Doctor Who Season 2 Trailer Revives a Classic Companion Formula
This might be the long way ‘round (again).
It all began with an old curiosity in a junkyard... and a kidnapping. For such a hallowed institution of British TV, Doctor Who certainly had some questionable beginnings, not the least of which included the accidental kidnapping of the Doctor’s first companions, schoolteachers Barbara and Ian. The premise of the rest of the show’s early years was then predicated on the Doctor trying to get Barbara and Ian back to their time of 1960s London, and landing on every other planet and time period in the process. It’s a formula that Doctor Who would go back to time and again with its companions, especially in the Classic Who era. (One long stretch of the show in the ‘80s could be characterized by “The Doctor tries to get a woman to Heathrow Airport.”)
But it’s a formula that has mostly been abandoned since the show’s revival in 2005. But with showrunner Russell T Davies back in the saddle, and bringing back Classic Who tropes left and right, it was only a matter of time before Doctor Who got back to that old companion formula.
Hot on the heels of the 2024 Christmas special, the Steven Moffat-penned “Joy to the World,” BBC and Disney released the first teaser trailer for Doctor Who Season 2 (though realistically, we should be calling this Doctor Who Season 15). The 30-second trailer gives us our first look at new companion Belinda Chandra, played by Andor actress Varada Sethu. Sethu actually made her Doctor Who debut last season as a different character, though Belinda immediately makes an impression in this teaser — mostly by kind of yelling at the Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa).
“Doctor! You need to get me home,” Belinda demands, but the Doctor, after the TARDIS hits a bit of turbulence, only apologetically responds, “This might be the long way ‘round.”
Apart from being a repeat of Moffat’s favorite phrase, this little interaction is familiar for one major reason: it seems like the Doctor may have taken Belinda on a trip through time and space by accident, and is having trouble getting her home. The official synopsis for Doctor Who Season 2 suggests as much:
The Doctor meets Belinda Chandra and begins an epic quest to get her back to Earth. But a mysterious force is stopping their return and the time-traveling TARDIS team must face great dangers, bigger enemies and wider terrors than ever before.
The Doctor may not be getting along with his latest traveling companion, but at least it looks like he’ll be reunited with Kate Stewart and his beloved Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson), who both make a brief appearance in this teaser as well.
The rest of the teaser is quite dramatic and dark, with the Doctor teasing “deadly” games that are being played. Whose games? Is the Toymaker back? Or something even more sinister? We can only guess (those flying saucers look a little too Dalek-like), but it seems that the 15th Doctor is facing a universe-shaking challenge once more.
