never seen before. But it is truly a finale that absolutely pushes him. He is alone, he is abandoned, he’s absolutely desperate in the finale, and that’s a Doctor who always comes out fighting. So it’s very exciting and he delivers every time, that man. Have you ever seen Ncuti deliver a scene at 99%? Never. It’s always 100% with him. I love it.

Speaking of the finale, last season was building to answers about Ruby. What can you say this one is building to and what else can you say about the finale?

Well, the whole point of Belinda’s story is that she wants to get back to work at 7:38 AM on the 24th of May 2025. And you will notice that Episode 7 drops on the 24th of May 2025. So that day has many answers, but there’s a whole episode to come after that. That’s the surprise. It’s like, how can everything end there? There is a very full payoff. You will discover things about Belinda in the end that you didn’t know were there. Actually, Belinda discovers things about Belinda she didn’t know were there. But safe to say, she’s on the Doctor’s side and it is an almighty battle. Some of the effects of the ending are on a vast scale, the sacrifices — oh my God, Belinda faces up to such a frightening sacrifice at some points. It’s really lovely stuff. It’s that cast — again, same thing I’m saying, it’s pushing those actors and they deliver in spades. I’m the luckiest man in the world.

Doctor Who, Season 2 Premiere, Saturday, April 12, 3a/2c, Disney+

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