The dramatic behind-the-scenes changes prompted some fundamental questions about how Doctor Who would thrive in this new world. Would Davies be able to bring the show back from the brink a second time? And would the show appeal to Zoomers in the same way it found a devoted audience of Millennials? And would Doctor Who survive intact under Disney, which is used to obsessive levels of control?

It’s that last question I can already answer, having watched the first two episodes of this new eight-episode season: Doctor Who hasn’t been watered down to suit its new paymasters or the broad international audience who will see this show pop up every Friday. In fact, Who ‘24 has doubled down on being weird, avant-garde, difficult to handle and harder to pigeonhole. It’s a little punk and a little rough around the edges which makes it all the more interesting compared to, say, some other Disney+ series I could choose to mention.

I’m not allowed to share much of what I saw, but episode one, “Space Babies,” features the Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) and Ruby (Millie Gibson) visiting a space station crewed by babies. As you can see in the trailer, there’s liberal use of unconvincing and creepy CGI mouths for said rugrats. “The Devil’s Chord,” meanwhile, sees the TARDIS head to Abbey Road to meet the Beatles at the dawn of their careers.

If this is your first experience of Doctor Who, please start with the Christmas Day special “The Church on Ruby Road.” These first three episodes are the jumping-on point, and form Davies standard “Present,” “Future” and “Past” trilogy he uses to open his runs. All three are sold as fun romps, but there's a spikiness that stems from Davies’ underlying cynicism. As much as he may paint in primary colors, his worldview is a lot darker than some of his colleagues.

Davies is a strong advocate for better queer representation in film and TV and is arguably one of the most powerful gay men in media. Many of his shows, including Queer as Folk, Cucumber, A Very English Scandal and It’s a Sin center on queer narratives. Davies has made it clear he wants to foreground queer experiences in this season of Doctor Who and does so, proudly. He toldVariety that the Doctor “chimes with queer energy” and that he’s not a “neutered Doctor.”

Some context: In 2021, Davies called out Disney+ for its lack of real representation in some of its other shows. During a virtual panel as reported by Pink News, he pointed at Loki’s single reference to the lead character’s fluid sexuality as a warning sign. “Loki makes one reference to being bisexual once and everyone’s like ‘oh my god, it’s like a pansexual show,” he said. Adding the single spoken reference was a “a ridiculous, craven, feeble gesture towards the vital politics and the stories that should be told.”

Davies returned to the job after the failure of his immediate predecessor, Chris Chibnall, who will likely go down in infamy. Chibnall inherited a successful show and opted to broaden its horizons by hiring a far more diverse crew both in front of and behind the camera. That included writers like Malorie Blackman and Vinay Patel and casting two women, Jodie Whittaker and Jo Martin, to play the Doctor. Chibnall also refused to bow down to culture war pressure when tedious people started screaming that the show had “gone woke.”

But for all of the goodwill the show had — and which Chibnall’s early decisions helped accrue — the showrunner quickly started to burn his own legacy as he built it. The quality of his episodes were never great and he wrote episodes that were incoherent, or said some pretty awful things by implication. He then started using the show as a vehicle for his own fan theories, re-litigating niche matters of continuity so nit-picky even I rolled my eyes so hard my skull caved in.

And then he created a secret origin story for the Doctor that essentially overwrote much of the previous 60 years’ worth of character development. He turned the Doctor into some sort of Space Jesus and then set about destroying a significant amount of the series’ fictional universe. Audiences were not thrilled: 8.2 million people watched Chibnall’s first regular-season episode but, by the end of his tenure, the figure had tumbled to 3.47 million.

It would have been smart to ditch all of this and declare a fresh start but Davies took a different approach. He has opted to Yes-And Chibnall’s hamfistedness, incorporating the catastrophic events of the last season as a new backdrop for the series. The universe is now "knackered," which has led to the show’s fictional reality warping in new, weirder and more whimsical directions. Whereas before Doctor Who sat at the crossroads of science and fantasy, it has now become a soft fantasy show. Villains like the Toymaker and the Goblin King push the Doctor into a more mythic register than ever before.

CGI baby mouths aside, Doctor Who’s slick production values don’t work unless they're tied to great writing and great acting. Ncuti Gatwa had already become a superstar thanks to his work on Sex Education and Barbie and is a magnetic presence on screen. I struggle to take your eyes off him, but he’s clearly willing to cede space and time to his co-stars. Millie Gibson has the harder role as Ruby Sunday, having to keep her character grounded and believable in this fantastic world. The role of the Doctor’s traveling companion has minted many British A-listers since the show’s return and Gibson is clearly destined for big things.

If there’s one thing that comes across too much in these opening episodes, it’s that Doctor Who isn’t the same show from one week to the next. It revels in being chaotic, freewheeling through genres and styles with the freedom its lead character so relishes. So, if this is your first time on board the TARDIS, welcome, and strap yourselves in for some silly and serious fun.

