Season 54 - 2019

 

Writer Chris Chibnall stepped in as the new Showrunner of Doctor Who, the BBC had entrusted this season of Doctor Who to him after the success of his ITV Drama Broadchurch. He was also made Head of Franchise after it was announced that Doctor Who would now be a co-production between BBC Studios and Bad Wolf Studios, Julie Gardner and Jane Tranter would be executive producers. Peter Bennett left Doctor Who at the end of Season 53, however Nikki Wilson would remain on & would now be the Series Producer, Matt Strevens would also be an Executive Producer. This season would also be the first where Sony Pictures Television would be involved with the show, giving it a massive budget increase and international distribution (Very much like the Disney+ deal).

With this being a new era, there were still changes to the show. The first & most striking change would be the aspect ratio. Since 1999, the show had been broadcast in 16:9. For this season, it was decided to move the show to the more cinematic 2:35:1 aspect ratio. Also the show would now have 8 episodes which would air with one solid broadcast run with no split in the season like the previous four however Doctor Who would now air on Sunday nights.

This season would see a change for the opening titles and the main theme music, the theme was composed by Blair Mowat. Whithouse decided to resurrect the 1970 logo for the programme because, at the time, it was seen to have the greatest character and to be the most adaptable, appearing well in both stacked and single-line variations.

The TARDIS exterior and interior would also change, with the exterior changing for the first

time since 2010 and the interior changing for the first time since 2014, the exterior would be the Chibnall/RTD2 box from our timeline. The interior was designed to be a lot more futuristic than any of the console rooms had been previously.

This would be the first season for Sacha Dhawan as the Fifteenth Doctor, Dhawan was announced as the Doctor on August 5th 2018 in a live special announcing the new Doctor. The season would also introduce a new companion to the series, this companion was Claire Brown, played by Simone Ashley.

For the writer’s of Chibnall’s first season he would select five writers to create the stories for the season, these were: Adrian Hodges, Simon Allen, Pete McTighe, Ed Hime and Sarah Dollard.

The Directors were Jamie Magnus Stone, Jamie Childs, Mark Tonderai and Lee Haven Jones. Stone directed episodes 1, 7 and 8, Childs directed 2 and 6, Tonderai, directed 3 and 4 and Jones directed the 5th.

The Passenger

By Chris Chibnall

The episode opens in 2019, in a quiet English town. Claire Brown, a secondary school teacher, is in the middle of her daily routine. She’s leading a school field trip to a small local museum with a class of 12-year-olds. Claire is practical, kind and quietly funny, but she’s also a bit stuck in her routine, feeling like her life has plateaued.

As she’s guiding the students through a mundane exhibit on transportation history, she notices something strange—a Victorian carriage in the display is subtly flickering, as if glitching in and out of reality. Claire rubs her eyes, unsure if she’s seeing things.

Meanwhile, in the middle of the English countryside, the TARDIS crash lands, accompanied by the familiar wheezing sound. The doors swing open and The Fifteenth Doctor stumbles out, adjusting to this new regeneration, still wearing the torn remnants of his previous incarnation’s  costume.  The Doctor talks to the TARDIS: “2019, Earth. Fresh out of the oven, are we?” He’s clearly trying to get a feel for his new self, throwing in humorous asides, but there’s an urgency to his demeanour.

The Doctor, using his sonic screwdriver, picks up on a strange energy disturbance—something

nearby is phasing in and out of existence and it isn’t supposed to be here. The trail leads him to the small museum where Claire and her students are visiting. Inside, the glitching carriage intensifies, flickering until it disappears completely, leaving behind a low humming sound. The students panic, but Claire, ever calm, begins to usher them out.

Just as she’s managing the situation, the Doctor bursts in—his usual charismatic, chaotic self. He immediately starts investigating the scene with his sonic screwdriver, speaking rapid-fire technobabble while Claire tries to make sense of this strange newcomer. The Doctor introduces himself and after a while Claire tells him that a carriage just disappeared, the Doctor in a cheerful mood says "Exactly. Not good, is it?"

Realising Claire isn’t just another bystander, the Doctor recruits her help. They leave the students with a fellow teacher and set off to follow the disturbance to its source. Claire’s curiosity and practical mindset immediately click with the Doctor’s frenetic energy.

