3) A Fun TARDIS Team
As Doctor Who offers up a completely new story, setting and bunch of supporting characters every week, the central figures of the Doctor and his companion(s) become the all important factor in getting us invested in the show as a whole. Over the past couple of years, Doctor Who has been led by two pretty divisive characters in Peter Capaldi’s Doctor and Jenna Coleman’s Clara. The pair endured a very rocky, strained friendship which didn’t gel with everyone.
For season 10, though, the name of the game in the TARDIS this year is ‘fun.’ With Bill, the show has a new companion to see the Doctor’s world anew and this has clearly helped the Time Lord rediscover his sense of fun as well. Their mentor/student relationship – the pair first met when he was posing as a university professor – also brought out a new aspect to this Doctor which we haven’t seen before.
As for the third member of the TARDIS team, Matt Lucas’ Nardole won’t be to every fan’s tastes but it’s hard to deny that the rubber-faced actor isn’t an expert at what he does. Nardole is so cheerfully, harmlessly played that it’s difficult not to like him and, on the flip side, there’s a lot of fun to be had from watching the Doctor being unnecessarily cruel to him, in the classic Laurel and Hardy style.
This trio perhaps don’t match up to, say, the Tenth Doctor and Rose or the Eleventh Doctor, Amy and Rory as one of the show’s greatest TARDIS teams ever, but it’s definitely been a joy to watch these three roll around the universe for the past three months.
