Doctor Who’s Latest Regeneration Is An Echo Of An Underloved Era
The Rani? Mel? A short season? The future uncertain? It's the 80s all over again.
The all-too-brief tenure of Ncuti Gatwa’s 15th Doctor is already causing some big feelings in the Doctor Who fandom. Not since Christopher Eccleston’s 9th Doctor has the era of a new incumbent Time Lord been so short. And, as many have pointed out, the time between the announcement that Gatwa would take the role and his first episode is tragically longer than his actual tenure.
But, there’s more than just recent history strangeness afoot here. One of the oddest things about the end of the most recent era is how it oddly echoes a moment in which the show was put on hiatus from late 1986 to 1987. A time full of controversial changes to the show, the menace of the Rani, and a very, very short tenure for one actor known as the Doctor. Yes, in some ways, the end of the Gatwa era is not unlike Colin Baker’s 6th Doctor era, both onscreen and off.
A Short Tenure
Colin Baker as “the new Doctor” in 1984.
Even among fans who have loved everything about the last two new seasons of Doctor Who, there is still the overwhelming complaint about the fact that the seasons themselves are much shorter than ever before. Counting both of his Christmas specials, both seasons, and his first appearance in “The Giggle,” Gatwa’s 15th Doctor only appeared in 19 episodes.
Similarly, back in Season 23 (1986), Baker’s 6th Doctor only appeared in 14 episodes total, which was only one big storyline, “The Trial of a Time Lord.” Baker had had one full season before that, Season 22 (1985), which, if you only count the specific serials, was just 6 stories in total. This number can be brought up to 7 if we count Season 21’s “The Twin Dilemma,” which was Colin Baker’s first appearance as the Doctor, following the 5th Doctor (Peter Davison) regenerating in “The Caves of Androzani.”
Baker’s first full season, Season 22, also played with the format of Doctor Who, resulting in 45-minute segments to each serial instead of 30-minute episodes. So, if we only count the serials and not their individual parts, then the 6th Doctor only had 11 distinct stories during his tenure, which lasted from 1984 to 1986.
Mel, the Rani, and Time Lord Lore
Bonnie Langford, Sylvester McCoy and Kate O'Mara in 1987.
The 6th Doctor era introduced two characters who were crucial to the 15th Doctor’s final season: Melanie Bush (Bonnie Langford) and the evil Time Lady known as the Rani (Anita Dobson and Archie Panjabi). Bizarrely, both of these characters originated in the 6th Doctor era. The Rani (Kate O'Mara) first appeared in the 6th Doctor adventure “The Mark of the Rani,” while Melanie (Langford) first shows up in “Terror of the Vervoids” — though at the time, that four-part serial was just known as The Trial of a Time Lord (Parts 9-12).
Like the origin of the Doctor’s granddaughter, Susan Foreman (Carole Ann Ford), how Mel came to meet and travel with the 6th Doctor is never actually depicted on screen. And yet, Mel became a stalwart ally of the 6th Doctor and was also the 7th Doctor’s (Sylvester McCoy) companion in the post-regeneration episode “Time and Rani” in 1987. Following a cameo in “The Power of the Doctor” in 2022, Mel has been a huge deal in the Gatwa era, appearing in 2023’s “The Giggle” and then throughout the 15th Doctor era. Mel is forever intertwined the the Rani, since the last time the Rani even appeared in the show was when she briefly impersonated Mel in “Time and Rani.” Strangely enough, this plotline, in which the Doctor doesn’t remember the Rani, or quite what he’s doing, was repeated in this year’s “Wish World.”
So, from story beats to old characters, Ncuti Gatwa’s final season was, if you squint, an odd remix of 1984-1987.
Regeneration and an Uncertain Future
Colin Baker's first scene as the Doctor.
Colin Baker was dismissed from the role of the Doctor by the BBC in 1986, which led to him not even appearing in his regeneration episode, “Time and Rani” in 1987. Instead, Sylvester McCoy was wearing a curly wig for that sequence. We’re not quite at that same point in 2025, but like the late 1980s, Doctor Who is at a strange crossroads. As of this writing, there is no official series commission for a new season beyond 2025’s “Season 2,” and the next Doctor Who-related series that has actually been made is the spinoff The War Between the Land and the Sea.
When the 5th Doctor became the 6th Doctor, Peri (Nicola Bryant) asked him what had happened. Famously, he responded, “Change my dear, and it would seem, not a moment too soon.”
Arguably, change is built into the DNA of the Who franchise. But, as history repeats itself, it feels like an even bigger change is on the horizon for the world of the Time Lords. And perhaps, the next change will be the kind that even the Doctor couldn’t predict.
