Russell T. Davies Returns to Doctor Who as New Showrunner

[jaime]

Moffat is also the guy who gave us "I'm the Doctor. Basically, run." He's the guy who gave us the fanwank of all of the Doctor's enemies teaming up to trap him because he's the greatest threat in the universe. He's the guy who gave us the Doctor recreating the whole universe. He's the guy whose Doctor had allies and armies following him when he went to war. And that's all just the Eleventh Doctor, who was rarely if ever that guy just wandering around and having adventures in places he'd never heard of before where no one had heard of him, either.

Point of order — it was Amy what did it. Recreate the universe.

And all of that is just precisely what it was shown as… the consequence of his actions being a hero because of his morals, over huge spans of time. He’s even shown to not be happy with it, and desperately going back to just being the wanderer in time and space. Fakes his own death etc. The fact he never planned to be some messianic hero, doesn’t want it, is literally there on screen as arc and thread through two Doctors worth of stuff.
Doing the right thing simply because it’s the right thing, not destiny, not some great reaction to something. He hates being treated as an officer, and where he stands is where he falls.
The initial stage is the outgrowth of the ‘Time Lord Victorious’ of the tenth (which is similar to RTDs second coming, as endings go) and everything after silencio is him trying to get back into his box, if the universe will let him.
You’ve missed the point of all that stuff.
In Pandorica, you have all his enemies trying to trap him, but it ends with the memories of his friends trying to find him, to remember that he is not just some legend, important to the universe, but also someone they remember as important to them on a personal level.

You don’t need an A-Level in media studies to see that.

Chibnall has made the whole thing into ‘Destiny’ and ‘Chosen One’ and even ‘Revenge.’

 

[The Wormhole]

Hopefully he's just saving that to be nice,

Honestly, I think RTD might genuinely like the Timeless Child idea, or at least the idea of pre-Hartnell Doctors being possible. After spending an entire decade saying he's done with Doctor Who, including refusing a "dump truck full of cash" that was apparently offered to keep him around when he first announced his departure, an invitation from Moffat to return and write an episode each year Moffat was in charge and even publishing a book specifically to reinforce the fact that he's done, I think the story possibilities the Timeless Child/pre-Hartnell Doctors offer might have been the thing that made him decide to come back.

 

[The Knappos]

Point of order — it was Amy what did it. Recreate the universe.

False. The Doctor flew the Pandorica into the crack/exploding TARDIS, recreating the universe and getting himself stuck on the wrong side of it’s destruction.

Amy “remembered” him back onto the non-destroyed side.

 

[jaime]

False. The Doctor flew the Pandorica into the crack/exploding TARDIS, recreating the universe and getting himself stuck on the wrong side of it’s destruction.

Amy “remembered” him back onto the non-destroyed side.

She remembered the whole universe because of the crack in her room. She was the back up folder for creation. I mean it’s wiggly, but it’s not the Doctor doing it, he was just hitting the button.

 

[The Knappos]

She remembered the whole universe because of the crack in her room. She was the back up folder for creation. I mean it’s wiggly, but it’s not the Doctor doing it, he was just hitting the button.

Again. This is false.

 

[matthunter]

It's a little ambivalent, since the Doctor implies Amy can shape the new universe and bring her parents back. But earlier he does say that he's using the "few billion atoms of the universe that was" which were trapped in the Pandorica to extrapolate a copy of the original universe NOT Amy's memories.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

The War Doctor was an easy fit between 8 and 9, and since we never saw the 2nd Doctor regenerate Ruth can fit easily between 2 and 3.

I'm familiar with the idea of the Martin Doctor going between Troughton and Pertwee. When it was suggested at a convention before the pandemic (Farpoint 2020?), I said that it's basically taking fandom's old Season 6B idea, but instead of Troughton having those adventures, Martin does. (I'll leave others to work out the implications for The Two Doctors.)