As the Doctor and Claire investigate, they uncover that the disappearing carriage is part of something much larger: objects, buildings, and even people from different time periods are being phased in and out of existence. The source is a passenger bus from the 1970s that suddenly appears on the outskirts of the town, filled with ghost-like passengers who seem lost in time. The bus is crackling with temporal energy and it’s unstable—threatening to unravel reality itself.

Claire is bewildered but determined to help. The Doctor explains that the bus is caught in a time loop, its passengers trapped between timelines. Claire, though frightened, refuses to back down, her quiet bravery impressing the Doctor.

The Doctor and Claire board the bus, discovering that the passengers are all from different time periods, unable to remember how they got there. One of the passengers, Mrs. Morgan, is from Claire’s own timeline. She’s terrified—the bus is about to crash through time again and they’ll be lost forever.

The Doctor quickly formulates a plan, but they’re running out of time. Claire is deeply empathetic, speaking to the frightened passengers to calm them down, giving them a sense of hope and stability. The Doctor sees this and realises that Claire has the heart and strength of a companion.

The Doctor works out that the time disturbance was caused by a failed alien experiment—the bus was used as a test vehicle for time travel by an alien race known as the Vorrans. However, the experiment malfunctioned, leaving the bus stranded in a temporal limbo. The Doctor needs to stabilise the bus and bring it back to its original time, but doing so will require Claire’s help.

With Claire’s courage and quick thinking, the Doctor is able to reroute the temporal energy and return the bus and its passengers to their proper timelines. There’s a tense moment as the Doctor almost loses control of the situation, but Claire’s calm presence helps him focus.The day is saved and the bus finally disappears from the present, leaving no trace of the disturbance behind. The Doctor thanks Claire for her help, offering her a glimpse of the wider universe and inviting her aboard the TARDIS.

Claire hesitates at first, still processing everything that’s happened. She feels a responsibility to her students and her life back home, but the Doctor assures her that with the TARDIS, they can come back whenever she wants. Claire, intrigued and eager for adventure, takes a deep breath and steps inside the TARDIS. We get the usual bigger on the inside and the Doctor says: "Isn't it just? Welcome aboard, Claire Brown."

The TARDIS then dematerialises, leaving the quiet town behind.

The Destroyer of Worlds

By Adrian Hodges

The story begins with old black and white footage of J. Robert Oppenheimer speaking his most famous words “Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.” and then we go into the titles. We then see  the TARDIS land on a street and a caption reads: “5th August 1945, Hiroshima, japan.” We see that the Doctor and Claire are exploring Japan and specifically Hiroshima, the rest of the episode sees the duo exploring Japanese culture and later they run into the Monk, played by Matt Berry, and we find out that he’s warning people about the bombings, we see that the Doctor is shocked as he knew there was something about tomorrow’s date that he couldn’t quite put his finger on, but then the Doctor and Claire are arrested by a bunch of Japanese soldiers on the crime of espionage and we see the Monk is controlling them. During the next part of the episode we go into the 6th August the day the bomb is dropped on Hiroshima and it would focus on the duo breaking out of their Jail cells and

stopping the Monk and the Doctor confronts him saying that he’s trying to alter time just to annoy him and the Monk taunts him about how silly being good is before he punches the Monk in the face, at the end of the episode we see the Doctor and Claire get back to the TARDIS as the bomb drops on Hiroshima.

