Russell T. Davies Returns to Doctor Who as New Showrunner

That seems awfully presumptive considering there are two more specials left and they've set up a situation where it'll be even more awkward if we don't see him now that we've been specifically primed to see him.
Especially as he's present in the new Behind the Scenes that just came out.
 
I absolutely LOVE David’s new outfit! Probably more than his original :adore: I definitely want to wear it to a con in the future
 
I'm believing now that Chibnall was the Fred Freiberger of Dr Who, except that the show survived long enough to be saved...

You're free to think what you want, of course, but I don't think it's an apt comparison.

First, the ratings slide happened during the Moffat/Capaldi era.

Second, unlike Freiberger on either Star Trek or Space: 1999, Chibnall was frequently active in the franchise before he took over the show. RTD had him write for the main show and gave him Torchwood. If your response is that you don't think much of his Torchwood work, well, it was after that that Moffat had him write a few episodes in the Matt Smith era. They don't seem to think he's so awful.

Covid trashed a lot of Chibnall's plans for Flux and afterwards. Yeah, that part of his run is a mess. The extent to which Chibnall is at fault for trying to get a shortened version of a complex story under difficult circumstances can be debated. But that it got done is no small feat. I think the Chibnall/Whittaker years will be viewed more positively as time goes by. It's happened with plenty of other eras of the show.
 
Not sure what Davies has to do with it?

At the end of the day, the BBC were the rights holder and they were the ones who okayed the mouse to be come involved.

And I guess it comes down to whether the residuals made up for smaller up front payments.

On the other hand, breaking the payments up would have reduced the amount lost to tax.

True but RTD and Bad Wolf seem to have huge sway on things to do with the relationship, he had his whole list of demands after all.

Residuals did make for a smaller up front payment, and sometimes that could be a negative on some shows, but not Who given it's constantly on streaming services and hugely popular. You can see why the UK union wasn't happy because this is going to cost writers an ongoing revenue stream.
 
I'm believing now that Chibnall was the Fred Freiberger of Dr Who, except that the show survived long enough to be saved...

Freiberger's two noteworthy shows would otherwise have been axed outright. We know Trek's fan mail campaign, but S1999 was pretty much done already, it was Fred's inclusion that got it greenlit at all. So there'd be no new season, or a new season that nobody knew how they would be at the time. I might argue that season 2 finally found its way, but it was too late - too many episodes were too different and badly written (the Luton one is atrociously bad...) In hindsight, as debatably bad or as definitely different as Space 1999 season 2 and TOS season 3 are, both still have some solid or even great episodes to go with the crap ones. I'm glad they exist. And Chibnall's era wasn't all crap either... /2c
 
Second, unlike Freiberger on either Star Trek or Space: 1999, Chibnall was frequently active in the franchise before he took over the show. RTD had him write for the main show and gave him Torchwood. If your response is that you don't think much of his Torchwood work, well, it was after that that Moffat had him write a few episodes in the Matt Smith era. They don't seem to think he's so awful.

Well, Chibnall's Silurian two-parter represents the only episodes of season five that I can't see myself ever revisiting, and Dinosaurs on a Spaceship and The Power of Three are utterly insipid beyond reason, so ... yeah, I don't think much of his output, and I think his tenure running Doctor Who was largely dreck outside of a few--depressingly sparse--standouts. It's a shame that an actress of Jodie Whittaker's caliber was essentially wasted under his reign.

And, of course, there's everything Broadchurch after the first season, which ranged from bad at best to horrifyingly awful at worst.

So, I'm not going to shed a tear that Chibnall-written episodes won't be on my television anytime soon.
 
Not quite as bad as "Hey Jodie congrats on becoming the first female Doctor, here's your companions which include a middle aged white guy who, to UK viewers at least, is way more well known than you, oh and we're gonna give him more to work with character wise than you. Good luck!"
As if that wasn't enough, they then follow that up with another woman Doctor who (IMO) has more personality, has a more Doctor-ish command of situations, a better outfit, and a cooler TARDIS!

I like Whittaker a lot, but I don't she was served well.
 
As if that wasn't enough, they then follow that up with another woman Doctor who (IMO) has more personality, has a more Doctor-ish command of situations, a better outfit, and a cooler TARDIS!

I like Whittaker a lot, but I don't she was served well.

Chef!Doctor was really a case of ‘look at what you could have won!’
 
So as per DWM the mysterious "Wild Blue Yonder" only has three guest stars in it. The character names are Fenslaw, Collis and Brate but the actors names are all given as [REDACTED].

So here's my crazy thought; what it Smith, Capaldi and, I'd love to say Eccleston but realistically Whitaker are appearing but not as the Doctor?

The two touchstones mentioned by the director are "Alien" and "The Thing". Well it's set on a spaceship so that's the former covered, so the latter could suggest some shape changing shenanigans.
That's an interesting idea and could well be right. But, if they're getting those actors back in DW, I'd rather see them playing the Doctor!

Another related possibility would be the older classic series actors (Colin B., Davison, McCoy) and having them back but not as Doctors. Would explain their visual differences yet still have them in the show.
 
Utterly irrelevant if they don't have enough shot with him.
I would hope that if they had to cut him completely that they'd announce that publicly. That might be unusual but so many of us are looking forward to his appearance that it would be quite shocking if by the end of the third one he just never showed up.

I feel confident that they have enough footage to at least show him meeting the Doctor again if not everything they had in mind. But we'll see.
 
Ugh. Bad news for the writers if true. Definite step backwards.

I think it may have more to do with how Unearthly Child has panned out than anything current. Making it all work for hire Cusick style rather than any kind of residual rights issue.
 
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