The problem with this idea -- Troughton -> Martin -> Pertwee -- is that it doesn't fit with what we actually see on screen at any point -- not The Three Doctors, not Mawydrn Undead (which is the main argument against pre-Hartnell Doctors), not The Five Doctors, and not The Timeless Children.

Martin being a pre-Hartnell Doctor doesn't contort Doctor Who history. Martin going between Troughton and Pertwee does.

Honestly, I think RTD might genuinely like the Timeless Child idea, or at least the idea of pre-Hartnell Doctors being possible. After spending an entire decade saying he's done with Doctor Who, including refusing a "dump truck full of cash" that was apparently offered to keep him around when he first announced his departure, an invitation from Moffat to return and write an episode each year Moffat was in charge and even publishing a book specifically to reinforce the fact that he's done, I think the story possibilities the Timeless Child/pre-Hartnell Doctors offer might have been the thing that made him decide to come back.

I found the RTD quote I was thinking of! It was for the Lockdown project, in his introduction for "Doctor Who and the Time War":

This chapter only died because it became, continuity-wise, incorrect. But now, the Thirteenth Doctor has shown us Doctors galore, with infinite possibilities.

All Doctors exist.

All stories are true.

That doesn't sound like a man opposed to the Timeless Child revelations.

 

[jaime]

I'm familiar with the idea of the Martin Doctor going between Troughton and Pertwee. When it was suggested at a convention before the pandemic (Farpoint 2020?), I said that it's basically taking fandom's old Season 6B idea, but instead of Troughton having those adventures, Martin does. (I'll leave others to work out the implications for The Two Doctors.)

The problem with this idea -- Troughton -> Martin -> Pertwee -- is that it doesn't fit with what we actually see on screen at any point -- not The Three Doctors, not Mawydrn Undead (which is the main argument against pre-Hartnell Doctors), not The Five Doctors, and not The Timeless Children.

Martin being a pre-Hartnell Doctor doesn't contort Doctor Who history. Martin going between Troughton and Pertwee does.



I found the RTD quote I was thinking of! It was for the Lockdown project, in his introduction for "Doctor Who and the Time War":


That doesn't sound like a man opposed to the Timeless Child revelations.

It sounds like a man who quite liked the wilderness years (because he wrote for those too) and is embracing things that did ( universes in bottles, multiple timelines for the doctor) as that is squarely in line with stuff like The Infinity Doctor. That isn’t a story about a prehartnell doctor. It’s a bit like the Unbound stuff, and as he says… it isn’t as canonical as script and screen. He knows his onions.

 

[Steve Roby]

The fact he never planned to be some messianic hero, doesn’t want it, is literally there on screen as arc and thread through two Doctors worth of stuff.
’

The Doctor is a fictional character whose actions are laid out by the producers and writers. So becoming a messianic hero is something the writers did, not something that just happened that the writers had to struggle to undo. If you're trying to contradict me for pointing out that Chibnall is not the only person to add complications to the Doctor's character with arcs instead of standalone adventures of an everyday time-travelling Time Lord and his or her buddies, I'm not sure reminding that RTD did it too, and not just Moffat, is the best way to go.

 

[jaime]

The Doctor is a fictional character whose actions are laid out by the producers and writers. So becoming a messianic hero is something the writers did, not something that just happened that the writers had to struggle to undo. If you're trying to contradict me for pointing out that Chibnall is not the only person to add complications to the Doctor's character with arcs instead of standalone adventures of an everyday time-travelling Time Lord and his or her buddies, I'm not sure reminding that RTD did it too, and not just Moffat, is the best way to go.

They did it as logical outgrowth of what came before is my point. They looked at what had developed — almost a meta commentary on the show itself, and it’s status — and then played with that as a theme. It’s pretty much explicit when we have the ‘Doctor means Warrior on my world’ stuff going on.
They didn’t go and bolt anything particularly onto the past, or rewrite chunks of it, or contradict anything much at all. The closest we get is Clara popping down the Doctors Timestream, but notice that only comes *after* the GI has done the same.
(And that is something else which flatly contradicts the Timeless Child nonsense.)

