It looks like the Doctor and his companion Ruby will be meeting nobility while they travel in the TARDIS. According to Deadline, Indira Varma (Game of Thrones, Obi-Wan Kenobi) will be joining the cast of Doctor Who in season fourteen. Varma is said to be playing the mysterious role of The Duchess. It hasn’t been revealed if the character will be a friend or foe of the Fifteenth Doctor and Ruby. Watch the Instagram announcement below. 

 

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According to Deadline, Varma had already made an appearance in the Doctor Who universe. In the early 2000s, she showed up in the spinoff Torchwood as Suzie Costello, a member of the Torchwood team. When asked about her return to Doctor Who, Varma said, “I’m thrilled to be in Doctor Who and particularly excited to be crossing cosmic paths with Ncuti, as the Doctor, and look forward to creating interplanetary mischief with him, I loved playing Suzie Costello for Russell T. Davies in Torchwood so am thrilled to be entering this world again.”

The BBC recently released first-look images for Doctor Who protagonists Ncuti Gatwa (Sex Education, The Last Letter from Your Lover) as the Fifteenth Doctor and Millie Gibson (Coronation Street, Jamie Johnson) as his companion Ruby Sunday. RuPaul’s Drag Race winner Jinkx Monsoon (Happiest Season, AJ and the Queen) and Jonathan Groff (Frozen, Hamilton) will also be joining the cast for the upcoming season. 

The new season is already being filmed with Russell T. Davies  (It’s a Sin, Torchwood) at the helm again. Davies is working as the showrunner for the fourteenth season of the British classic Doctor Who. The new season is being co-produced with Bad Wolf. With the return of Davies, the Whoniverse spin-offs are also back. According to Deadline, a spinoff is currently in the works with actress Jemma Redgrave (Holby City, Grantchester) returning as Kate Lethbridge-Stewart. This spinoff will follow a storyline involving UNIT, a military research organization, that has been present in previous seasons. 

A 60th anniversary special will air in November 2023 and will reintroduce David Tennant (Good Omens, Broadchurch) as the Fourteenth Doctor, who was last seen when The Thirteenth Doctor, played by Jodie Whittaker (Broadchurch, Journeyman), regenerated in the last episode of season thirteen. Catherine Tate (Hard Cell, The Nan Movie) is also said to be returning to her role as Donna Noble in the 60th special. Gatwa is set to make his first appearance as the Fifteenth Doctor during the anniversary special. Other cast members set to appear in the special include Yasmin Finney (Heartstopper) as Rose Temple-Noble and Neil Patrick Harris (How I Met Your Mother, A Series of Unfortunate Events). 

It has been announced that Doctor Who has found a new streaming home with Disney+ and the BBC announcing a new partnership. New Doctor Who episodes will stream on Disney+ worldwide while remaining on the BBC channel in the United Kingdom and Ireland. 

Doctor Who is a sci-fi show about an alien called The Doctor that travels through time and space in the TARDIS. The Doctor spends quite a bit of time saving the Earth from alien attacks and Earth is where they usually meet their companions. The show has been airing since 1963 with William Hartnell (Carry On Sergeant, Escape) playing the Doctor back then. Since that first episode, fifteen different actors have interpreted the Doctor, with Gatwa being the latest to star in this iconic role.

New episodes of Doctor Who will premiere during the show’s 60th anniversary in November 2023. Older seasons of Doctor Who starring Christopher Eccleston (Thor: The Dark World, The A Word), Tennant, Matt Smith (House of the Dragon, Morbius), Peter Capaldi (Suicide Squad, The Thick of It), and Whittaker are available to stream on Max and Prime Video.