The Lost Temple

By Simon Allen

The story begins with a man walking down a corridor and we soon see that it’s Ivan the Terrible, we see him enter a grand library with many rare Greek, Latin and Egyptian works he then opens a chest and we see a glowing green light on his face as we go into the titles. We then see the Doctor and Claire in the Tardis discussing where they should go next and then the Doctor just picks a random location. We see the TARDIS land in a dark catacomb and we see them soon enter the Library, the Doctor is amazed as he knows this is the Lost Library of The Moscow Tsars, a library thought to be lost to time, Claire takes a look at the books and then she finds a key, she gives it to the Doctor and he notices the chest in the middle of the Library, he opens it and he finds a crystal inside. Soon later the crystal starts glowing and the trio are transported to a rustbucket of a space station, which later in the story they find to be a prison, an alien prison, we see that Ivan the Terrible is prisoned and soon later we see the Doctor and Claire search the prison and are soon locked up. The next part of the episode plays out as an escape film with the Doctor, Claire and Ivan the Terrible try to escape the prison, we learn that Ivan found the crystal in a box deep in the catacombs and chose to put it in his grand library but when he opened it, the crystal transported him to another world, the Doctor, Claire and Ivan stage a prison riot to buy them time to escape and they get back to the library and we see the trio plant some bombs in the catacombs to seal off the library forever as the crystal is in there, the Doctor explains that the crystal will eventually lose it’s power and the TARDIS dematerialises as the bombs goes off, at the end of the episode Claire ask if the library will ever be found and the Doctor says “Time Will Tell.”

Praxeus

By Pete Mctighe

This is pretty much the same but some bits are changed to fit a TARDIS team of four down to two.

Orphan 55

By Ed Hime

This is pretty much identical to the story in real life, but we now have a TARDIS team of 2 instead of 4.

The Fall

By Sarah Dollard

The Doctor and Claire navigate the bustling streets of Constantinople in 1453, witnessing the

vibrant culture and the tension building between the defenders and the besieging forces. They meet a young Byzantine soldier, Alexios, who believes he’s destined to save the city. The Doctor, intrigued by the whispers of strange occurrences and sightings of shadowy figures, suspects something more sinister at play. As the siege begins, the Doctor and Claire investigate the Ottoman camp, where they encounter a fierce general, Fatma, who is driven by a vision of conquest but begins to question her motives when she encounters the Noxari. Simultaneously, Alexios struggles with the heavy burden of his supposed destiny as he faces the realities of war. The Doctor realises that the Noxari are feeding on the despair and desperation of both sides, pushing them towards a catastrophic battle.

The Doctor devises a plan to confront the Noxari and reveal their true nature to both the Byzantines and Ottomans. However, as tensions rise, he faces an ethical dilemma: revealing the aliens could disrupt the timeline, potentially altering the outcome of history. Claire, motivated by Alexios's struggle, argues for a different approach—finding a way to unite the two factions, at least momentarily, to confront the real enemy. During a climactic battle, the Doctor and Claire rally both sides, leading them to fight against the Noxari instead of each other. In a heart-pounding sequence, they manage to expose the aliens, causing chaos in their ranks. However, the Doctor realises that the fall of Constantinople is inevitable and must let history take its course, even as they save countless lives from the Noxari's influence.

As the TARDIS prepares to leave, the Doctor reflects on the bittersweet nature of history—how moments of greatness often arise from tragedy. Claire, having witnessed the courage of those who fought to protect their home, comes to understand the complexities of war and the weight of legacy. They bid farewell to Alexios, who now carries a newfound sense of purpose, and depart leaving the echoes of an empire’s fall behind.

The Game of Life, Part One

By Chris Chibnall

The story would begin with the TARDIS in flight with the duo laughing and telling funny stories until the TARDIS violently shakes and goes haywire as the Doctor and Claire collapse and a voice is heard saying “The Game Begins!” 

Then after the titles we see the Doctor and Claire wake up in a room with many hundreds of people and the voice is heard again as it tells everybody in the room that they all have to play a series of games to pass through the levels and only three can win, everybody goes into the first game whereby they have to climb up a climbing frame and try not to get hit by any obstacles along the way as they can’t fall down as acid is rising, the Doctor manages to save Claire along the way and in the end the three make it to the end.

The next game is set in a simulation chamber whereby people have to find a way of of simulated lab, however it’s full of virtual rabid dogs and people who get killed in virtual reality die in real life and we would see the Doctor almost get killed multiple times but he, Claire manages to get out along with a few other survivors as they all move onto the next game.

The third and final game sees everyone working in groups to solve riddles with only a clue which doesn’t seem to make sense and the first group to do it win, the Doctor and Claire work together and just manage to solve the riddle as time runs out and nobody else solves it. As the

winners of the game the Doctor and Claire go back to the TARDIS but when they open it they find it to be an empty box and the two are transported to a dim-lighted void and the Doctor demands for whoever is behind this to face him and a man walks out saying “A final game always confirms who the real champion is,” the figure walks out of the shadows and we see it to be the Toymaker who says “One Final Game,” as he laughs maniacally as we cut to end credits.

