Russell T. Davies Returns to Doctor Who as New Showrunner

[Relayer1]

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.

Yeah, and I know how popular the RTD years were.

I hope it will be a great return. I hope he will get great writers in, and the show will go forward to new success. I may not think much of RTD as a sci-fi writer but he's a good writer in other areas, and truth be told I think he did a decent job overall bringing the show back.

I'm sad we've lost the chance of some progress with Chris Eccleston but that probably wouldn't have gone any further than Big Finish anyway.

So, not my choice, and I have concerns, but...good luck Russell.

 

[DigificWriter]

^ Eccleston is only doing Big Finish stuff for the money (I heard him say this personally last weekend at a convention in Salt Lake City).

Regarding the 60th Anniversary, I do not think it likely that RTD is going to bring back previous Doctors or Companions for it.

We might get returning adversaries, but I don't see RTD intentionally overshadowing whomever is cast as the 14th Doctor in what will likely be their first full story by putting them onscreen opposite any series alumni.

 

[thribs]

Is that any better? He was okay but he had a habit of building stories which were resolved a bit too quickly. Plus his dialogue was pretty poor.
I’ve never watched the lady doctor stuff but from what I hear, he wasn’t that great either.
Personally I would have got Nick Briggs. I always liked his Big Finish stuff. I’m sure he could do a fun arc for the Doctor

 

[thribs]

Eccleston is only doing Big Finish stuff for the money (I heard him say this personally last weekend at a convention in Salt Lake City).

Isn’t that the reason most people do things?
He sounds like CM Punk.

 

[Relayer1]

^ Eccleston is only doing Big Finish stuff for the money (I heard him say this personally last weekend at a convention in Salt Lake City).

Regarding the 60th Anniversary, I do not think it likely that RTD is going to bring back previous Doctors or Companions for it.

We might get returning adversaries, but I don't see RTD intentionally overshadowing whomever is cast as the 14th Doctor in what will likely be their first full story by putting them onscreen opposite any series alumni.

There's reasons it's called a profession and actors are professionals. It's a job, it doesn't mean there's no emotional connection to it, but it's work.

Guesting as Nine on TV is also professional work, almost certainly better paid. You'd think he'd jump at the chance, and that he won't shows the amount of damage to the relationship.

As previously stated, I have problems with RTD's writing - he was responsible for a lot of the bad episodes during his run, but there's a good chunk of my unhappiness that is due to the BBC handing the keys to the show back to an allegedly abusive clique.

 

[DigificWriter]

^ There isn't an emotional connection to the Ninth Doctor role for Eccleston, though.

 

[Relayer1]

^ There isn't an emotional connection to the Ninth Doctor role for Eccleston, though.

I'd get into a discussion about acting and finding the character within you if I could be arsed, but I can't.

He's also proud of what he did and is on film saying that he was attracted back to the role for Big Finish by the quality of the writing.

He also, very honestly, said he wanted to work to support himself and his family during Covid when there weren't a lot of acting opportunities. Good for him.

He's not a gushing Who fanboy, certainly, but so what ? And he's certainly enjoying conventions and being some peoples Doctor. He didn't do those for ages, money on offer or not.

 

[Lonemagpie]

The other interesting - in a shit way - thing I realised overnight is it's actually his prodco that's doing it (hence Tranter and Gardner being there too), which means they've basically privatised it and split it off from the BBC...

 

[DigificWriter]

@Relayer1 We're going to have to agree to disagree on how emotionally connected to the Ninth Doctor role Eccleston actually is. The impression I received from his panel is that he is a man who has grown to appreciate how connected people still are to the Ninth Doctor but for whom the role is just that.

I'm happy that he's grown to appreciate the level of fondness that fans hold for the Ninth Doctor (which was, as per his own admission, ultimately the impetus behind his decision to begin attending fan conventions after having heretofore felt that doing so was exploitative), but I don't see much change in his own personal connection to the role from what we had previously known about his feelings regarding the show and the circumstances surrounding his decision not to return.

 

[Relayer1]

I'm happy that he's grown to appreciate the level of fondness that fans hold for the Ninth Doctor (which was, as per his own admission, ultimately the impetus behind his decision to begin attending fan conventions after having heretofore felt that doing so was exploitative), but I don't see much change in his own personal connection to the role from what we had previously known about his feelings regarding the show and the circumstances surrounding his decision not to return.

It's all a big Gordian knot of factors though, isn't it ? How is coming to appreciate the fondness that fans hold for the Ninth Doctor not an emotional tie to the character.

Eccleston's never going to be Tenant's "I love the Doctor, it's a dream come true !" fan turned character, but he's engaged on his own terms.

I honestly thought there was a chance for the 60th. Not so now...

 

[Australis]

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.

And what I'm saying is I think he should. It may not be elegant but he should.

 

[StCoop]

Regardless of how I feel about Chibnall's work, I can't help but feel the announcement has been made far too soon. They could at least have let Series 13 and the first Special air before saying anything. I hope they at least keep the next Doctor's identity a secret until after then.