Oh, and they fixed the title sequence.

The first two episodes of Doctor Who arrive globally on Disney+ on Friday, May 10 at 7:00pm ET and in the UK on BBC iPlayer at midnight on Saturday, May 11. One episode will arrive at the same time for the following six weeks.

The post Doctor Who is back, louder and more chaotic than before appeared first on Best News.

All of Doctor Who’s post-2005 revival series are widely-available on streaming services both in the UK and abroad. But the original run has rarely, if ever, been on-demand without an extra charge, as it’s still one of the BBC’s most reliable cash-cows. The series has been released on VHS, DVD and now Blu-ray, with several of its most recent releases requiring multiple printings. The only place to stream Doctor Who on-demand, at least with a clean conscience, is by paying for BritBox’s premium streaming service.

As part of the release, the BBC is making a point of the new accessibility features — including every episode featuring sign language translation — and that a new archive of material will also be put online on the official Doctor Who website. It's not clear, at this point, if this will include the hours upon hours of special documentaries and behind-the-scenes material that comes with the show's numerous DVD and Blu-ray releases.

The change comes as the show builds up to its 60th anniversary later that same month, as the show stops being a purely BBC production. Instead, it’s being made by Bad Wolf productions with cash backing from Disney, which will stream the show on Disney+ outside the UK. It’s pure speculation on my part, but if the BBC has cleared any issues that prevented it from streaming all of Doctor Who in the UK, then the whole series may also be available on Disney+ at the same time.

The post All of Doctor Who is finally coming to BBC iPlayer appeared first on Best News.

Basically, be the hunter or be hunted; you get to play both sides on locations ranging from the Arctic tundra to the Okavango Delta. In the case of the lily-trotter, you're either the father protecting your chicks from crocodiles, or you're one of the chicks following your father's signals. There's also an activity involving the fascinating interaction between unlikely insect allies: the tree hopper and the stingless bee, with the latter in charge of shooing ants and assassin bugs away from the tree hoppers' nest.

A new addition to this educational experience is the "BBC Planet Earth Field Station," which is set in the heart of a pixelated jungle. This serves as a portal to the five biomes, with extra goodies including sound boards, animal facts and a cinematics album. Upon the completion of each activity (which can be repeated), you'll receive rewards that can be used to decorate the hub or dress up your avatar.

With the game reaching its 15th anniversary this year, Minecraft has become the best-selling video game of all time, reaching over 300 million copies sold as of October last year. There's also a movie adaptation in the works, reportedly starring Jack Black and Jason Momoa when it comes out in April 2025.

The post Minecraft x Planet Earth III is the least offensive corpo collab of the year appeared first on Best News.

There are plenty of sucky things about living in the UK, one of which is that we’re a day behind the US TV schedule. Buzzy shows like Lost were often spoiled by the internet long before it was legally available to view here. To curb the rampant piracy, shows like Game of Thronesand Succession were broadcast at 2am or 3am.

That way, ardent viewers could DVR those airings and watch them before they got to work lest it be spoiled. Because, if you didn’t, you’d have to be extremely careful when you were treading around on the internet. There were very few shows I didn’t have spoiled for me given that I work on the internet all the damn day.

So you can imagine my dismay to learn that Doctor Who, one of the crown jewels in the British TV firmament, will now be treated the same way. It’s hard not to feel annoyed given that the bulk of the series’ funding comes from the license fee paid by the majority of TV owners in the UK. It seems mad, to me, that the global simulcast isn't tied to the UK broadcast, rather than this obvious tweak to ensure the US gets it first. Especially when the alternative is to stay up until 2am on a Saturday morning.

(Yes, I know there’s precedent for this, The Five Doctors aired on PBS two days before the UK airing, and the TV movie aired on Fox twelve days earlier. But that was in the pre-internet heyday when you didn't have every big moment from the show shared by its own official social channels mere seconds after it aired.)

The post Disney+ screws UK Doctor Who fans with global release strategy appeared first on Best News.

Spotify has teamed up with a range of content partners: BBC Maestro, PLAYvirtuoso, Thinkific Labs Inc. and Skillshare. They offer content in four main categories: making music, getting creative, learning business and healthy living. "With this offer, we are exploring a potential opportunity to provide educational creators with a new audience who can access their video content, reaching a bigger potential swath of engaged Spotify users while expanding our catalog," Spotify stated in the announcement. The platform claims that around half of users have "engaged" in self-help or educational podcasts.

The test courses are available only to UK users, with free and premium subscribers receiving at least two free lessons per course. The series will range in price from £20 ($25) to £80 ($101), regardless of a person's subscription tier. Users can access them on mobile or desktop. Exact pricing and availability might change if the feature moves past the test phase.

This forays into video-based courses follows shortly after Spotify introduced music videos in beta. They're available on select tracks and, like the classes, aren't available to US subscribers (the UK is among the 11 countries with access).

The post Spotify launches educational video courses in the UK appeared first on Best News.