The Game of Life, Part Two

By Chris Chibnall

This story sees the Doctor and Claire land in an apocalyptic Britain in 2019 and the duo walk round for a bit discussing the state London is in right now and the Doctor says that it’s not real and it’s just something set out for them by the Toymaker. The Toymaker’s voice is then heard and he tells the duo that they need to look for a wind up box, inside is a riddle and if they get the riddle wrong they will become one of the Toymaker’s toys and when they think it’s going to be easy for them the Toymaker sets an army of jesters and clowns on them.

The story would see the Doctor and Claire escaping the army whilst also focusing their attention on finding the box, during all of this the Toymaker taunts the three of them and gives clues for his army about where the duo might be, eventually they find the box where they find the riddle, it reads: “If he lies it’s noticeable and if he tells the truth it’s un-noticable, the only time it is noticeable is if he lies, who is he?” The Doctor takes time to think and he says “Pinocchio!”

A table then morphs from the box and the Doctor has where he has to build a house made from cards which he eventually does, all the while the army gets closer and closer. The Doctor then has to play a matching game where he has to match the pieces to a portrait of the TARDIS, the final game decides whether or not the duo can leave and the Doctor has to find the right key to get out of the Toymaker’s game and he only has one chance whereby he uses it and the trio escape as they win the game.

They appear in the Toyroom where the Toymaker stands before them and congratulates them, the Doctor tells Claire to go inside the TARDIS and the Doctor has words with the Toymaker telling him that these silly little games better stop and that he’s not playing nice anymore and the Toymaker says “Threaten me all you like, but the game is not yet over, it will continue and he should be ready for when it does.” The Doctor tells him that he will and nothing will stop him as he leaves in the TARDIS, the Toymaker breaks the fourth wall telling the audience “Welcome to the game,” as we cut to end credits.

Late December, 1963

By Chris Chibnall

This story sees the TARDIS land in Little Hemlock, the Doctor notices that the town’s people repeat the same thing every couple of minutes and the trio discover they’re in a time-lock. The three of them split up to conduct their own investigations and it turns out an old clockwork mechanism connected to alien technology. Realising that this technology is causing the time loop, the Doctor begins to understand that the villagers are not just repeating their actions—they're slowly being drained of their life force.

Later in the episode the Time Loop begins to collapse, causing reality to distort around them.

They rush to the mansion, where they learn from a woman called Mrs. Fenwick that an alien being called the Chronovore has been feeding on the villagers' time energy, sustaining itself by trapping them in an endless loop of Christmas Eve, 1963.

The Doctor confronts the Chronovore in the heart of the mansion, where the alien has merged with the clockwork mechanism. The Doctor tries to reason with it, learning that the Chronovore was stranded on Earth centuries ago and has been desperately trying to survive.

In a tense showdown, Claire uses a locket to amplify the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver, disrupting the Chronovore’s connection to the time loop. The alien is weakened, and the Doctor offers it a chance to leave Earth safely, instead of being destroyed. With some hesitation, the Chronovore agrees, and the time loop is broken.

As the clock strikes midnight, the village is freed from the loop and the festive cheer returns but the villagers are unaware of what transpired and they continue their celebrations. The duo leave in the TARDIS and the Doctor clicks a button on the TARDIS which plays the song "December, 1963 (Oh, What a Night)" by Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons, the duo sing and dance to the song as we cut to the end credits. The end credits would play the song, replacing the closing Doctor Who theme.

Although opinions of the season as a whole were divided by the time it ended, most people agreed that it was a significant improvement over the first two seasons. The Destroyer of Worlds was the most generally well-received story, The Fall and The Game of Life two parter were both close contenders in terms of great stories. However Praxeus wasn’t well received and Orphan 55 was made very clear to be the worst story of the new era so far, The Lost Temple and The Passenger were OK and the Christmas Special was received quite positively also.

The average season rating was 6.63 million viewers, higher than the previous season. The BBC were happy with it ratings wise and the season on the whole was seen as an improvement by the BBC and the fans, much to the relief of Chibnall.