Russell T. Davies Returns to Doctor Who as New Showrunner

[Rich Watson]

A bunch of new semi-spoliery shooting photos confirming several returning actors.

You'll have to hold your nose to visit the Daily Mail website to see them though.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowb...companion-Millie-Gibson-Jonah-Hauer-King.html

 

[Rich Watson]

The Christmas Special will feature will feature a "show-stopping musical number" composed by Murray Gold, with lyrics from Russell T. Davies featuring Ncuti Gatwa, Millie Gibson and a cast of Goblins.

https://www.tvzoneuk.com/post/doctor-who-boss-reveals-episode-title-from-next-series

 

[Captaindemotion]

So not content with being a great actor and looking like a million dollars, NG can also sing? Anyone else beginning to hate him?

 

[Rich Watson]

Shockingly the people who claim after every episode that they're not going to watch again have already started preemptively claiming they won't be watching after this one.

If only they actually meant it.

 

[Samurai8472]

RTD while talking about “The Giggle” drops hints at a something controversial/ it’ll change the doctor forever type of thing

Stay tuned for the in-vision commentary for The Giggle. as Russel will lay out his new controversial vision for the program

https://twitter.com/tvukzone/status/1732436492465684761

Russell T. Davies in Doctor Who Magazine: "...there will be controversial events in [The Giggle]. If you watched the commentary on iPlayer, I unroll a whole new #DoctorWho mythology for you, based around the events taking place... The commentary will have information that will rock the world... it's a whole new way of of looking at the history of Doctor Who and I can't wait to see the reaction."

 

[Starkers]

I can't help thinking RTD may be trolling fans by this point. I don't see what's to be gained by changing the mythology, but only changing it for people who listen to the commentary.

"For 60 years you thought the Doctor was right handed but no, it turns out they were left handed all along! Mwahahahaha!"

 

[David cgc]

My read is that the "controversy" will be apparent to anyone watching, but the commentary will talk more about what it'll affect going forward. Based on the rumors and speculation I haven't successfully avoided, I have my suspicions of what it might be.

 

[Samurai8472]

The Doctor- OOH! Pears I love pears!

dundundun!!!!!


RTD- This will forever change how we view the doctor

 

[Jedman67]

My read is that the "controversy" will be apparent to anyone watching, but the commentary will talk more about what it'll affect going forward. Based on the rumors and speculation I haven't successfully avoided, I have my suspicions of what it might be.

I don't want to know. I want to watch the episode knowing nothing and then figure it out after.

 

[Marc]

The Doctor- OOH! Pears I love pears!

dundundun!!!!!


RTD- This will forever change how we view the doctor

Well at least a pear a day never kept the, well you know away

 

[Samurai8472]

Is this going to be a "No turning back now" moment for people? Some who will stick with whatever is coming or some that will ditch?

Next season is apparently going to upset some fans

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/20...hobox&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1701904918-1

-We've got a musical number with goblins coming up
-A musical episode
-An episode with no dialogue at all?

 

[jaime]

Is this going to be a "No turning back now" moment for people? Some who will stick with whatever is coming or some that will ditch?

Next season is apparently going to upset some fans

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/20...hobox&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1701904918-1

-We've got a musical number with goblins coming up
-A musical episode
-An episode with no dialogue at all?

I dunno if I will stick for the episode with no SF&F elements at all when the Doctor comes home and finds his mum dead.

 

[Haggis and tatties]

The Doctor- OOH! Pears I love pears!

dundundun!!!!!


RTD- This will forever change how we view the doctor

The first episode will see the doctor fight for his very existence as he stands trial on planet jelly baby on charges of mass murder and cannibalism. Lol

 

[Samurai8472]

The Christmas Special will feature will feature a "show-stopping musical number" composed by Murray Gold, with lyrics from Russell T. Davies featuring Ncuti Gatwa, Millie Gibson and a cast of Goblins.

https://www.tvzoneuk.com/post/doctor-who-boss-reveals-episode-title-from-next-series

Details on the Christmas special musical number, it's called "The Goblin Song" and is being released as a Children In Need Charity Record next week (December 11th). It'll also have a music video which will include footage from The Church On Ruby Road


https://www.doctorwho.tv/news-and-features/doctor-who-releases-christmas-single-the-goblin-song

 

[Starkers]

Is this going to be a "No turning back now" moment for people? Some who will stick with whatever is coming or some that will ditch?

