Russell T. Davies Returns to Doctor Who as New Showrunner

[The Nth Doctor]

Copying and pasting this from another site I frequent, 'cause I'm lazy.

Another big positive to this? Davies and Moffat are both staunchly pro-Big Finish/EU. Not that Chibnall's anti-Big Finish/EU. He's just not that into it himself. Davies has already collaborated with Big Finish to create the original cast for Series 5 & 6 of Torchwood (Jack, Andy and [Redacted] aside, it was an entirely new cast).

And during his original run he employed fellow EU writers such as Steven Moffat, Mark Gatiss, Paul Cornell, Matt Jones, Gareth "I'm a transphobic piece of shit" Roberts and Robert motherfucking Shearman. Shit. The entire first series was written solely by EU writers!

Not to mention his original plans to have Jo Grant continue to play a recurring role on The Sarah Jane Adventures and bring other Classic Who companions like Ace back as well. What could this mean for the 60th Anniversary special and beyond?

This news also let's me breathe a sigh of relief and just enjoy Chibnall's final nine episodes for what they are instead fretting over the show's creative and financial future. For me, the Chibnall era was NuWho's 5th Doctor/Eric Saward era: A few legit brilliant episodes, a few embarrassingly awful episodes and a whole lot of "Meh. That episode was fine, I guess."

Who knows? The tail end of his two season run on Torchwood was bold and exciting. Maybe lightening will strike twice.

Might be a pipe dream but given that Davies has been fairly enthusiastic about Big Finish and even has an old story of his being adapted and released by them next year, I'd love to see some of the writers from there get a chance to do some TV episodes.

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).

While I would love to see a new series with a new Doctor before the 60th I think it's incredibly optimistic. Even if they have casted already. Between the writing, filming, special effects etc they would have needed to start months ago and considering the age we are in I doubt development would have moved fast.
Maybe all that changes since it's a joint production between BBC and Bad Wolf but introducing a fresh new take to bring back the audience is going to be something that isn't rushed.

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!

 

[StCoop]

While I would love to see a new series with a new Doctor before the 60th I think it's incredibly optimistic. Even if they have casted already. Between the writing, filming, special effects etc they would have needed to start months ago and considering the age we are in I doubt development would have moved fast.

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.

 

[CuriousCaitian]

The funniest reaction I've seen to the news has to be the one from 'The Telegraph' (that's a right-wing newspaper for those who don't know) celebrating the end of Woke Who. I'm guessing they haven't seen "Years and Years" or "It's A Sin"...

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.

 

[JD]

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.

 

[Haggis and tatties]

Fantastic news, can't wait.

 

[OCD Geek]

An important detail from the BBC getting buried here:

With the exception of the Doctor Who TV movie with Paul McGann, Doctor Who has always been produced purely by the BBC. But from 2023 it will be a co-production with Bad Wolf. The production house was founded by Jane Tranter and Julie Gardner who worked alongside Davies during his time on Doctor Who. Tranter was the BBC's head of drama, Gardner was an executive producer on the show. Both are seen as less high profile, but still crucially important parts of Doctor Who's previous success.

Davies' return was also welcomed by Bad Wolf, the production company founded in 2015 by former BBC executives Julie Gardner and Jane Tranter. Gardner and Tranter both worked with Davies on the Doctor Who relaunch and will collaborate with him again when he returns as showrunner.

"We are delighted to be joining Russell T Davies on a looped ontological paradox," said the Bad Wolf Twitter account. "Where Russell goes, we are proud to follow. With BBC Studios, Bad Wolf will be producing the all-new series of Doctor Who. It is a privilege to be asked to support him in Doctor Who's future."

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.

 

[Burning Hearts of Qo'nos]

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!

 

[Steve Roby]

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.

 

[OCD Geek]

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.

 

[Relayer1]

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

 

[StCoop]

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.

 

[Steve Roby]

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.

 

[StCoop]

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.

 

[The Wormhole]

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.

 

[Samurai8472]

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.

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

Galifrey falls!!!!!

 

[diankra]

You know their readers tend to be a little...older.

Old enough to remember "Queer As Folk !". Well, old enough to remember writing to the Telegraph letters page to complain about it.

The dementia must have kicked in...

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

 

[OCD Geek]

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

 

[DigificWriter]

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:

a tall, bald black woman wielding a flaming sword

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.

 

[Australis]

the Timeless Child lore that will have defined Chris Chibnall's tenure is going to be ignored or undone.

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.

 

[DigificWriter]

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.