The long-awaited news about Doctor Who broke yesterday. It wasn’t the news fans hoped for. After a confusing cliffhanger in which Ncuti Gatwa regenerated into Billie Piper, fans at least expected a Christmas special. Showrunner Russell T. Davies even teased that he was working on it. Except there isn’t one and he wasn’t working on one. The BBC is giving it a rest for a bit and putting the series “…out to competitive tender.” That’s code for who knows?
There had been great excitement about the BBC and Disney teaming for 60th anniversary specials and at least two seasons of Doctor Who. Fans got those. It just didn’t work out the way Disney had hoped. Davies’ production company Bad Wolf had assumed the helm, promised a few spin-offs, and cast an incredibly great choice in Gatwa.
We can armchair quarterback all we like. It’s entirely possible that Disney bobbled the marketing outside of established fandom. It could be that Davies’ promise of a soft reset that would be accessible to new viewers wasn’t helped by a frequent return of old monsters and villains. The continuity felt a little daunting. It could be that the writing just didn’t have the novelty and sparkle of Davies’ first time around.
Let us remember that Davies and his team brought the Doctor back after a long “hiatus” and that’s why we’ve had 20 years of “Nu-Who.” David Tennant might argue he’s not the most popular Doctor, as will some fans. But we know what merch sold the best. Despite great success in recreating and writing a smash success for his first tenure, it wasn’t all sunshine, lollipops, and Tardises.
Tennant played the 10th Doctor, but the series returned with the 9th. Christopher Eccleston assumed the role for the first series, but left under a dark cloud. After saying he didn’t want anything to do with the role again, fandom played a part in softening that stance. As long as he didn’t have to have anything to do with Davies and his team.
So Eccleston returned as the 9th Doctor for Big Finish, the company that continues to produce new audio dramas from various eras of Doctor Who. They’ve recorded with most surviving Who actors, going back to the original cast in 1963. Matt Smith and Peter Capaldi have declined to participate, for reasons that seem career driven, not animosity toward the role. Jodie Whittaker has returned along with her companion Mandip Gill, and as a fan, I hope Gatwa will, too. Time tends to amplify the popularity of characters. It’s timey wimey wibbly wobbly that way.
That’s the status of the IP now. To borrow from a show that influenced Davies’ reboot, “where do we go from here?”
I don’t know. Obviously, I have ideas. As do thousands of fans across the internet. But I have a blog.
Competitive tender may be a British way of saying, “we’re just giving it a rest.” Which they did, obviously, for several years while Big Finish and Target Books kept the flame alive. But in all this, there’s still an animated series for small children on the way. Perhaps the BBC would like to hook ’em young and then let those kids hunger for a more sophisticated version. Relaunch from there. It’s not the strangest approach; Disney was allegedly attempting that with The Rocketeer franchise before they pulled back spending on series development.
Regardless of network or producing partner, there’s a need for a good showrunner, which Davies was but maybe updated too far too fast? I loved the two seasons we got, but more for Gatwa’s energy than anything else. J. Michael Straczynski has acknowledged that some fans would like him to step in. He did move to England in order to have a better shot at working in British television. The drawback–at least in his mind–is that the Doctor is quintessentially British. UK fans might not accept an American running the show.
We saw Tennant return as the 14th Doctor. Could Eccleston? Perhaps, but likely more for an event than a commitment to a new series. Some fans have suggested the BBC should do a hard reboot and just start with a new 1st Doctor. Now is not the time for actor speculation, really. Though I’ve seen fun suggestions. Yet Matt Smith was relatively unknown, and his 11th Doctor became one of my favorites, because he was my youngest child’s first Doctor.
And that’s why I care about this show having some kind of future. My youngest and I bonded over it, and when Smith had his farewell, the kid wrote down the monologue. Then they said, “I’m so glad you shared this with me. And someday I’ll get to share another Doctor with my kid. That’s amazing.” Or as the 9th Doctor would say, “fanTAStic!”
Of course, there’s plenty of other Doctors to still catch up on. Before Smith, Kid McCaw’s favorite Doctor was Sylvester McCoy.
I guess we can let it rest a while. But I’d still like to see the spin-off series, The War Between the Land and the Sea. Despite initially saying they’d broadcast it, it hasn’t popped up. It’s a nefarious plot worthy of the Master.
