Everything We Know About 'Doctor Who' Season 2 (15/41)

Whether you’re calling it Season 2, Season 15, or Season 41, a new season of Doctor Who by any numbering system would be just as eagerly anticipated. Tidbits about the upcoming season have been trickling out since Season 1 ended in June 2024. The rechristened Season 1 was an attempt by showrunner Russell T. Davies to revamp the show for its new partnership with Disney+, along with the arrival of Ncuti Gatwa (Sex Education) as the Fifteenth Doctor. 

Season 1 was an enjoyable romp, but Season 2 feels like the time for Davies’ new vision of the show to really prove itself. With the premiere date finally officially announced, we’ve gone to every corner of the galaxy (let’s be real, every corner of the Internet) to gather everything you need to know about Season 2 of Doctor Who. 

Season 2 was filmed immediately following Season 1, leaving fans impatient for a season that was already in the can and anxious that it hasn’t yet been renewed for a third season. Speculation ran so rampant in the tabloids that the BBC had to shut down rumors that the show had been axed. Whatever the show’s future holds, one thing is for certain: Season 2 is locked and loaded and fast approaching.

The first glimpse of the season arrived at the end of the 2024 Christmas Special, with the "Next Time" trailer.

On Monday, March 3, 2025, the BBC and Disney+ released the full length trailer for the forthcoming season.

The full-length trailer not only gave fans a good look at the new season but also featured several first-look guest stars who would run into the TARDIS as it traveled all of space and time.

Ncuti Gatwa will return as the Doctor, along with new companion Belinda Chandra played by Varada Sethu (Annika). Sethu appeared in 2024’s episode “Boom” as Anglican soldier Mundy Flynn. She won’t be reprising her role as Mundy, but Sethu and Davies have been tight-lipped about whether this is merely a repeat casting (a la Karen Gillan or Colin Baker) or a Clara Oswald-esque mystery. Fans of Season 1 companion Ruby Sunday can rest easy knowing that Ruby isn’t out of the picture just yet. Millie Gibson will return in the role alongside Gatwa and Sethu, just not as a full-time companion. 

The Doctor and his companions aren’t the only familiar faces returning. Susan Twist (In the Flesh), the central mystery of Season 1, will be back playing an as yet unnamed role. This could mean that the mystery surrounding her various characters in Season 1 isn’t over just yet. Another returning mystery is Mrs. Flood, played by Anita Dobson (The Long Call). Season 1 ended on Mrs. Flood wishing the viewers at home an ominous, fourth-wall-breaking “night-night,” so there’s sure to be more of her story to come. UNIT officials Kate Lethbridge-Stewart, played by Jemma Redgrave (Grantchester), Shirley Anne Bingham, played by Ruth Madeley (Years & Years), and Bonnie Langford (Agatha Christie's Marple) as former companion Melanie Bush feature as well.

As for the rest of the cast, Season 2 will add newcomers Rose Ayling-Ellis (Code of Silence), Christopher Chung (Slow Horses), Caoilfhionn Dunne (A Thousand Blows), Jonah Hauer-King (World on Fire), Evelyn Miller (The Lovers), Ariyon Bakare (His Dark Materials), Julie Dray (Ludwig), and, last but not least, Archie Panjabi (Hijack) as an unnamed villain.

Perhaps this season’s most significant get is Alan Cumming (The Traitors), who will make his return to Doctor Who as the voice of Mr. Ring-a-Ding, a menacing cartoon come to life who can be seen crawling out of a movie theater screen in the trailer. Cumming last appeared on Doctor Who playing King James I in the Season 11 episode “The Witchfinders.” He’s always been an icon, but his role as host of reality competition show The Traitors has put him at the peak of cultural relevance just in time for Doctor Who.

Also, this season of Doctor Who will have a futuristic Eurovision episode in which the Doctor heads to the "Interstellar Song Contest." Any BBC Eurovis fan knows that while Graham Norton is still the Grand Dame of the network's current Eurovision coverage, BBC host Rylan has been coming up behind him. (For Americans, think of Rylan as the Ryan Seacrest to Norton's Dick Clark.) Obviously, Rylan will step up to co-host the Interstellar version when it launches in the future, so he'll be appearing in that episode as himself.

The BBC included a statement from Rylan, who is apparently as big a fan of Doctor Who as some of us are of Eurovision. "As a massive Whovian, getting the call to be in Doctor Who was a call I’ve always dreamed of getting. The episode is all my favourite things about the show with an added song contest set in space. It really is a dream come true. I can’t wait for everyone to see it. It really is going to be out of this world."

There are plenty of old friends and fresh faces behind the camera on Season 2 as well. Juno Dawson, writer of the scripted podcast Doctor Who: Redacted, will make her TV writing debut. (If you’re in need of Doctor Who expanded media to get you through until the show returns, I can’t recommend Redacted highly enough!) 

Joining her are two more writers who are new to Who: poet-playwright Inua Ellams and Sharma Angel-Walfall, who has written for former Doctor Who actors in Dreamland starring Freema Agyeman and Supacell starring Tosin Cole. Pete McTighe, writer of Thirteenth Doctor episodes “Kerblam!” and “Praxeus,” has also contributed to Season 2, not to mention showrunning upcoming spinoff The War Between the Land and the Sea. 

It’s safe to assume that Russell T. Davies will write the remaining episodes to fill out the eight-episode series. Half of the season will be directed by Peter Hoar, who directed Season 6’s “A Good Man Goes to War,” and the other half by Bridgerton director Alex Pillai who also directed this year’s Christmas special, “Joy to the World.”

This season’s writers have touted episodes with superlatives from “most ridiculous and “most expensive” (Juno Dawson) to “most frightening” (Russell T. Davies). The trailer doesn’t give much away about the season’s plot or characters that isn’t already apparent from the casting announcements, but the synopsis gives us some hints:

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.

With no more musical episodes in sight (or earshot, mercifully), this season seems to have a darker tone than the goofiness of Season 1. The question of the spinoff looms large, with Kate Stewart and Shirley Anne Bingham set to appear in both Season 2 and The War Between the Land and the Sea. The spinoff and Season 2 were part of Disney+’s original order of 26 episodes of Doctor Who, so it’s likely that Season 2 will set the stage at least somewhat for a future UNIT versus Sea Devils showdown.

Davies told the January issue of Doctor Who Magazine that, “The show in 2025 is going to be bigger and madder and darker, taking wilder swings than ever.” Last year, Davies promised big swings in Season 1 and delivered in the form of talking babies, song-and-dance numbers, and the bizarre return of a one-off villain from a 1975 story. He’s certainly a man of his word, but whether or not those big swings will land with his audience remains to be seen.

Doctor Who Season 2 premieres Saturday, April 12, 2025 at 3 a.m. ET on Disney+ and 8 a.m. BT on the BBC iPlayer in the U.K. New episodes will follow weekly through the end of May.

(This post was originally published on 3.2.2025. Updated 3.3.205.)