Scary monsters and bin the spare companions: what Russell T Davies must do to regenerate Doctor Who
Time is running out. Regeneration is on the way. After a divisive few years, the winds of change are blowing through Doctor Who’s time-space continuum.
To the relief of Whovians, award-laden screenwriter Russell T Davies has been announced as the next showrunner, returning to the BBC's sci-fi institution to oversee its 60th anniversary in 2023. And as the Tardis keys get handed over, he’ll be bringing a new Time Lord with him, too.
With ratings down and critics carping, Davies has something of a salvage mission on his hands. So ahead of star Jodie Whittaker and incumbent boss Chris Chibnall’s final full series starting this Sunday (6.25pm on BBC One), we’ve drawn up Davies’s 10-point to-do list…
1. Cast the best Doctor, not the most diverse Doctor
Casting has always been a strength of Davies’s, both in the Whoniverse and elsewhere. He added credibility and dramatic heft to Doctor Who’s risky 2005 revival by luring Christopher Ecclestone into the lead role. He followed this craggy-faced, leather-jacketed enigma with the more crowd-pleasing David Tennant, the best Doctor since Tom Baker.
Davies’s casting has also been head-turningly terrific in his other creations: see Hugh Grant in A Very English Scandal or Emma Thompson in Years & Years. In short, he’s good at this game. It’s anyone’s guess which way he’ll go with the 14th Doctor but unpredictability is a good thing.
We’ve now had a female Doctor so, moving with the times, we might well get a black, Asian, gay or non-binary Time Lord next. There’s even an argument to say that the next Doctor should be an old, straight white man – surely that’s now the most radical casting of all. Like the eternal “next James Bond” debate, the role has become a lightning rod in the culture wars. Davies’s job is to block out all the external noise and simply hire the best candidate. As he said recently: “They’ve got to be limitless. They’ve got to be capable of doing anything.” Too true.
2. Subtle messages, not sledgehammer ones
It’s naive for naysayers to pretend that Doctor Who has only become politically correct in recent years, angrily accusing it of “woke-washing” or a “liberal agenda”. There has always been a political dimension to the venerable old show's storytelling, from anti-war sentiments to the race-based bigotry of the Daleks. Created by and for misfits, Doctor Who is quirky outsider art in a shiny mainstream package.
What’s changed is that this subtext has moved from subtly metaphorical to the more literal level. Recent episodes have been so preachy, watching them is akin to doing GCSE history homework while being thwacked over the head with a rolled-up copy of The Guardian.
A writer of Russell T Davies’s undoubted talents is easily capable of reigning in such clumsiness. He should make the moral themes allegorical again, rather than ham-fistedly overt. We probably don’t need any more episodes about civil rights or climate change, cheers.
3. Only one companion but a good one
Davies should be fine with this point, since he favoured a single companion during his first stint in charge. Initially he created Rose Tyler (Billie Piper), the most beloved sidekick of the “NuWho” era. She was followed during Davies’s tenure by the middling Martha Jones (Freema Agyeman) and the much better Donna Noble (Catherine Tate).
Sure, the likes of Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman) and Mickey Smith (Noel Clarke – awkward) joined for occasional adventures but Davies knew that maximum chemistry came from two Tardis travellers sparking off each other. It provided room to properly develop their characters, luxuriate in their dialogue and explore their relationship. OK, sometimes with the sole addition of a cute robot dog.
It wasn’t until the past decade that the Tardis grew annoyingly overcrowded. First came married couple Amy Pond and Rory Williams (Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill), sometimes joined by River Song (Alex Kingston). Then we had Bill Potts and Nardole (Pearl Mackie and Matt Lucas). Most recently, we've been saddled with the weak trio of Ryan, Graham and Yaz (Tosin Cole, Bradley Walsh and Mandip Gill). Let’s strip it back to the Doctor, a single companion and a whole universe of possibilities.
4. Make the monsters scary again
Jumps and jolts are a key part of Doctor Who's DNA. As Mary Whitehouse memorably said, the series is “teatime terror for tots”. The whole “hiding behind the sofa” thing is a cliché because it used to be true.
When was the last time you were genuinely given the creeps by Doctor Who? Probably the odd episode during the Peter Capaldi era, notably the one with a shrouded creature in that inescapable creepy castle. Worryingly, that was six years ago.
Let’s not overthink it, worry unduly about Ofcom complaints or patronisingly assume that modern audiences are delicate snowflakes who can’t handle the occasional nightmare. Two of the biggest Netflix phenomena of recent years have been Squid Game and Stranger Things – both pretty frightening fare. Let’s drive Doctor Who viewers behind the soft furnishings again.
5. Make the monsters memorable too
Can you remember a single new monster from the Jodie Whittaker episodes? Me neither. The Doctor’s last truly unforgettable original foe was arguably the Weeping Angels, those killer statues first seen in 2007’s brilliant Blink – hence the stony-faced stalkers being dusted down several times since.
