Doctor Who Season 15: News, possible release date, plot and cast

Season 14 of Doctor Who spanned a variety of genres, from a Welsh folk-inspired horror to a Bridgerton-style adventure. In the final episode, the stakes for Doctor and Ruby Sunday couldn’t have been higher.

Spoilers for Doctor Who season 14 below

The latest episodes brought back a classic villain from the Tom Baker era called Sutekh, the God of Death. This entity clung to the TARDIS for many years, turning almost all of time and space to dust.

Fortunately, the doctor found a solution and solved the mystery of Ruby Sunday’s mother.

If you want to know when Doctor Who will return and who the companion will be, we’ve got everything you need to know.

You can also read about the new Netflix adaptation starring David Tennant.

When will Doctor Who return?

More information about the next full season can be found below, but before then, Doctor Who will hit our screens for the final time in 2024.

That’s for the Christmas specialguest starring Derry Girls and Bridgerton alumni Nichola Coughlan. She will play the character Joy.

The episode is called “Joy to the World,” and it will remain that way hopefully airing on Christmas Dayjust like last year’s special. Watch a short clip from the episode below:

When is Doctor Who season 15 coming out?

According to showrunner Russell T Davies, there will be a next season of Doctor Who most likely airing in May 2025 with eight episodes.

Note that the BBC and Disney+ are calling the next episode “season 2,” but most fans will know it as season 15.

Filming started in October, so it would be surprising if it was postponed for some reason.

Who is the fifteenth Doctor and the companion in the next season?

Ncuti Gatwa will return to play the doctor. Prior to the show, he was best known for his role as Eric Effiong in the hit Netflix series Sex Education.

As for the new companion, Varada Sethu will enter the Tardis in season 15. She played a minor role as soldier Mundy Flynn in Stephen Moffat’s episode, Boom, but we don’t know if she will play a different character when she returns.

At the end of Empire of Death, Ruby Sunday left the TARDIS to reunite with her long-lost father. Although that seems to indicate she won’t be coming back, all signs point to Millie Gibson returning for season 15.

The actress has given interviews indicating that she will have a role in season 15, while showrunner Russell T Davies stated that Ruby will be an integral part of many stories in the upcoming season.

Jonah Hauer-King has been cast in an untitled role in season two. Set photos obtained by the Radio Times suggest he may be a love interest for Ruby.

Russell T Davies returned and wrote the show just in time for the series’ 60th anniversary. The showrunner originally brought back Doctor Who starring Christopher Eccleston until 2009 and then helmed the show with David Tennant as the Doctor. Bad Wolf produces the series.

We also expect the following characters to return:

• Michelle Greenidge as Carla Zondag
• Angela Wynter as Cherry Sunday
• Anita Dobson as Mrs. Flood
• Jemma Redgrave as Kate Stewart
• Bonnie Langford as Mel Bush
• Yasmin Finney as Rose Nobel
• Lenny Rush as Morris
• Alexander Devrient as Colonel Ibrahim
• Ruth Madeley as Shirley Anne Bingham

While you wait for the new season, you can always catch up on older episodes. The BBC has added every episode of the show to the iPlayer streaming service from the very beginning. That means you get every episode of every Doctor from William Hartnell to David Tennant’s second series without paying a cent.

What could the plot of Doctor Who season 15 be about?

There isn’t much information available at the moment about the plot of Doctor Who season 15, but we can guess what it will entail based on the ending of Empire of Death and previous episodes of the season.

The main mystery that remains is Mrs. Flood, Ruby Sunday’s mysterious neighbor, who promises the audience that the Doctor’s story ends in “absolute terror.”

She may be connected to the Pantheon of Discord – AKA, the gods we saw throughout season 14.

Disney/BBC/Bad Wolf

Disney/BBC/Bad Wolf

Disney/BBC/Bad Wolf

Meanwhile, Ruby will likely get more in touch with her long-lost mother and father. In the season finale, she discovered that her mystery mother was a nurse named Louise, who became pregnant when she was a teenager and left the baby (AKA Ruby) outside a church while growing up in a troubled household.

Ruby introduced Louise to her adopted family and left the doctor to reunite with her father, who didn’t even know she existed. Therefore, we can expect to learn more about the companion’s personal life, and perhaps discover if Mrs. Flood has any connection to her.

We still don’t know who Varada Sethu’s character is. We saw her appear as Mundy in Boom, but that doesn’t mean she’s reprising her role – we’ve seen previous former company actresses play other characters before, including Karen Gillen and Freema Agyeman.

Disney/BBC/Bad Wolf

Disney/BBC/Bad Wolf

Disney/BBC/Bad Wolf

Finally, we know Rogue is lost somewhere. It would be great to reunite with the Doctor’s new love interest and learn more about this mysterious traveler.

Before all that will be the Doctor Who Christmas special, which will star none other than Penelope Fetherington herself, Nicola Coughlan. She’ll join the Doctor for a one-off festive adventure, which could very well set the plot for the new season.

Disney/BBC/Bad Wolf

Disney/BBC/Bad Wolf

Disney/BBC/Bad Wolf

Will Doctor Who return for season 16?

The season after the 2025 episode has all but been confirmed, with Ncuti Gatwa on Graham Norton (via The Radio Times) confirming that filming for season 16 will begin next year.

We don’t yet know if season 3 will be Gatwa’s last (three is about average for most Doctors), or if he’ll stick around for a few more years. We’ll probably find out more in the coming months.

What does the big generation mean for Doctor Who?

Major spoilers for The Giggle below

In the latest 60th Anniversary Special, the Fourteenth Doctor (David Tennant) was fatally wounded by the Toymaker, a powerful figure who defies the laws of time and space. This disrupted the Doctor’s typical regeneration and something quite remarkable happened.

The fifteenth Doctor recovered from the fourteenth, leaving two fully formed Doctors with the same memories to work together to put an end to the Toymaker’s twisted games.

The pair succeeded and even managed to materialize a second Tardis, leaving neither Time Lord without a vessel – although the fifteenth Doctor was left without pants.

After the Great Generation, the Fifteenth Doctor was eager to embark on a brand new adventure and leave the troubles of his past behind him – literally. The Fourteenth Doctor remained with the Noble-Temple family to live a quiet, happy life and heal from the trauma of losing his former companions and bearing the burden of destroying parts of the universe during the Flux.

While the main series follows Ncuti Gatwa as the Doctor, David Tennant’s character is still very much alive. He may not travel through time and space that much, but it’s an interesting idea to keep him aside for cameos and possible spinoffs.

However, according to Davies, the double generation has even greater consequences. In the commentary for The Giggle (available on BBC iPlayer) he says:

I think all the Doctors have come back to life with their individual Tardises, the Toymaker’s gift, and they’re all traveling around in what I call a Doctor-verse… Sylvester McCoy woke up in a drawer, in a morgue, in San Francisco… and Jon Pertwee woke up on the lab floor

Biggeneration was apparently seen as a myth by the Time Lords before this event, but now that it has become a reality, anything is possible.

How can you watch Doctor Who in the US?

Disney+ is now home to new episodes in the US. This was unveiled alongside the new logo for the show. Accounts for this service start from $7.99 per month.

If you prefer to watch episodes from the BBC, you can use a VPN to stream episodes on iPlayer as if you were in Britain. Please note that this is against the iPlayer terms of use as you will not be paying the license fee, but you will be able to watch every episode of the show from the very beginning.

Warner Bros. used to have US streaming rights to the series for Max, so that’s where you need to go to watch all of Doctor Who from 2005 to the end of Jodie’s era. Classic Who episodes are available on BritBox.