Spoilers Russell T. Davies Returns to Doctor Who as New Showrunner

[Rich Watson]

Not very exciting in terms of news but Prince Edward visited Wolf Studios in September and the TARDIS set was still very much intact and ready for use.

William steps aboard Doctor Who’s Tardis in visit to Bad Wolf Studios

The Prince of Wales met trainees who have come through the company’s Screen Alliance Wales training initiative.

www.standard.co.uk

 

[Allyn Gibson]

Edward is the Duke of Edinburgh. You mean William, the Duke of Cambridge. (Wales has no prince. Wales needs no prince.) It's right there in the headline.

 

[Rich Watson]

Edward is the Duke of Edinburgh. You mean William, the Duke of Cambridge. (Wales has no prince. Wales needs no prince.) It's right there in the headline.

I couldn't care less about mixing up one parasite for another TBH.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

I couldn't care less about mixing up one parasite for another TBH.

That's fine. I'm no monarchist myself, and I'm not sure who the current Jacobite claimant is. I'm merely pointing out your inability to accurately crib from the headline you posted.

 

[oktay]

Billie Piper and David Tennant reveal hopes for Doctor Who movie - and pitch their return

"We're available!"

www.radiotimes.com

 

[The Nightmare Doctor]

Billie Piper and David Tennant reveal hopes for Doctor Who movie - and pitch their return

"We're available!"

www.radiotimes.com

Welcome to the last page.

 

[camdudetenger2018]

lol i wonder when doctor who 2023 aka doctor who 2005 is gonna return

 

[Allyn Gibson]

Seriously though they can't keep returning to the Tennant well. I get he was hugely popular and while he's by far not my favourite modern Doctor it isn't like I didn't like him in the role, but the point about Doctor Who is change, that's part of what's kept it going all these years and the show is more than just Tennant- heck Matt was just as popular.

I would think that Tennant is enough of a Doctor Who fanboy to know himself that the show can't keep returning to him if it wants to go forward and that he and Piper said they would do a movie because they were in front of a convention crowd and were telling them what they want to hear...

...and yet, Georgia had to say she would divorce him if he returned to Doctor Who again, which indicates that she knows he will. In a heartbeat.

I'm all for bringing people back in inventive ways (Piper is fantastic in The Day of the Doctor because she isn't Rose) but one of the things I didn't like about the Fourteenth Doctor was that he was almost indistinguishable from the Tenth.

I thought Tennant would do something different with Fourteen -- maybe a Scottish accent at a minimum? -- but, yeah, he's just Ten but physically older.

The Specials undoubtedly gave the franchise a shot in the arm but I wonder if it was a bad idea in hindsight, not only did it set the bar higher for Ncuti than if he'd simply been following Whittaker, but the whole bi-generation thing didn't help, hey remember that other Doctor you really liked, guess what, he's still around!

Same thought here.

 

[Turtletrekker]

I thought Fourteen was very distinct from Ten. Ten couldn't even bring himself to say that he loved Rose when he thought he was never going to see her again, but we had Fourteen saying "God I loved that man" about Wilf without even thinking about it.

 

[oktay]

Of course, the big question is how would one make such a film accessible for non-Whovians, especially if Piper and Tennant presumably return as their recent Doctor incarnation and all of the baggage that comes with them.

If such a film is made, it needs to be made in a way that people who haven't seen Doctor Who can understand, just like the old Star Trek films. So, using only David Tannet or Billie Piper, giving them a completely new companion, not mentioning anything that happened in the show, and explaining the origins of the Doctor for the "theater" audience, making it a film they can fully understand.

 

[Captaindemotion]

I think if they ever do a DW film (and I’m not convinced they ever will - remember the one david Yates was supposed to be doing about a decade ago), the Cushing movies aren’t a bad template to follow. No continuity from the series, make it its own thing but maybe borrow from the best of the tv show in terms of plot or story. You have a reasonably big name (but someone who is Doctor-ish) in the lead, but is his or her own doctor, they’re not 1,4,10 or whoever. Just make it an accessible fun film in the mould of the tv show.

