Last year’s Doctor Who Series 5 episode, The Story & the Engine, has been nominated for a Hugo Award, in the Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form category.
The episode saw Ncuti Gatwa’s Fifteenth Doctor and Varada Sethu’s Belinda Chandra setting down in Lagos, Nigeria, where they found an enigmatic and scary new barber moved in on the turf of one of the Doctor’s old friends. Things got a bit trippy as the barbershop, it was revealed, was relocated onto the back of a spider-like creature that fed on the stories of those having their hair cut. Certainly an unusual premise, and one that feels uniquely Doctor Who: a barbershop, but evil!
The Story & the Engine was written by Inua Ellams and directed by Makalla McPherson.
Established in 1953, the Hugo Awards celebrate the best in sci-fi and fantasy TV, art, film, literature, and journalism. This is Doctor Who‘s 37th nomination, with previous winners almost exclusively written by former showrunner, Steven Moffat (for stories such as The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances, Blink, and The Pandorica Opens/ The Big Bang).
The Story & the Engine is up against The Wheel of Time: The Road to the Spear, Pluribus: We Is Us, Severance: Cold Harbor, and two episodes of Apple TV series, Murderbot (both written by Paul Weitz and Chris Weitz, and based on the book All Systems Red by Martha Wells). Those are all either on Apple TV or Amazon Prime, meaning Doctor Who is the only nomination from terrestrial TV — which perhaps shows the state of the sci-fi genre right now.
The Hugo Awards 2026 ceremony takes place at WorldCon in California on 30th August 2026.
