Russell Two Davies

[Nick R]

Apparently, today there was some news about a change to Doctor Who’s production staff, in some obscure behind-the-scenes role. I don’t know if anyone else heard about it?

Topic

[Dave]

I think May 2025 – October 2028 is a gap of time just long enough for people to miss the show, the previous era to fade from the public consciousness and a brand new era to have enough distance, without the gap being torturously long to the point of being a second Wilderness Years. 

Yeah I agree. I think a short break will be good for the show and will draw a line under the previous era. They still have the Billie problem to deal with, of course, but there are ways around that.

[Ian Symes]

A shot of the TARDIS in space with the caption “Three Years Later”, and then we find the Seventeenth Doctor in situ.

[Dave]

A shot of the TARDIS in space with the caption “Three Years Later”, and then we find the Seventeenth Doctor in situ.

I would suggest a storyline in which the Doctor travels to another dimension and finds out his adventures are just a TV show with a geeky fanbase, but Doctor Who would obviously never stoop to that level.

[Professor Flibble]

Doctor Who does Blade Runner meets Coronation Street

[Nick R]

Doctor Who does Blade Runner meets Coronation Street

Dimensions in Time 2: The Battle of Ranskoor Av Corrie

[Ian Symes]

Bringing back the following Doctor Who characters:

And these Coronation Street characters:

[Professor Flibble]

Idk about him.

[Ian Symes]

Still technically more likely to return than Geoff Hinsliff or William Russell, tbf.

[Professor Flibble]

Which is a shame, really. 

Well, I say that as though it wasn’t remarkable enough William Russell actually did come back at all.

[Ben Saunders]

I would suggest a storyline in which the Doctor travels to another dimension and finds out his adventures are just a TV show with a geeky fanbase, but Doctor Who would obviously never stoop to that level.

I know this is in reference to Back to Earth, but this also happened in the Gatwa Episode Lux, which I don’t know if you’ve seen and know about. 

[Dave]

I know this is in reference to Back to Earth, but this also happened in the Gatwa Episode Lux, which I don’t know if you’ve seen and know about. 

That was meant to be the joke yes.

[Professor Flibble]

Oh, I just assumed he had seen it. 

I’d say let’s be grateful Series 15 of Doctor Who wasn’t set in a prison but I actually wouldn’t mind a series of Doctor Who set in an alien prison. Would be more interesting than just exiling the Doctor to Earth again.

At least start an era like that, the Doctor breaks out of space prison with a couple of loveable alien rogues as the companions

[Ben Saunders]

That was meant to be the joke yes.

Shit!

[Renegade Rob]

I know it fell through because of budget and logistical reasons, but I always liked the original idea of the Doctor going to the Shadow Proclamation and dealing with a whole bunch of alien species at once, like a shared community. There’s a little of this in that scene in the space cantina with Captain Jack in The End of Time, but I’d love an era of Doctor Who that minimized Earth. It’s frankly weird that the Doctor is ALWAYS hanging out on Earth, like a college kid who can’t hack it socially in college so keeps retreating back to hang with his friends who are still in high school. It would be cool to see an era that goes full Mass Effect and just has like a consistent community/government of different alien species and deals with the politics of that. Like Coruscant in the Star Wars prequels, where there’s a home hub setting that isn’t modern day London. 

[Professor Flibble]

I know it fell through because of budget and logistical reasons, but I always liked the original idea of the Doctor going to the Shadow Proclamation and dealing with a whole bunch of alien species at once, like a shared community. There’s a little of this in that scene in the space cantina with Captain Jack in The End of Time, but I’d love an era of Doctor Who that minimized Earth. It’s frankly weird that the Doctor is ALWAYS hanging out on Earth, like a college kid who can’t hack it socially in college so keeps retreating back to hang with his friends who are still in high school. It would be cool to see an era that goes full Mass Effect and just has like a consistent community/government of different alien species and deals with the politics of that. Like Coruscant in the Star Wars prequels, where there’s a home hub setting that isn’t modern day London. 

YES.

[Warbodog]

Anything new would be interesting, but they’ll just remake the default settings again until fans reach their personal limits of how many times they need to watch that.

[Renegade Rob]

While I do want a less Earth-centric cosmic galactic-oriented Who, if they do go to Earth, I want me some more of those good old-fashioned Hartnell historicals with no alien intruders and they literally just have to survive the Aztecs and the French Revolution and the OK Corral. 

(Oh and also, anything less than 13 episodes per series is utter utter bullshit. That “premiere/two one-offs/two-parter/two more one-offs/an awesome prestige two-parter/two more one-offs with the second maybe teeing up the finale/two-parter finale” model wasn’t broken and they shouldn’t have ever deviated from that. I like consistency damn it. 3 or 8-episode Red Dwarf is balls. 6 episodes = fuck yeah.)

[Flap Jack]

It may not have been broken from an audience perspective, but it absolutely was broken from a production perspective. Spending 9 months of the year in active production was not sustainable, and even under RTD they were burned out after 4 series. Then under Moffat they were barely able to manage doing that for even 2 series in a row.

Maybe they could make it work if they had the budget to hire enough people to cover the workload (e.g. so the showrunner doesn’t have to write 5-8 of the episodes as well as rewriting most of the others), but not just if they did it in the same way they did it before.

Personally I can see myself being fully satisfied with an 8-10 episode count if they’re all multi-parters (and they’re generally good).

[Doomitron]

I know this is in reference to Back to Earth, but this also happened in the Gatwa Episode Lux, which I don’t know if you’ve seen and know about. 

I don’t know how that part wasn’t universally reviled.

[Technopeasant]

[Doomitron]

[Asclepius]

A shot of the TARDIS in space with the caption “Three Years Later”, and then we find the Seventeenth Doctor in situ.

The numbers are ridiculous now, aren’t they? Eccleston was The Doctor. Tennant was the one after him, and then it starts getting bogged down in numbers of regenerations, fake regenerarions, Mayfly Doctors, Doctors from unknown times.

Scrap the numbering again.

[Doomitron]

The War and Curator Doctors were already playing with fire (even though I thought they worked) but I really can’t get over Tennant as 14, its going to be the nadir for me.

[Ben Saunders]

If they’re going to slash the episode count, I would prefer if they just spaced out a single “season” across two years in that case. Treat it as two separate recording blocks, but have the narrative stretch out over what would have been one series’ worth of episodes ten years ago. Then lock your actors in for at least six years with the threat of violence.

[Professor Flibble]

Ooh the Fugitive Doctor’s got a sonic screwdriver 

[Ben Saunders]

Very screwdrivery.

[Professor Flibble]

I like that the Fugitive Doctor’s getting her own things now, an outfit variant, a sonic screwdriver, stories with Daleks, a multimedia event centred around her, she’s on all the Doctor posters. I don’t care for the Timeless Child arc but I like that she can exist as a legitimate incarnation beyond it

[Professor Flibble]

Also nice to have a sonic screwdriver that actually looks like a sonic screwdriver 

[Warbodog]

[Doomitron]

I could do without the pen clip.

[Ben Saunders]

It does look like a pen, actually. When I said “yep, that looks like a screwdriver”, I think I actually meant pen.

[Doomitron]

It does look like a pen, actually. When I said “yep, that looks like a screwdriver”, I think I actually meant pen.

[Professor Flibble]

I could do without the pen clip.

Ahem, Troughton, ahem

[Unrumble]

[Technopeasant]

I mean, being a technician he arguably should.

[Jenuall]

To be fair you do get those voltage tester screwdrivers which have that kind of clip on them so it’s not too crazy:

[Author]

Replies