There is always a difference between organic growth, and forced retro continuity.

 

[Photoman15]

Martin being a pre-Hartnell Doctor doesn't contort Doctor Who history. Martin going between Troughton and Pertwee does.

Yes it does. How does Doc Martin have a TARDIS that looks like a Police Box? Hartnell has it because when he (and Susan) arrived on Earth in '63, it took the Police Box shape and then the chameleon circuit broke. So any Doctor with a Police Box Tardis has to be after Hartnell.

 

[ATimson]

How does Doc Martin have a TARDIS that looks like a Police Box? Hartnell has it because when he (and Susan) arrived on Earth in '63, it took the Police Box shape and then the chameleon circuit broke. So any Doctor with a Police Box Tardis has to be after Hartnell.

Not necessarily. If Martin first arrived while a later incarnation was on Earth too (not unlikely!), her TARDIS could have gone “okay, there’s a TARDIS here already, and it looks like a police box, that must be a good fit for this environment” and used that.

 

[DigificWriter]

So any Doctor with a Police Box Tardis has to be after Hartnell.

No.

As demonstrated by @ATimson, there are rationales for the Forgotten/Fugitive Doctor having a police box TARDIS that don't default to "only post-Hartnell Doctors can have a police box TARDIS".

 

[The Knappos]

It's a little ambivalent, since the Doctor implies Amy can shape the new universe and bring her parents back. But earlier he does say that he's using the "few billion atoms of the universe that was" which were trapped in the Pandorica to extrapolate a copy of the original universe NOT Amy's memories.

It’s very clear that flying the Pandorica into the crack is what recreates the universe, reverses the destruction of the exploding TARDIS and restores everything the cracks had wiped out except the Doctor, yes.

The Doctor implies nothing about Amy bringing anyone back, except himself.

 

[matthunter]

It’s very clear that flying the Pandorica into the crack is what recreates the universe, reverses the destruction of the exploding TARDIS and restores everything the cracks had wiped out except the Doctor, yes.

The Doctor implies nothing about Amy bringing anyone back, except himself.

"It brought Rory back, it can bring them back too. You just remember them , and they'll be there".

If simply flying the Pandorica into the exploding TARDIS (not the crack, did you even WATCH the ep?) would bring Amy's parents back, why would he need to tell her that?

 

[Photoman15]

No.

As demonstrated by @ATimson, there are rationales for the Forgotten/Fugitive Doctor having a police box TARDIS that don't default to "only post-Hartnell Doctors can have a police box TARDIS".

Can you point me to that.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

Yes it does. How does Doc Martin have a TARDIS that looks like a Police Box? Hartnell has it because when he (and Susan) arrived on Earth in '63, it took the Police Box shape and then the chameleon circuit broke. So any Doctor with a Police Box Tardis has to be after Hartnell.

We know that the Hartnell Doctor stole a TARDIS -- at Clara's direction -- that looked like cylinder (The Name of the Doctor). We know that the Hartnell Doctor and Susan have a number of adventures before they arrive in Totter's Lane, since they refer to places they've been throughout Season 1. We know that his TARDIS becomes stuck in the form of a Police Box in Totter's Lane. We know that he says the Chameleon Circuit is broken because the TARDIS isn't changing form. And we also know that the TARDIS has a mind of its own and knows stuff the Doctor does not (The Doctor's Wife). As far as the Doctor knows, his TARDIS has never been a Police Box before. That doesn't mean his TARDIS had never been a Police Box before since there's so much of his life he doesn't know.

