Russell T. Davies Returns to Doctor Who as New Showrunner

Maybe they've been 'avin' a larf watching us speculate and argue about the new showrunner.

 

Nothing about right now is normal or precedented. What with COVID and teleconferencing that would be very difficult for snoops to intercept, From what I hear, there were rumors about Davies for at least a couple of weeks, so who knows how long before that he actually signed on? And as speculated by others in this thread, it seems pretty likely that Davies wasn't suppose to be announced on a Friday afternoon aka "Take Out the Trash" news day unless they knew someone was about to leak it.

But it's all academic really and this is far more likely:

Pretty much.

 

I very much doubt that.

 

Says the guy who isn't laughing because he doesn't realize it's a joke.

 

You may not know Brits very well

 

Nice to know, as the sooner RTD gets back to working on Who the sooner we can get some RTD Who again, and if he is already working on the show behind the scenes then hopefully he has might already be cooking something nice for the upcoming Who 60th.

 

Not really. His second tenure as Showrunner won't start until 2023 regardless of how quickly he starts getting things in place.

 

Officially true but he could maybe ask Chibnall to put some things in his episodes as setup for any ideas he wants to do.

 

That's not true. Once the (coming) season is filmed, Chibnall is done. RTD can start as soon as his contract is signed. He has writing, pre-production, casting, etc...

 

Series 13 is completely filmed, and Jodie is in the process of filming her departure special, so, no, RTD can't ask Chibnall to set stuff up for him.

Jodie's final episode will not air until on or close to October 18th of next year (2022), and the BBC's own announcement pretty clearly indicates that the very first thing that RTD will be working on as he starts this new period as Showrunner of Doctor Who is going to be a Special commemorating the show's 60th Anniversary, which isn't until November 23rd 2023.

Those dates - October 2022 and November 23 2023 - are, if you'll pardon the phrase, 'fixed points in time', and the second RTD era will not officially begin until we reach the latter date no matter how quickly he gets to work.

 

Probably they want to generate some buzz for the show, get people tuning in again to catch up on where the Doctor is now before the 60th arrives.

 

Fun Fact: Only 12 of the 60 episodes from Russell T Davies' original run on Doctor Who were written by new writers. The other 48 episodes were all written by EU writers, Davies included.

 

Apparently, now I've seen more detail, the BBC outsourced to Bad Wolf Prods, which is Tranter and Gardner's prodco, and they brought in RTD.

 

Hopefully this is true and maybe why RTD has already started so early behind the scenes, knowing it's going to be a very tight schedule for the upcoming 60th, so fingers crossed.

 

I'm finding some of my initial reservations are being replaced by a little (possibly misplaced) optimism about the future direction of the show and it's long term prospects.

I still find it problematic that the BBC are appearing to reward RTD, Gardner, Tranter and Co. after what Chris has had to say about his experience with them and it's effect on him.

I guess I'll have to divorce my feelings about that from my affection for the product - I've done it with other things.

 

Only just caught wind of this. Damn. Didn't see that one coming.

No complaints. RTD's tenure and the Tennant era were a high point for me.

 

I wonder though if Davies coming back was agreed upon awhile back and they are just now announcing it. Granted that would be a long time to keep something this big a secret.

 

Jodie's run has been the most frustrating; she's an incredibly talented actress. I felt the same with Capaldi, but he at least had some good material (Heaven Sent stands as one of NuWho's best, IMO).

I wonder if Jodie Whittaker could be persuaded to stick around. Just imagine the usual big stakes finale hijinks, teary goodbyes, solitary scene in the TARDIS with soaring music ... BOOM! Regeneration fireworks. Jodie Whittaker morphs into ... redhead Jodie Whittaker? (close to ginger).

 

A lot of people in a lot of places are saying things like, okay, RTD needs to do what he did in 2005: just introduce a new Doctor and don't bury the viewers in the accumulated weight of continuity. Tell stories that don't require an encyclopedic knowledge of the show. Standalone stories, with the Doctor and companion(s) having adventures in time and space, like 1963 all over again.

Which is exactly what Chibnall did in Jodie's first series three years ago.

As for Chibnall vs Davies, look at Torchwood. Yes, Davies wrote the best season (Children of Earth). He was also head writer for the worst (Miracle Day). I'm feeling pretty positive about RTD coming back because I liked his era of Doctor Who, but I don't expect him to do the same thing all over again. And I guarantee that a lot of the "yay Rusty boo Chibbers" crowd are going to be cursing RTD in a couple of years.

IMHO, Capaldi had a couple of five star episodes and a lot of one or two star episodes. Whittaker had a lot of three or three and a half star episodes. She didn't get any stories as good as one or two of Capaldi's best, possibly, but she never came near the worst of Capaldi's era. I'll take The Woman Who Fell to Earth over The Eleventh Hour or Deep Breath any day, though, as far as Doctors' first episodes are concerned.

 

A thought I recently had, RTD being back in charge might mean the show would get back to a regular release schedule, though if he's still in charge after four seasons, there's going to be a gap year, since according to The Writer's Tale he feels there should always be a gap year after every four seasons and had he remained in charge indefinitely, that would have been the case.

The extent of RTD's involvement in the final Chibnall/Whittaker episodes will likely just be RTD writing the post-regeneration scene for the new Doctor in the finale, as that seems to be a tradition in the modern era for passing the torch to a new showrunner. Moffat wrote Smith's scene in TEOT, Chibnall wrote Whittaker's scene in Twice Upon a Time, RTD will likely get to write the scene for the new Doctor in Whittaker's finale.