 

[jaime]

If such a film is made, it needs to be made in a way that people who haven't seen Doctor Who can understand, just like the old Star Trek films. So, using only David Tannet or Billie Piper, giving them a completely new companion, not mentioning anything that happened in the show, and explaining the origins of the Doctor for the "theater" audience, making it a film they can fully understand.

I don’t think it would go that far, nor need to. At the end of the day, it it’s domestic market there’s more than enough familiarity. (Side note: as with the Bond movies, I laugh when Brit films are declared having a bad domestic box office — by which such discussions usually mean US Box Office.)

I think the old Trek films don’t particularly do that either — there’s zero explanation about the past in TMP or TWOK. TVH had a sort of ‘previously on’ for world markets covering the events of the last two films, but at no point was anything laid out in the films particularly. It was just cultural osmosis.

In terms of Who movies, and why it never really made another jump to screen after the Amicus Dalek films, well — Who fans would want the continuity, and a general audience that might be tempted to see it would expect it to be thee even if it wasn’t these days.
Historically, that meant a totally different continuity (the amicus films, the aborted ‘last of the time lords’ project in the nineties) or simply putting feature length episodes out on a cinematic release. Which has been done well (Day of the Doctor) poorly (the recent finales) and mediocre (also the finales if I am being more kind, but also I think Deep Breath no?)

I think dragging those two back for an attempt to take it to the big screen just plain wouldn’t work — if it’s about international audiences, then Smith and Gillan are bigger in every conceivable way. Even Moffat is bigger internationally than RTD.

All of which is just a long way of saying I don’t think it would work, and would be a misfire to attempt.
Twenty years time as a cinematic reboot? Maybe.
While the show is still nominally in the public consciousness?
Will do more harm than good.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

I think if they ever do a DW film (and I’m not convinced they ever will - remember the one david Yates was supposed to be doing about a decade ago),

I feel Yates did make his Doctor Who film. It's just called Fantastic Beasts (and its sequels), and Newt Scamander is the Doctor in look and style.

Neil Gaiman wrote long ago that the real business of Hollywood is meetings, and only sometimes do movies happen.

 

[Captaindemotion]

I feel Yates did make his Doctor Who film. It's just called Fantastic Beasts (and its sequels), and Newt Scamander is the Doctor in look and style.

Neil Gaiman wrote long ago that the real business of Hollywood is meetings, and only sometimes do movies happen.

I think Matt Smith auditioned for the lead, further emphasising the similarities.

 

[Steve Roby]

I saw at least the first two Fantastic Beasts movies because my wife was interested. I remember very little about them except that they looked like they cost a lot of money to make, and they were long, or at least felt that way.

 

[JD]

If such a film is made, it needs to be made in a way that people who haven't seen Doctor Who can understand, just like the old Star Trek films. So, using only David Tannet or Billie Piper, giving them a completely new companion, not mentioning anything that happened in the show, and explaining the origins of the Doctor for the "theater" audience, making it a film they can fully understand.

If they were to go that route, I don't think any of that would be necessary, you compare this to the Star Trek movies, but they were the complete opposite of what you're talking about here. We got all of the original cast back, they did mention things that happened on the show, and they never explained the origins of the crew.
If they were going to bring back a Doctor and companion pairing then David Tennant and Billie Piper would be the most obvious since they are probably the most famous pair and the one that the public would probably have the best chance of having at least being aware of. I'm not sure if it was when the show was getting the biggest ratings, but it did seem to be when the show was getting the most attention.

I think if they ever do a DW film (and I’m not convinced they ever will - remember the one david Yates was supposed to be doing about a decade ago), the Cushing movies aren’t a bad template to follow. No continuity from the series, make it its own thing but maybe borrow from the best of the tv show in terms of plot or story. You have a reasonably big name (but someone who is Doctor-ish) in the lead, but is his or her own doctor, they’re not 1,4,10 or whoever. Just make it an accessible fun film in the mould of the tv show.