 

[Redfern]

...I can't help but feel the announcement has been made far too soon.

Like it or loathe it, early announcements have pretty much been a staple of DW since it's revival. I mean, two days after the airing of "Rose", headlines ran with "Eccleston leaving Doctor Who!"

I don't know how statements were revealed during the "classic" era as we "bloody Yanks" usually only had outlets like StarLog magazine in the 80s and as such, what we learned was months if not a year after the fact.

 

[Steve Roby]

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.

First, we don't necessarily have the whole story about the Master, Gallifrey, the Cybermen, and the Timeless Child yet.

Second, writers don't write to produce things of redeeming value to the history of Doctor Who, they write what they hope will be surprising and engaging stories for the current audience.

It always struck me funny, reading that a sizable chunk of hardcore Doctor Who fans lost their shit over how The Deadly Assassin portrayed Gallifrey and the Time Lords. But hey, now I get to see that process myself in real time.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

Regardless of how I feel about Chibnall's work, I can't help but feel the announcement has been made far too soon.

Something RTD's quote in the press release acknowledges head on when he says, basically, "let's not get ahead of ourselves, there's still another awesome year of Chinball and Whittaker to watch."

Maybe fifteen years of working with, being around, and writing press releases makes me suspicious, or maybe I've been around politics too long to look at a Friday press release with anything but suspicion, but I have to wonder if a journalist was snooping around, had the story and was going to run it, and the BBC had to get out in front of it to control the message. The news landed on my side of the Atlantic about ten o'clock Friday morning, which is mid-afternoon in Britain, and that's "Friday news dump" time. But, the idea of a show changing producers warranting more attention that a brief notice in Variety is weird to me.

 

[Tomalak]

The other interesting - in a shit way - thing I realised overnight is it's actually his prodco that's doing it (hence Tranter and Gardner being there too), which means they've basically privatised it and split it off from the BBC...

I've seen a few people say this, but it's not true. Bad Wolf is nothing to do with RTD. It was founded by Jane Tranter and Julie Gardner, who, as the BBC Head of Drama and BBC Wales Head of Drama respectively, were the ones who brought RTD back to the BBC to do Doctor Who in 2003, but he has no other connection with Bad Wolf and had never worked for them before as far as I can see.

It's also not privatised by any means. It's a very standard co-production deal under which virtually all BBC programmes have been made since the late eighties. Doctor Who has already had co-production deals, notably with Fox/Universal for the TV Movie. The new series has had deals variously with CBC in Canada and BBC America, but this is the first time production of the show has been farmed out to an independent company since 1996.

The BBC very much still owns and controls Doctor Who!

 

[Tomalak]

Something RTD's quote in the press release acknowledges head on when he says, basically, "let's not get ahead of ourselves, there's still another awesome year of Chinball and Whittaker to watch."

Maybe fifteen years of working with, being around, and writing press releases makes me suspicious, or maybe I've been around politics too long to look at a Friday press release with anything but suspicion, but I have to wonder if a journalist was snooping around, had the story and was going to run it, and the BBC had to get out in front of it to control the message. The news landed on my side of the Atlantic about ten o'clock Friday morning, which is mid-afternoon in Britain, and that's "Friday news dump" time. But, the idea of a show changing producers warranting more attention that a brief notice in Variety is weird to me.

Yeah, it's quite likely one of the Saturday or Sunday papers were going to run the story and bounced the BBC into announcing it.

But I don't think it hurts the new series. Any promotion and awareness of Doctor Who is a good thing, so if they're using this announcement as a way to remind people that there's a new series starting soon, that's awesome!

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

Regardless of how I feel about Chibnall's work, I can't help but feel the announcement has been made far too soon. They could at least have let Series 13 and the first Special air before saying anything. I hope they at least keep the next Doctor's identity a secret until after then.

But as someone said on twitter, there's already some personell hiring been done. So its not like there's not some kind of pre-production being done, but also, you can't deny that this was meant to avoid some kind of leak.

And let's not forget this comes a fairly short while after Chibnall's announcement of leaving.

 

[Qonundrum]

Hopefully they'll get away from modern day Earth. I don't want to set up expectations or judge something that's not yet been made or seen, but - if anything - the show's budget has been large enough to find other planets to utilize and that was RTD's biggest issue, keeping it so earthbound yet a show whose core unique value is the ability to go anywhere in time and space... Am hoping to be pleasantly surprised, but NuWHO - as with Classic - has never been a string of "everything's plum perfect". There are plusses and minuses and every new era has brought in both. RTD's had brought back the Daleks properly, "time can be rewritten"/"fixed point in time", and other things.

 

[Turtletrekker]

Retconning the Timeless child would be ridiculous. They should never cave in to the pathetic whining of offended fanboys. I personally thought the Timeless child was brilliant, not only acknowledging hanging plot thread of the Morbius Doctors, but restoring a sense of mystery to the character that has been missing for some time.