Disney's 12-Part Time Travel Series Is So Big, It Makes Even Doctor Who Look Small

Published Sep 11, 2026, 2:00 PM EDT

Memory Ngulube joined Screen Rant in April 2024 as part of the Movies and TV team. Since then, she has written for the Perennials and Streaming team, covering a wide range of topics from new releases to old movies and TV shows. Memory is currently a Classic TV writer. 

Before joining Screen Rant, Memory was a freelance copywriter who specialized in email marketing and social media management. While she enjoyed her job, her true passion was always movies and TV.

When she isn’t writing for Screen Rant, Memory can be found reading, baking (which is one of her passions), or watching her favorite K-drama.

For decades, Doctor Who has been hailed as a series that has demonstrated how time travel can be one of the most interesting tropes on TV. However, even a franchise with more than six decades of stories can occasionally make the concept feel small. After all, there is a difference between traveling through time and controlling the fate of time itself. Fortunately, a two-season Disney+ series brilliantly explored the manipulation of time on a scale that would make even the Time Lords look limited.

Across 12 episodes, Loki tells a vast story that changes how the titular character has been portrayed in the MCU. The series kicks off after the God of Mischief escapes with the Tesseract in Avengers: Endgame and becomes something much more than a superhero spinoff show by introducing a new player: the Time Variance Authority.

Loki, of course, isn’t the first time that Marvel has dipped its toes into the time travel trope, with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. being another notable example. However, Loki is the show that tipped the scale of what moving through time can be like in Marvel’s enormous universe.

Loki Essentially Told A 'Doctor & Time Lords' Story On A Larger Scale

Loki’s comparisons to Doctor Who are hardly accidental. The TVA essentially functions as Marvel's answer to the Time Lords, combining godlike control over time with an almost absurd level of bureaucracy. Even the premise of a rogue figure challenging an organization that believes it has the authority to determine how history should unfold feels familiar.

In Doctor Who, the Time Lords are an ancient civilization capable of manipulating and policing time, with Gallifrey serving as their center of power. In Loki, the TVA occupies a similar position, existing outside conventional space and time while monitoring the Sacred Timeline and eliminating events that could create unwanted branches. The TVA is essentially a more effective and bureaucratic version of Gallifrey.

Loki himself fits naturally into the role that the Doctor takes on. He is an outsider who refuses to accept the rules imposed by the TVA. Of course, the God of Mischief is considerably less altruistic than the Doctor at the beginning of the series because his motivations are rooted in self-preservation, but he does eventually become someone who cares about the fate of the universe by the end of Loki season 2.

Loki Key Details
Release Year	2021
Streaming Platform	Disney+
Number of Episodes	12
Rotten Tomatoes Critics' Score	87%

As another version of Loki, Sylvie makes the similarities between Doctor Who and Loki even stronger. Because she is someone who has spent her whole life fleeing the TVA after being targeted as a variant, Sylvie is suspicious of an institution that has made it impossible for her to remain in one place. It is noteworthy that Loki doesn't simply imitate Doctor Who​​​​​​; it takes the idea of a time-traveling protagonist confronting an organization that controls the universe and uses it to tell a much larger story that connects to the Marvel multiverse.

Doctor Who Hasn't Explored The Multiverse As Much As You'd Think

Despite being one of television's most famous time-travel franchises, Doctor Who has actually spent far less time exploring the multiverse than one might expect. Parallel universes have certainly existed in the series. The most famous example is the Pete's World reality introduced in the 2006 season 2 episodes “Rise of the Cybermen” and “The Age of Steel.” The episodes delved into an alternate Earth where history developed differently, allowing the Doctor to encounter other versions of familiar characters and a world where the Cybermen emerged under different circumstances.

While the show has returned to parallel dimensions at various points, Doctor Who treats these realities as special exceptions rather than the foundation of the story. The Doctor doesn't normally jump from one universe to another every week to meet a different version of themselves. Most adventures still happen within the show's primary continuity.

This distinction becomes especially important when comparing Doctor Who with Loki. The Marvel series makes alternate realities almost unavoidable. Once the Sacred Timeline begins branching, every significant change can potentially create another timeline and another reality. Suddenly, there can be countless versions of the same person existing simultaneously, like the main Loki, Sylvie, and other versions of the God of Mischief featured in the show.

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  Loki Laufeyson

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  Miss Minutes (voice)

Loki is a series in the Marvel Cinematic Universe following the alternate version of the titular character, Loki, after the events of Avengers: Endgame. Taken by the Time Variance Authority, he must confront his identity and choices while aiding in fixing the disrupted timeline to avert a greater threat.