Neil Patrick Harris has recently wrapped his filming for Doctor Who in Wales, and confirmed in a Variety interview that Ncuti Gatwa's Doctor will be gay in the upcoming series that will launch Russell T. Davies' second era with the British series. The news comes weeks after Yasmin Finney confirmed that her character, Rose, is trans and will apparently debut in the upcoming Doctor Who 60th anniversary special. Finney's Rose will also presumably be traveling with Gatwa's 14th Doctor when Season 14 properly airs.

Between Gatwa's 14th Doctor being gay and Finney's Rose being trans, the new era of Doctor Who is promising to be the boldest and queerest era yet. While LGBTQIA representation on Doctor Who has been present since the beginning of Davies' first era in 2005, Season 14 will actually be the first time in the show's history that the Doctor will be explicitly gay at the start of their run. It will also be the first time in the show's history that the Doctor will be traveling with a trans companion. But what did it take for the BBC to finally get comfortable having an all-queer TARDIS team this time around?

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Looking back on the revival Doctor Who era, it all started with Davies himself when he cast John Barrowman -- a gay actor -- as the first pansexual companion to Christopher Eccleston's 9th Doctor, Captain Jack Harkness. As a companion who's attracted to people regardless of their gender, this allowed Davies to test the waters of how an LGBTQIA character would be received by both the BBC and Doctor Who's audience. The end result was a huge success, and Captain Jack was spun off into his own adult-oriented Doctor Who series, Torchwood.

Torchwood was really the playground where Davies and future Doctor Who show runner Chris Chibnall got to explore the idea of an all-queer "TARDIS team." The original cast comprised Barrowman as Captain Jack and other actors reprising their guest roles from Doctor Who as full-time employees of Torchwood. Naoko Mori reprised her role of Toshiko Sato from the episode "Aliens of London," and Eve Myles returned as Gwen Cooper -- a descendent of her original character Gwyneth from "The Unquiet Dead." They were also joined by Burn Gorman as Owen Cooper and Gareth David-Lloyd as Ianto Jones.

The entire premise of Torchwood was an Earth-based human team that defended the planet against various alien threats in the Doctor's absence. In addition to their regular work at Torchwood, Jack's teammates also got to enjoy normal lives, which included dating. Like Jack himself, all of his teammates have had both same-sex and heterosexual relationships. Once again, Torchwood proved to be a huge hit with Doctor Who fans and succeeded at acquiring a strong queer fan following. This allowed the show to run for four seasons, which seemingly gave Davies' successors Steven Moffat and Chris Chibnall the confidence to be bold in their LGBTQIA presentation.

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Moffat was the first to introduce a full-time lesbian companion to Doctor Who when he cast bisexual actor Pearl Mackie as Bill Potts. As a Black lesbian companion to Peter Capaldi's 12th Doctor, Bill was the first female companion to break the trend of mostly white heterosexual women falling in love with the Doctor at first sight. Ironically, once Chibnall took over, he revisited the trend of female companions falling in love with the Doctor, but with a twist: it would be a Muslim woman -- played by Mandip Gill -- falling in love with the first female Doctor played by Jodie Whittaker.

When Jodie Whittaker took over the TARDIS as the 13th Doctor, it was established right away that her version of the Time Lord would be more gender-fluid, while still embracing her femininity. Though it wasn't established right away that the Muslim companion, Yasmin "Yaz" Khan, would be queer, as the series progressed, it became more and more obvious that she was romantically attracted to the 13th Doctor. This was first hinted at throughout Seasons 12 and 13 and was explicitly confirmed in the New Year's special, "Eve of the Daleks."

With the 13th Doctor becoming aware of Yaz's feelings, she confirmed in "Legend of the Sea Devils" that she reciprocated her love, effectively establishing the first queer romance between a Doctor and a companion. With both Yaz and the 13th Doctor set to depart with the Centenary Special later this year, it seems that their storyline will wrap up with a romantic and heartbreaking goodbye. While the Centenary Special will be the swan song of the first queer Doctor and companion, Russel T. Davies is promising with the upcoming 14th Doctor and Rose that the future of Doctor Who is still queer with more exciting adventures to come.