Russell T. Davies Returns to Doctor Who as New Showrunner

Oh, good points about Big Finish, especially the possibility of their writers showing up on the show. I would love to see John Dorney, Matt Fitton, or Simon Guerrier write an episode or two.

As for adaptations, I wasn't impressed with either of the soft adaptations last time around ("Dalek" didn't age well for me and I hated the Cybermen two-parter...it's nothing like Spare Parts). On the other hand, Paul Cornell's adaptation of his own Human Nature was brilliant (although I haven't read the original novel).

I understand that concern, but I still think there's enough time to produce 10-13 episodes for a spring 2023 release. That's 18 months away!

 

They'll have shot six regular length and three feature length episodes in a year at the height of Covid once Jodie wraps in the very near future. They don't need to start shooting the next series for another six months and they could still get it on air in spring 2023.

It all depends on how much time has actually passed between the deal being done and the announcement being made.

 

Or pretty much anything RTD's ever done. The standard of reporting these days...

As someone I follow on Twitter noted, RTD Who, in an era of TV breaking boundary after boundary, is highly likely to be more 'woke' (how I hate the misappropriation of that word), not less, and I, for one, am here for that! The difference from Chibnall will be how it's handled, ie considerably better. It's a genuinely tantalising prospect.

I'd love Chibnall Who to have a last run of form, if only so Whittaker can go out on a high. Will have to see how the Timeless Child plays out before any thoughts can be coalesced on what should happen as regards to it afterwards. At the very least, Who will be back in the hands of someone who knows it, loves it, isn't afraid to play with it, and will hopefully attract other good, new writers to play with it. I'm quite optimistic, in case that wasn't already obvious.

Besides, as someone else noted, no way is RTD back without a plan, and he certainly has the time to fully work it out. Oh, and the only thing I'd want back is the RTD era theme; my personal fave.

 

I saw the news about this earlier today, and my jaw just about hit the floor. RTD's Doctor Who is what made me a fan, and is my second favorite era of New Who, with Moffat's being my number one.

 

Fantastic news, can't wait.

 

An important detail from the BBC getting buried here:

Looking into Tranter & Gardner's production company Bad Wolf and The Night Of, A Discovery of Witches and The Golden Compass are all produced by them. This is massive news. Like with the recent streaming deals with HBO Max and Shanghai Media Group, this helps the BBC (currently under pressure once again to slash its overall spending budget even beyond Who) share production costs and gives the show the ability to hopefully continue and thrive despite this. This is arguably bigger than the Davies news.

 

This is like, the last thing I would have ever expected to happen. I hope this is great because I want it to be great!

 

My concern about the co-production aspect is what happens when the BBC at some point works with another co-producer or brings the show back in-house. No one's been able to use the supporting characters from the 1996 TV movie. There were, I think, three tie-in novels that used elements of the fourth season of Torchwood, which was also a co-production, but Big Finish and others haven't been allowed to follow up on that. I wonder what the possibilities are of this co-produced version of Doctor Who introducing new characters and concepts that can't be used by tie-ins or later versions of the show because of ownership issues.

 

It could go south, but what makes this time different is that Tranter & Gardner both have deep and friendly ties with the BBC. And Davies, who's friends with at least Gardner, is extremely pro-EU in general and Big Finish specifically. I don't see it being an issue this time. Plus they're the real co-producers. HBO Max and Shanghai Media Group are just additional cashflow via other avenues.

 

Glad everyone agrees with me that this is bad news...

 

Sorry. You could try Twitter?

Actually, given the normal state of the internet I've been pleasantly surprised by how positively the news has been received.

 

A lot of people at Gallifrey Base are downright ecstatic. But the nattering nabobs of negativity are no doubt recording their youtube rants even now.

 

I often wonder who it is they want making the show. Even if it hadn't been him, there's no right-wing saviour waiting in the wings to take away all the non-white non-straight people from the series.

 

My reaction: Ho-Lee Shit!

This literally comes right out of the Blue. I certainly did not see this coming. Completely unexpected, especially since RTD's made it so clear since he left the show that he'd never come back. I sure would like to know what it was that made him change his mind, since apparently a dump truck full of cash wasn't enough to convince him to stay on back in 2008.

 

If it was JMS and they were distraught I wanted to say

Galifrey falls!!!!!

 

The joke 40 years ago on Radio Active was they ran through the front page headlines, "And the Telegraph reports Hitler Invades Poland"

 

T'Nia Miller for The Doctor and Tony Head for her companion.

 

If he were so inclined, there is a potential opportunity for RTD to use his power as the incoming Showrunner of Series 14 to cast a Black woman as the new Doctor and thereby Canonize an element of his novelization of the episode Rose wherein he described a potential 14th incarnation of the Doctor thusly:

I don't know if he would actually do this, but the opportunity for him to do so now exists as a result of today's news, and I thought it was worth pointing that out.

 

I hope so. Simply... the Master lied. To mess with the Doctor and to trick the Cybermen, plus some other twisted reason of his own. The TimeyWimey Child was, IMO, utter and absurd nonsense, with no redeeming value to the history of Dr Who.

 

You didn't really read the post you quoted, so let me be clearer: The notion that RTD will ignore or retcon the Timeless Child stuff is absurd.