To start with this week, here’s a time capsule; something I wrote for The Guardian back when Ncuti Gatwa‘s casting as the New Doctor Who was announced. Some more recent thoughts on the show’s current situation follow after this repeat and my favourite picture of Gatwa as the Doctor. Think of it as like a Tales of the TARDIS, if you will. But not the Jamie and Zoe one, or I’ll just start crying like a baby again.

The casting of a new Doctor Who prompts speculation equalled only by that surrounding the appointment of manager of the England men’s football team or of a new actor to play James Bond. Like those other roles, this is in part because who fills it is perceived to say something about British culture. Doctor Who is, in cliche, a ‘national institution’, a term first applied to it almost all of its lifetime ago.

A new Doctor was headline news in the twentieth century. Peter Davison has often commented that his friends thought he had died as his picture flashed onto the BBC Nine O’Clock News when he was cast in 1980. But the years since the series’ 2005 revival have seen announcements on an even larger scale. Matt Smith, Peter Capaldi and Jodie Whittaker’s castings were television events. A special mini documentary, a live ‘reveal’ show and a minisode transmitted during the BBC Wimbledon Final coverage respectively.