'Doctor Who' is primed to be bigger than ever. How Bad Wolf is helping lead the charge

LOS ANGELES — Bad Wolf, the name of the production company founded by Jane Tranter and Julie Gardner, is a "Doctor Who" reference.

Before teaming up for this joint venture in 2015, the industry veterans had worked together for years in various roles at the BBC and BBC Worldwide. One of their earliest projects was the 2005 "Doctor Who" revival from showrunner Russell T Davies.

Those who've watched that first season will pick up on the reference — a message scattered throughout time and space to lead the show's time-hopping heroes to a specific moment. For Tranter and Gardner, calling their company Bad Wolf was an acknowledgment that their professional journeys had always been leading up to its founding.

What the name wasn't, however, was "an indication that we had set up Bad Wolf with the idea that we would ever be making 'Doctor Who,'" says Tranter during a joint video call with Gardner. But "'Doctor Who' came along and it was unexpected [but] it's a very welcome experience."

"I'm still in shock years later," added Gardner. "I had quite an emotional response because that had been a very special time."

Launching Friday, the new season of "Doctor Who" continues the show's transition into a new era with new lead actors and new ambitions marked by a streaming partnership with Disney+, where it will stream exclusively to a global audience. The series airs in the U.K. on BBC and is produced by Bad Wolf and BBC Studios Productions.

After an introductory adventure in last year's Christmas special, Ncuti Gatwa and Millie Gibson's chapter as the Fifteenth Doctor and his companion Ruby Sunday, respectively, properly gets underway.

Despite their previous roles in bringing the long-dormant "Doctor Who" back to television screens with the revival, executive producers Tranter and Gardner as well as Davies, whose first stint as showrunner on the series ran from 2005 to 2010, don't consider this homecoming as doing things "again."

"I don't talk about coming back because it's a new show," says Davies, a lifelong "Doctor Who" fan whose "first memory of life" is of the series. "I wanted the show to be bigger. I wanted to take the show forward. I wanted to be with a big streamer. I honestly believe in the show."

Similarly, the "Doctor Who" team refers to this new season with Gatwa and Gibson as Season 1, despite it being the 14th season of the revival (the original ran from 1963 to 1989).

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