Next season is apparently going to upset some fans

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/20...hobox&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1701904918-1

-We've got a musical number with goblins coming up
-A musical episode
-An episode with no dialogue at all?

Why did I read the comments

Has Dr Who ever been consistently hard science? I mean maybe in Tom's final series but beyond that? Surely the hook of Who (one of the hooks) is that it can be anything so you can have fantasy one episode and sci-fi the next?

If he wants to really shock us RTD should do a pure historical!

 

[jaime]

The Ghost of JNT really found it easier to whisper to RTD and Chibs didn’t he.

 

[Mudd]

The idea of this show as "hard science fiction" is an absolute hoot. It's never been anything of the kind, even if early on it did assay to be "educational" from time to time. It's essentially a huge fantasy space opera series.

 

[Samurai8472]

It’s amazing how quickly people turned on RTD

They were so excited about his return but then they see his comments about Davros and “ a male-presenting Time Lord will never understand“ and the pronouns scene

“Welp. RTD’s ruined WHO now”

 

[Qonundrum]

To those who prefer Doctor Who as being a mixture of sci-fi and fantasy, or especially those who really like the harder-edge sci-fi and keeping fantasy elements minimal:

Doctor Who boss says show is "taking a sly step towards fantasy" | Radio Times

Which is invariably up to individual tastes, and it's genuinely nice to get a spoiler for the upcoming format change by the producer. Previous producers didn't do that and people got shocked, so I'm ambivalent on this issue. (Other examples include JNT's era being a bit of a shock compared to its previous season and the media lambasting how silly and tired it felt before he took over (what, no cries of demanding Verity Lambert return?), when Hartnell regenerated into Troughton and promptly followed by angry letters to the BBC about the show becoming "Coco the clown", so it's not like any of this is new. Just different.)

And possibly it's more like "overt" and not "sly", though it is a "wait and see" for now, though the show in 2005 had great examples of hard sci-fi in "Dalek" where the Doctor, of all people, spits "That Dalek just absorbed the entire internet!" by using its sucker arm to smash a cheap TN-panel VGA monitor and in a matter of under 5 seconds since that's how it all works... that's even worse than when the second Doctor got global cooling mixed up with the ingenious line of "no plants, no carbon dioxide" -- a problem that the novelization took care of, however. Which proves a greater point in buying into the universe being told... the show's done better, before and after, in having some genuine facts melded with fantastical elements.. then comes the sonic screwdriver, for which I'll side with Andrew Carmel's take, and he did fantasy elements pretty good too... https://www.doctorwhotv.co.uk/andre...-depletes-the-mystery-of-doctor-who-93918.htm

 

[Qonundrum]

It’s amazing how quickly people turned on RTD

They were so excited about his return but then they see his comments about Davros and “ a male-presenting Time Lord will never understand“ and the pronouns scene

“Welp. RTD’s ruined WHO now”

RTD didn't ruin the show any more than JNT or Williams or Lambert or any other showrunner had. It's just the style and feel of the shows and how to attract audiences. RTD and Chibnall are friends, but that doesn't mean they toe the line, but do agree on some things. The Timeless Children has some clever ideas and a novel attempt to get around the regeneration limit issue, regardless of execution and dialogue attributed. How did people think RTD would react to TCC? Nobody really knew at the time, but the number of guesses weren't as many. It's still not much of a surprise - especially about the fans of the old RTD era - as the whole gamut of responses to the last two specials plus "Tardis tales" still proves it's still about individual audiences' tastes. As with Chibnall and everyone preceding, some old fans will go and some new ones will come in and each showrunner makes the show different. Rinse and repeat, it's always been that way.

Now if the ratings continue to tumble, that'll really be fun to gauge. With sympathy; if people returned only because "it's Tennant, squee!" then the show might be in big trouble if he leaves and all the claims of another carbon copy of him will always be around aren't the case. But I've read posts (X, Reddit, etc, etc ad nauseum) on how the show was supposedly in dire straits so they brought back RTD. I've also read claims claiming equally that the show was never that bad off and still doing a great job in the age of streaming, et cetera - in which case, RTD's return isn't due to the show being in dire straits. Never mind the inevitable, the show would still have to do something new with a new showrunner in the future. If current fans are upset about the show now vs 15 years ago, like how some fans of the show in 1985 were upset over how it wasn't like in 1970, or how the show wasn't in 1967 like how it was in 1963 thanks to those mailings about "Coco the clown" ... again, on some level it's always been the same rinse'n'repeat.