Notice: this publish incorporates spoilers for this previous weekend’s Physician Who season finale.
Within the closing moments of “The Actuality Warfare,” the Fifteenth Physician (Gatwa) sacrificed his present type to avoid wasting the life of a kid, and in basic Physician Who style, the Time Lord’s regeneration course of ended with him getting a (type of) new face. It’s not precisely clear how or why, however the Physician regenerated right into a type that appears quite a bit like Rose Tyler (Billie Piper), the human companion to the Ninth (Christopher Eccleston) and Tenth Physician (David Tennant).
That is the second time in latest Physician Who historical past that the titular character has regenerated right into a physique portrayed by a sequence veteran. Beforehand, Tennant returned to turn into the Fourteenth Physician after the Thirteenth (Jodie Whittaker) regenerated. “The Actuality Warfare” strongly implies that the Sixteenth Physician may need remodeled right into a Rose Tyler facsimile for emotional causes. However, notably, the episode’s credit don’t specify who her new character is.
In an announcement about her Who reveal, Piper famous how she has “at all times mentioned I’d like to return to the Whoniverse as I’ve a few of my finest reminiscences there.” Showrunner Russell T Davies added that “it’s an honour and a hoot to welcome [Piper] again to the Tardis, however fairly how and why and who’s a narrative but to be informed.”
In an announcement of his personal, Gatwa thanked the Who fandom and “everybody that has performed a component in my journey because the Physician.”
“You realize if you get forged, sooner or later you will have at hand again that sonic screwdriver and it’s all going to come back to an finish, however nothing fairly prepares you for it,” Gatwa mentioned. “There aren’t any phrases to explain what it feels wish to be forged because the Physician, nor are there phrases to clarify what it feels wish to be accepted into this iconic position that has existed for over 60 years and is actually liked by so many throughout the globe.”
The casting information was considerably stunning coming after an look Gatwa made on The Graham Norton present final fall the place he mentioned that there were plans for him to begin shooting a third season as The Doctor. On the time, Gatwa’s feedback felt like an indication that the BBC meant to maintain the Fifteenth Physician’s adventures going for some time longer. However, curiously, when Gatwa’s interview finally aired on tv, his feedback have been edited to take away any point out of a 3rd season. It now looks as if the community determined to shift gears relatively drastically and give attention to enjoying to Who followers’ nostalgia by bringing again an previous face.
It’s not clear when Physician Who will return and clarify the Physician’s newest face, however the BBC isn’t letting the franchise go dormant for too lengthy. The community additionally dropped a brand new trailer for The Warfare Between The Land and The Sea, a derivative sequence starring Russell Tovey, Gugu Mbatha-Uncooked, Jemma Redgrave, and Alexander Devrient as a bunch of individuals making an attempt to cease a battle with creatures often called the Sea Devils.
Presently, The Warfare Between the Land and the Sea doesn’t have a agency launch date, however we will count on to see it a while later this yr.