Ncuti Gatwa’s First Official Physician Who Dalek Encounter Is… an Escape Room

It’s lengthy been believed that if you wish to get the true measure of a Doctor Who star—who, deep down, their incarnation of the Time Lord actually is in comparison with what got here earlier than—you discover it of their first encounter with a Dalek. Whether or not it’s within the writing or efficiency, the Physician is fashioned of their response to probably the most historic and iconic of evils the present has, regardless of what number of tales come earlier than or after that fabled matchup. So it’s sort of wild then, that Ncuti Gatwa‘s first proverbial crack on the Kaled whip goes to be in an especially restricted engagement.

This week the BBC introduced A Dalek Awakens, a brand new escape room expertise for followers within the UK developed with Escape Hunt. Tasking gamers with boarding a ship occupied by a sole Dalek, A Dalek Awakens will see individuals remedy puzzles collectively to flee the murderous wrath of the Physician’s biggest foe with out having the ability to depend on the Time Lord’s presence… instantly at the least.

Assist the Physician defeat a Dalek! Rise up shut and private with the Physician’s deadliest enemy and assist the Fifteenth Physician within the newly regenerated escape room ‘A Dalek Awakens’ from @EscapeHuntUK pic.twitter.com/A3hScoNeVO

— Physician Who (@bbcdoctorwho) November 19, 2024

As seen within the teaser video above, Gatwa will reprise his function because the Physician for A Dalek Awakens, offering voice over to information gamers alongside of their quest to flee sure doom—and naturally present context for what a Dalek is absolutely able to. Which implies that that is, in actual fact, the very first time anybody will really get to listen to what the fifteenth Physician is like when confronted with the specter of the Daleks… moderately than within the present itself.

It’s a peculiar selection, however not all that of a stunning one. Though there’s been teases and hints {that a} new, redesigned Dalek-kind will seem within the newest iteration of Physician Who sooner or later, returning showrunner Russell T. Davies has additionally simply as a lot made clear that the most recent period of the present desires to keep the Daleks at plunger’s length for a short while. “I believe they’ve been achieved rather a lot—persons are anticipating them yearly now. So I believe they want a superb pause,” Davies advised British tabloid the Mirror forward of final 12 months’s sixtieth anniversary specials. “Hopefully, there’s some enemies that can develop into new classics, nevertheless it’s all the time good to maneuver on.”

In fact, Davies was additionally about to speed-run the 14th Physician’s three-episode tenure by having David Tennant’s newest tackle the Time Lord face off towards an early Dalek prototype in a charity mini-episode, in order that good pause wasn’t actually for all that lengthy, however nonetheless.

On the one hand, it is sensible, provided that the Daleks had turned an everyday staple of the New 12 months’s specials throughout Jodie Whittaker and Chris Chibnall’s period of Physician Who simply beforehand—making them an anticipated look blunts the Daleks of their particular identification and relationship to the Physician and Physician Who at massive. On the opposite: fairly insane that the primary time some individuals will really get to listen to Ncuti Gatwa speak about combating Daleks goes to be for an escape room expertise!

Fingers crossed it gained’t be all that lengthy till we get one thing related inside the present itself—one thing Gatwa is simply as desperate to see himself. “By the point that I’m achieved with Physician Who, I higher have confronted a Dalek. What on earth could be the purpose of me being Physician Who with out going through a Dalek,” the actor requested of Entertainment Weekly in a canopy story forward of the premiere of his debut season earlier this 12 months. What would the purpose be, certainly.

Need extra io9 information? Take a look at when to count on the most recent Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s subsequent for the DC Universe on film and TV, and all the pieces that you must find out about the way forward for Doctor Who.