Posted in: BBC, Clothing, Pop Culture, TV | Tagged: doctor who, Ncuti Gatwa, russell t davies

Doctor Who: New T-Shirt Might Be Dropping Clue to Season 2 Villain

Does some new pre-release Doctor Who merchandise hint at a major villain for the upcoming second season - and who Mrs. Flood REALLY is?

Fans are always speculating about what's next for Doctor Who – who's next, who's returning – often leading to wild theories that could never be true, however much they wish into their Tom Baker posters. There's been a news drought before the second season of the series premieres on the BBC in the UK and Disney+ in 2025, so anyone can make anything up, and every outlet will lap it up. Well, here's something true that could mean almost anything: new pre-release merchandising that brings back a classic villain from the classic series, and that villain has been renamed.

Spoilers? What Spoilers? It's Just a Doctor Who T-Shirt

The old-school Doctor Who villain in question is The Black Guardian, now renamed The Guardian of Chaos. This was revealed this week in a line of apparel and pins depicting the character and his new name. This line of merchandise is official and has been listed for pre-order on the Forbidden Planet website and Walmart in the US for release in January 2025.

In case you don't know, The Black Guardian first appeared in the sixteenth season of Doctor Who in 1978 in the "Key to Time" story arc, the first time the series had a season-long arc. The Black Guardian and the White Guardian are god-like counterparts, representing the balance between light and darkness, good and evil. During that season, the White Guardian tasks the Doctor (Tom Baker) with finding the fragments of The Key to Time scattered across the universe. By the season's finale, the White Guardian turns out to be the Black Guardian in disguise and has been using the Doctor to find and put together the Key to Time so he can claim it to get Ultimate Power in the universe. The Doctor thwarts him by keeping it from him and hiding it away forever, which pisses him off no end. He appeared again in the twentieth season during the Fifth Doctor's (Peter Davison) era, installing Turlough (Mark Strickson) as a companion in the TARDIS with a mission to assassinate The Doctor. He hasn't appeared again in the TV series since.

Does This Mean Something for Season Two?

The Black Guardian is the avatar of Chaos, and his renaming as The Guardian of Chaos must have been initiated by showrunner Russell T. Davies. He might have written that himself. Does this mean he's going to be one of the next god-like villains referenced by The Toymaker (Neil Patrick Harris) that was coming? And what does this mean for Mrs. Flood (Anita Dobson)? Could she be The White Guardian since she was last seen in all white and seemingly all-knowing in the final seconds of the new first season of Doctor Who? Or could she be The Guardian of Chaos disguised again as The White Guardian – or is it now The Guardian of Order? Anita Dobson has promised that everything will be revealed about who Mrs. Flood really is in season two. This prematurely released merchandise could be a big clue. Our big question is, will The Guardian of Chaos still wear a dead bird on his head?

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