How WandaVision Inspired Sutekh’s Return to Doctor Who

Warning: contains spoilers for Doctor Who episode “The Legend of Ruby Sunday”

Ncuti Gatwa’s first run of Doctor Who episodes was designed as a fresh start for the show – hence the decision – by everybody not too stubborn and/or confused to break continuity with the post-2005 numbering system – to call it “season one”.

A line was drawn, in salt, after the 60^th anniversary specials, which banished the Doctor’s grief and trauma to a slowly healing Fourteen. Fifteen was freed up for fun, fantasy-filled adventures with a box-fresh companion. Goodbye to baggage, and ta-ra to decades and decades of teetering, suffocating lore. Come one, come all to Doctor Who. No previous experience necessary!

And then, in apparent contradiction of the show’s season one-newness, two-part season finale “The Legend of Ruby Sunday/Empire of Death” reintroduced a villain from 1975 serial “Pyramids of Mars”. Wouldn’t any newcomers the show had managed to attract up to that point be nonplussed by the reveal of the name “Sutekh”? Isn’t the need to have kept up with over half a century of backstory the very reason that casual viewers often feel excluded from Doctor Who?

Nah, thought showrunner Russell T Davies. It’ll be fine, because WandaVision already did it.

Speaking to Benjamin Cook in the latest edition of Doctor Who Magazine (subscribe here), Davies shared how 2021 Disney+ MCU series WandaVision inspired the return of Sutekh:

“I remember Nichola Schindler, a producer I work with [on Queer as Folk in 1999-2000, It’s a Sin in 2021, and more], getting so excited about Agatha Harkness arriving in WandaVision,” says Russell.”

The character of Agatha Harkness was first introduced to the comics world in a 1970s issue of Fantastic Four. She was the leader of a New Salem witch coven who eventually became a mentor to Scarlet Witch. In MCU series WandaVision, the character was played by Kathryn Hahn, who’s soon to appear in spinoff Agatha All Along. In a twist at the end of the series, it was revealed that all of the weird goings-on in West View, New Jersey were down to Agatha pulling the strings. Davies’ producer pal Schindler, he says, loved it.

“She thought it was the most brilliant reveal. I asked her, ‘Do you know who Agatha Harkness is?’ She went, ‘No, I’ve no idea!’ And I’m fascinated by that – that you can introduce a character from the lore, who a modern viewer doesn’t know, and yet they get the thrill of it.”

Davies goes on to say that showrunners can rely on the online world these days to explain the details of returning villains to newcomers, opening up the possibility of more deep-cut character returns. It’s a solid point – that is exactly what we and many other outlets do. Having the support of Wiki pages and exhaustive explanations doing the leg-work for anyone who needs it, means that Doctor Who can thrill both long-term fans and new recruits with deep-cut character returns, safe in the knowledge that nobody will ever be lost. And thanks to Agatha Harkness, Davies knew it could be done.

All of which leaves us with the question… who might be next for a classic-era return?

Doctor Who series 14 is available to stream on BBC iPlayer in the UK and on Disney+ around the world.