I'm not sure if that would be the best way to go about it, thanks to things like Star Wars, Marvel, and DC people are more likely to expect it to be in continuity with the series, so people would be more confused if it wasn't in continuity with the show. If they want to treat a movie as kind of a relaunch of the series, I would more or less do what the McGann movie and the first season of New Who did, and pick up with a new Doctor and a new companion, but still acknowledge the show and it's history.

 

[Captaindemotion]

If they want to treat a movie as kind of a relaunch of the series, I would more or less do what the McGann movie and the first season of New Who did, and pick up with a new Doctor and a new companion, but still acknowledge the show and it's history.

But the 1996 movie and NuWho’s first episode Rose were very different in how they treated the new or casual viewer. The former had Dalek voices in an early scene, a returning foe in the form of the Master and McCoy returning as The Doctor for the first half hour or so. You didn’t see the new Doctor until well into the movie. There was a lot of baggage for someone coming into it blind. Whereas Rose started off from her POV, there was no confusing change of Doctor mid-episode and while the baddies had appeared in an old Pertwee episode, that was more of an Easter egg to longterm viewers, the Doctor wasn’t talking about how one of his greatest nemeses had been kills by another.

Indeed, for some time, many viewers argued about whether or not this was an actual continuation of the old show, IIRC.

Both options are valid but I don’t think you can say that you’d “more or less do what they did”, seeing as they’re fairly different.

 

[Judge Death]

Say what you like about RTD, Rose is a great introduction to Doctor Who for new viewers, you don't have to have any prior knowledge of the show or its tropes. There's a vague reference to regeneration when he comments on his ears but I bet that passed a lot of people by, but anyone who knows about Doctor Who would know it referenced regeneration.

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

Rose is a masterstroke. Best intro for any new fan, period.

Which makes his decision to rewrite The Reality War genuinely baffling. Why does it have to end with a regeneration? Why not replicate Survival so that, the next start can be as surprising as Rose was?

 

[jaime]

Rose is a masterstroke. Best intro for any new fan, period.

Which makes his decision to rewrite The Reality War genuinely baffling. Why does it have to end with a regeneration? Why not replicate Survival so that, the next start can be as surprising as Rose was?

Because they’re *his* toys now. He came back to save the show, and it would probably (and is I imagine) cause sadness to him if he actually finishes it off instead. Even the 60th was a celebration of how his version of the show was so great and wonderful, and how bad it’s been since he went away (that’s alright then!) but it’s ok, because now he’s back! (But we’ll just keep Tennant in the back pocket, just in case…)
Billie is there to do much the same thing, but also to leave a very specific finger in a very specific page, or a towel on a sun lounger. Because one day, He shall come back. And we must go forwards in all our beliefs, as — *scratchhhhhh*

Even ignoring the end of Reality War, that finale was more of a sign of not having a handle on things. More so when you consider The Story & The Engine was almost a metaphorical re-telling of the story of Omega and the Time Lords, and we still had whatever the feck was happening in that finale just an episode or two later. He’s writing for a New Audience he can’t quite understand, and has forgotten or ignored the Old Audience (or pushed them away) because he has lost contact with those too. I’m not sure he’s even writing for *himself* even, but perhaps, and that’s not usually a good sign in these things.

He also doesn’t have or doesn’t really use what he had in 2005 — a bunch of writers and concepts that were ready to be part of the show. All he has left is the addicted Moffat, and using him is kind of a break-glass option, and doesn’t play well with the ego he now has.

Perhaps he’s just one of those writers who can start a thing well, but is terrible at through lines and resolution. He’s only really managed it once, and ironically that was *helped* by having his lead go out the door. Maybe one-and-a-half and again helped by the weight of a lead actor parting ways as it were, an accidentally advantageous doomsday.
His plans always lack what might be called trap-door writing though, and so they get derailed usually, and we really notice that on screen.