It is not a stretch to conclude that the Chameleon Circuit didn't "break" in Totter's Lane and the TARDIS was simply reverting to its previous form at that point. The Doctor assumes the Chameleon Circuit is broken -- but is the TARDIS just unwilling to change? Why would the TARDIS choose that particular moment to revert to its Police Box form? Isn't that also the point where the Doctor becomes an active doer in space-time rather than merely a passive tourist? And the point where the TARDIS is probably aware of the imminent arrival of another Doctor (Remembrance of the Daleks)?

I think Hartnell's life looks this this. The Time Lords wipe the mind and force regenerate the preceding incarnation back to an male infant. He's is raised by parents (Ulysses and Penelope?); perhaps Time Lord science even makes it possible for his mother (a human?) to give birth to this infant Doctor. As a child, he meets the child Master, looks into the Untempered Schism, attends the Academy, lives as a minor academic on Gallifrey, marries, has children, his children have children (Susan, definitely, but also John and Gillian?). As far as he's concerned, as far as everyone (except maybe some very senior Time Lords on a need-to-know basis), he's the first incarnation of the Time Lord. And one day, feeling a touch of wanderlust, he slips away from Gallifrey with his favorite grandchild in a stolen TARDIS that, even though he doesn't know it, is a TARDIS that was his friend and companion through many, many lifetimes.

 

[DigificWriter]

Can you point me to that.

If Martin first arrived while a later incarnation was on Earth too (not unlikely!), her TARDIS could have gone “okay, there’s a TARDIS here already, and it looks like a police box, that must be a good fit for this environment” and used that.

 

[jaime]

No.

As demonstrated by @ATimson, there are rationales for the Forgotten/Fugitive Doctor having a police box TARDIS that don't default to "only post-Hartnell Doctors can have a police box TARDIS".

The one that stays a police box even when it’s on gallifrey later in the episode?
It was clumsy and made it look like Chibnall really didn’t have a clue about the show he is writing for, frankly.

 

[jaime]

We know that the Hartnell Doctor stole a TARDIS -- at Clara's direction -- that looked like cylinder (The Name of the Doctor). We know that the Hartnell Doctor and Susan have a number of adventures before they arrive in Totter's Lane, since they refer to places they've been throughout Season 1. We know that his TARDIS becomes stuck in the form of a Police Box in Totter's Lane. We know that he says the Chameleon Circuit is broken because the TARDIS isn't changing form. And we also know that the TARDIS has a mind of its own and knows stuff the Doctor does not (The Doctor's Wife). As far as the Doctor knows, his TARDIS has never been a Police Box before. That doesn't mean his TARDIS had never been a Police Box before since there's so much of his life he doesn't know.

It is not a stretch to conclude that the Chameleon Circuit didn't "break" in Totter's Lane and the TARDIS was simply reverting to its previous form at that point. The Doctor assumes the Chameleon Circuit is broken -- but is the TARDIS just unwilling to change? Why would the TARDIS choose that particular moment to revert to its Police Box form? Isn't that also the point where the Doctor becomes an active doer in space-time rather than merely a passive tourist? And the point where the TARDIS is probably aware of the imminent arrival of another Doctor (Remembrance of the Daleks)?

I think Hartnell's life looks this this. The Time Lords wipe the mind and force regenerate the preceding incarnation back to an male infant. He's is raised by parents (Ulysses and Penelope?); perhaps Time Lord science even makes it possible for his mother (a human?) to give birth to this infant Doctor. As a child, he meets the child Master, looks into the Untempered Schism, attends the Academy, lives as a minor academic on Gallifrey, marries, has children, his children have children (Susan, definitely, but also John and Gillian?). As far as he's concerned, as far as everyone (except maybe some very senior Time Lords on a need-to-know basis), he's the first incarnation of the Time Lord. And one day, feeling a touch of wanderlust, he slips away from Gallifrey with his favorite grandchild in a stolen TARDIS that, even though he doesn't know it, is a TARDIS that was his friend and companion through many, many lifetimes.

Maybe Martin just throws herself into the looms… xD
And besides, everyone knows Leela is his mother.