First broadcast 26 April 2025.

The Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) and Belinda (Varadu Sethu) continue to attempt to return to 2025 Earth, arriving instead some 500,000 years in the future. Thrown in to a military rescue mission to an alien mercury mine, they discover almost the entire original crew are dead – with only one survivor (Rose Ayling-Ellis).

People have asked me why, if I really did not enjoy last year’s season of Doctor Who, would I so eagerly return to watch this year’s. “The Wall” is as good an answer as any: after last weeks somewhat mixed effort “Lux”, this new episode is about as blunt, horrific, and creepy as Doctor Who tends to get. After 62 years, it really is a series that can be different things to different people, but for me personally I have always most appreciated it when it has provided a blend of science fiction and horror. It is why I struggled so badly with Season 14: the fantasy tones and often slightly silly elements simply do not strike me as the best way to produce Doctor Who.

It is dark stuff this week, with a question over how half a mining crew were shot and the other half had their bodies smashed to pieces by blunt trauma. It is not an unfamiliar version of Russell T Davies, which has from time to time gotten quite genuinely unsettling in episodes like “The Satan Pit”, “Midnight”, and “Wild Blue Yonder”. Davies co-writes this instalment with the season’s first new writer Sharma Angel-Walfall – both a woman and a person of colour, which is nice to see. It is a tight and effective script, jamming character development, world-building, and a suspenseful horror story all into 45 minutes. Australian director Amanda Brotchie is back after helming last week’s “Lux”, and while that was a visually strong piece this feels even more effective.

All that said, there is one scene in particular that struck me as quite astonishingly violent for Doctor Who. I’m not sure audience have seen so many violent in quick succession since the 1980s – possibly since “The Caves of Androzani” in 1984, in which literally every onscreen character dies violently save for the Doctor’s companion and a secretary.

Here both regular stars are in fine form, with Varadu Sethu really benefitting from a script that emphasises her medical training and her personality. Key guest star Rose Alying-Ellis is superb, and the script embraces the actor’s own deafness to create some properly smart and effective future world-building. Caoilfhionn Dunne, Christopher Chung, and Bethany Antonia are also very strong; in fact there is not really a sub-standard one across the cast.

Opinions will vary, but I think this might qualify as the first genuine classic of the Ncuti Gatwa era – for me at least. It’s smart, effective, and deeply – and think wonderfully – scary.