Doctor Who finds itself in a very interesting place ahead of its return this weekend. The revival era of the show just marked its 20th anniversary a few weeks ago, and now, a brand new season is bringing the series a fresh energy via Varada Sethu’s new companion, Belinda. But it also comes after months of anxiety (more so than usual for Doctor Who fans, a fandom that is often paradoxically anxious about change) about the show’s future. After the 2024 season’s ratings came under scrutiny, and rumors of cancellation started swirling, audiences were told now more than ever, this year’s season will help secure whatever comes after. So what does returned showrunner Russell T Davies want audiences to take from the show coming into these new adventures? That whatever happens, Doctor Who isn’t changing its disposition in the face of danger. “I think joy, as ever. Whether it’s scary, or whether it’s set on a far distant planet, or whether it’s set in Miami in 1952. There’s a real joy in Doctor Who,” Davies recently reflected to io9 over Zoom. “It’s a big, broad program. The jokes are big, the scares are big, the monsters are freaky, there’s a real sense of fun to it—and my god, the Earth is in danger every single week! I think it’s a great big swinging for the fences show, and when it swings for the fences, it knocks it out of the park, just to complete the baseball analogy. And I love that.” One of the biggest ways Who is swinging for the fences this season is with its new companion. Andor star Varada Sethu’s Belinda Chandra. A nurse who’s less interested in the razzle-dazzle of the Doctor’s charms and more with getting back to Earth in time for her next shift, she marks a distinct break from the immediate-besties energy of the 15th Doctor and Ruby Sunday last year (although we’ll still get that, with Millie Gibson set to guest across the season). A hesitant friendship is not particularly common for the Doctor or Doctor Who‘s audience in the modern era, but for Davies, it what made Belinda appeal conceptually. “It’s partly spinning the plates and ringing the changes after Ruby, because we’re always very much aware of a new audience coming to watch—and a new audience coming to watch Doctor Who might think every companion is like Ruby Sunday, who’s a perfect companion,” Davies said of the decision to change tacks with Belinda. “Ruby’s young, and overwhelmed, and wide-eyed and joyous and positive, and that’s a glorious companion… but for that for that new audience, and the audience who’s also familiar with the Doctor Who of old, there’s a different way of playing things. That actually, you can open that TARDIS door and you’re in danger of being thrown off a cliff, or having your head sawed off by a robot, or having an electronic vulture put you in its nest for food. You’re very quickly going to say ‘I don’t like this, get me home!’ I come out of [the season] thinking I’d be Belinda. We all want to imagine we’d be Ruby, or Rose Tyler. Belinda is the one saying ‘He’s a madman, get me out of here, take me home.'” © BBC It’s not that Doctor Who will suddenly start presenting its sense of wanderlust in a negative way, but it allows the series to play with its view of itself with someone like Belinda at the Doctor’s side—and gives the Doctor himself a new foil to reflect on. “It just shows the program in a different light,” Davies continued. “It shows the format in a different light, it shows the Doctor in a different light—it gives Ncuti brand new material to play on. I always think the key to long-running programs is always to work hard for your lead, and make sure they get that new material, material that pushes them, tests them, material that makes them think ‘I don’t think I’ve done this before.’ I think that’s a helpful show [for Gatwa] to be in… he’s a limitless actor, who can handle absolutely everything you throw at him, and welcomes all those changes.” Those changes aren’t just taking place in front of the camera this season, but behind the camera too. Davies wrote the bulk of the 2024 season himself, with just two episodes of the eight penned by other writers. This season, half of the season is penned by other writers (Davies co-wrote episode three, “The Well,” with Sharma Angel Walfall). “Every writer brings in a breath of fresh air, a different side of the Doctor, a different slant on the proceedings,” Davies said of the choice to bring in more voices again, having spent much of last year’s season taking the charge on re-setting Doctor Who in the eyes of the BBC and its partner-in-time Disney. “It’s good for me, I meet people—I get to work with people like Inua Ellams, who’s enriched my life. What a scholar, what a radical, what a charming man. Juno Dawson, who I had known for many years, but not well until getting to write on Doctor Who together—but there’s someone who’s always in the New York Times best sellers list! Brand new talent like Sharma Angel Walfall… apparently, I went to give a talk in Manchester when she was about 14 years old, and she was a little student there, but she remembers me from that. I was the Doctor Who man then! And Peter Tighe, he’s a very seasoned Doctor Who writer who knows Who every bit as well as me. He can identify a Drahvin at 50 paces.” “It just keeps the show spinning, keeps it lively. It keeps me lively,” Davies continued. “I mean, I’m a writer and there’s no one I’d rather sit and talk to than writers. Writers don’t often actually get to sit and talk with other writers often enough. We tend to live in our own circles. It’s a very healthy process, and I think it’s paid us a great range of stories.” It’s that desire to keep changing things up that has kept Doctor Who going for 20 years since Davies revitalized the show in 2005 (and that kept it going for decades before in its classic iteration). But it’s something that also reminds Davies of just how long his association with the show has been going—and how many people have been captivated by it. “I literally was just saying, actually, where I live where in Manchester is just off the road from Manchester University, so I walk up and down a street into town that takes me past the biggest student population in Europe. And so many students have watched and loved it as children,” Davies reflected on his legacy as being “the Doctor Who man” not once, but now twice. “I’m a very lucky man, I’m like the Pied Piper. They’ll stop me in the street and say how much they love it.” “I’m the luckiest man in Great Britain, I think, to have people stopping me in the street telling me how much Who meant to them when they were kids. So long may that continue! I always think there’s some brand new eight-year-old watching it for the first time, who will be just as wide-eyed and entranced.” Doctor Who returns to Disney+ worldwide, and BBC One and the BBC iPlayer this Saturday, April 12. Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.