Near the top of Davies’s in-tray, then, will be a brief to conjure up some cool new baddies. There’s been an over-reliance on old faithfuls such as the Daleks, Cybermen, Sontarans and the Master for too long. Ex-ter-minate tired ideas and let's have some fresh blood.
6. Restore it to Saturday nights and Christmas Day
In the Noughties, the Davies-helmed Doctor Who restored proper drama to the Saturday primetime schedules, which had become too dominated by light entertainment formats, quizzes and talent shows. During Chibnall’s stewardship, however, the show has been shunted to Sunday nights and never quite found its place. What’s more, the annual Christmas Day special has become a New Year’s Day fixture instead. Both moves felt like change for change’s sake.
A Saturday teatime slot would please traditionalists and be more family-friendly, while January 1 simply doesn’t have the seasonal magic of December 25. Besides, BBC One is hardly spoilt for choice when it comes to franchises to turn into festive specials. There’s Strictly Come Dancing, Call the Midwife, Gavin & Stacey, the much-maligned Mrs Brown’s Boys and, er, that’s about it.
Bring back Christmas specials with killer trees, alien snowmen, Dickensian atmospherics and perhaps an appearance from Santa himself. It’s also the perfect excuse for special guest stars – see Kylie Minogue (RIP, Astrid Peth from Christmas 2007) and Michael Gambon (who bah-humbugged and kept Katherine Jenkins in a fishtank at Christmas 2010).
7. Expand the “brand”
Yes, modern marketing-speak is annoying but Doctor Who has vast potential for spin-offs. This has largely gone untapped since the days of Torchwood, The Sarah Jane Adventures and the short-lived Class.
Davies has one eye on this already. Prophetically, considering he’d not signed up to return at the time, he recently reflected on his first tenure thus: “I was in the middle of running an empire. And my god, I did that 10 years too soon, didn’t I? There should be a Doctor Who channel now. Look at those Disney announcements, all those new Star Wars and Marvel shows. You think, we should be sitting here announcing The Nyssa Adventures or The Return of Donna Noble. You should have the 10th and 11th Doctors together in a 10-part series. Genuinely.”
There’s scope to expand into an entire fictional Whoniverse of live-action off-shoots, period prequels and animated adventures, not to mention books, games and audio. International sales and a multimedia empire could be a valuable income source for the BBC. And in Davies, the Corporation has a man with sufficient vision to steer it all.
8. Unite the generations
Yes, Doctor Who needs to win back younger viewers who’ve been tempted away by streaming services, YouTube and TikTok. But in doing so, it mustn’t alienate older audiences. It should be a rare programme that children, teenagers, parents and grandparents can enjoy together – all squeezed up on the sofa, with snacks to hand and cushions to clutch.
During his first tenure, Davies cleverly combined fresh-faced talent with craggy character actors such as Derek Jacobi, Richard Wilson, Zo? Wanamaker, Penelope Wilton, Pauline Collins and Bernard Cribbins. He also brought back Elisabeth Sladen as classic companion Sarah-Jane Smith, alongside metallic pooch K-9. Something for recent converts and long-term fans alike? Affirmative, Master.
By the same token, he should mix up stories’ settings between the past, present and future. Historical figures should appear one week, alien dystopias the next. The beauty of Who is in its eclectic blend. Don’t stereotype or marginalise. Cross boundaries. Keep it broad.
9. Make us laugh, make us cry
Consider the David Tennant/Billie Piper era – the show’s 21st century heyday, both in terms of ratings and critical acclaim. It had daft romps involving farting aliens, vampire schoolteachers and pigs in spacesuits. Yet it also had tragic deaths and heart-wrenching separations.
Davies demonstrated that he was a big-hearted writer who could do gut-punch emotion and genuinely funny jokes, as well as epic sci-fi plotting. As seen in his recent dramas A Very English Scandal, Years & Years and It’s a Sin, he’s lost none of that ability to combine giddy fun with poignancy, making viewers laugh and cry within the same episode.
This light touch when it comes to tackling big themes will be vital upon his return to Doctor Who. As Davies put it recently, his writing is “like life itself – sad one minute, sunny the next, and not a hair’s breadth between the two”.
10. Bring back surprises and magic
Sadly for such a crown jewel of our culture, Doctor Who has become eminently missable in recent years. Russell T Davies has the imagination, passion and flair to make it must-see TV again.
Its heroes should be mercurial, its villains charismatic. There should be rug-pulling plot twists and agonising cliffhangers, surprise cameos and shock comebacks, unexpected romances and edgy jokes. After all, if Davies’s widely welcomed return demonstrates anything, it’s that Doctor Who is at its best when it’s unpredictable.
