He's back... RTD returns as Doc Who Showrunner...

[BBally81]

People who say ''oh, the show has always been political so your criticisms are invalid'' are missing the point.

There was a balance.

Thirteen has political episode after political episode with nary else in between. In the Classic series you had a political episode, then a fun blowing shit up episode, then a fantasy episode, then a character episode, then a political episode again perhaps.

And even if we want to ignore the Classic series, how many political episodes were there during Nine and Ten's run? Because I have seen them all and I am straining to think of many. There were definitely some that took the piss out of the British Empire and old values such as ''The Idiot's Lantern''. But to say that any of this compares to the infamous Rosa Parks episode is a flat out lie.

You can do politics. But when your show is ONLY politics, and what's more, when your politics is solely left wing, then people are going to turn off.

Except the Chibnall era also had episodes that weren't really political,

In Series 11 there was the debut episode The Woman Who Fell to Earth, Take Me Away, The Ghost Monument, The Tsuranga Conundrum and The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos and the special Resolution, so that's four out of 10 episodes that could be considere "political".

In Series 12 there was, Spyfall Part 1 and 2 (apart from the Nazi aspect that episode wasn't really political), "Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror, Fugitive of the Judoon, Praxeus, The Haunting of Villa Diodati and Revolution of the Daleks (apart from the Jack Robertson character that began as a Trump analogue, that episode wasn't particularly political).

So there was balance, the issue was the show's writing and the fact Chibnall's a bad showrunner, not the fact it was "political".

[MerelyAFan]

A couple general thoughts.

First, this pretty closes the door on Eccleston returning to the series any time soon. He already still had issues with the BBC and his issues with RTD are just as contentious. Basically its Big Finish stuff and cons for the next few years in terms of his Who involvement.

Secondly, while I don't think it suggests the BBC is desperate as I've seen put forth elsewhere, I do think it's a sign they want DW to be event television again. The waning years of the Moffat era and pretty much everything of Chibnall's (outside Jodie's casting) have not really brought much attention to the show, and Davies' recent work has gotten the acclaim that the network would gladly have for Who again.

Moreover, as safe as RTD is for running the show, he was someone that was willing to go in different directions when the show revival started, and he's certain been bold in certain respects for his post-Who work. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if one of his conditions for returning was that he had carte blanche to take the franchise into bolder territory, and that he be trusted enough to not have the BBC meddle too much with it. (Well, that and the chance to do his own anniversary special was also probably a big lure for him too).

Additionally, I suspect that his return might lead to two things. Him either guiding the ship for a bit until they can get the new showrunner BBC have their eyes and/or him mentoring that potential successor until they take over directly a few years from now.

Finally, this is just my own wild speculation, but I suspect with MCU with its various shows doing so well, that the BBC might just have their eye on doing something similar with RTD at the helm. He was the one showrunner to pull off DW related spin-offs with any strong success, and given that Stolen Earth/Journey's End was essentially the Avengers of the Whoniverse, I don't think it's out of the question they might try something similar again, especially given that Davies has been fairly enthusiastic about Big Finish and that its his production company now co-producing the main show.

[Mabus]

Finally, this is just my own wild speculation, but I suspect with MCU with its various shows doing so well, that the BBC might just have their eye on doing something similar with RTD at the helm. He was the one showrunner to pull off DW related spin-offs with any strong success, and given that Stolen Earth/Journey's End was essentially the Avengers of the Whoniverse, I don't think it's out of the question they might try something similar again, especially given that Davies has been fairly enthusiastic about Big Finish and that its his production company now co-producing the main show.

That seriously worries me, if true. Davies was able to pull an Avengers Endgame with that two-parter because, like with the MCU a decade later, he laid down the ground and characters for almost 4 seasons, and made us care for the characters. The payoff was satisfying because the build-up was done properly.
If BBC wants him to do that again, something tells me they'll want it done faster, and instead of an MCU, we'd get either a DCEU or worse, a Dark Universe aka we won't get anything.

[clearspira]

Finally, this is just my own wild speculation, but I suspect with MCU with its various shows doing so well, that the BBC might just have their eye on doing something similar with RTD at the helm. He was the one showrunner to pull off DW related spin-offs with any strong success, and given that Stolen Earth/Journey's End was essentially the Avengers of the Whoniverse, I don't think it's out of the question they might try something similar again, especially given that Davies has been fairly enthusiastic about Big Finish and that its his production company now co-producing the main show.

That seriously worries me, if true. Davies was able to pull an Avengers Endgame with that two-parter because, like with the MCU a decade later, he laid down the ground and characters for almost 4 seasons, and made us care for the characters. The payoff was satisfying because the build-up was done properly.
If BBC wants him to do that again, something tells me they'll want it done faster, and instead of an MCU, we'd get either a DCEU or worse, a Dark Universe aka we won't get anything.

I think Merely A Fan has hit the nail on the head here tbh.

It seems to me though that with the ever-decreasing cost of CGI, the time will be coming where you could have a spin-off with literally any Doctor or any companion and you wouldn't know the difference. Fancy seeing the infamous season 6-B in the flesh? Or what happened to Dr Handy and Rose after Journey's End? Or the remnants of Torchwood team up with the remnants to Sarah Jane's team? Or River Song form a Scooby gang of every other companion? The possibilities are endless. There is over 50 years of material there to already play with in a universe where there pretty much are no rules.

[MerelyAFan]

The big questions if RTD and the BBC go this route are to what degree the shows would be different from the mainline series and how contemporaneous they'd be in terms of the timeline.

Davies' original shared universe had the benefit of essentially three different levels of the kind of content; Sarah Jane Adventures for kids, DW for the family, and Torchwood for older viewers. While a variation of this is likely for a hypothetical shared Whoniverse, the bigger and more necessary contrast might just come from tone. The MCU managed to work by offering varying kinds of movies and shows, so that even if you weren't interested in superhero fare, there was effective comedy in a Guardians of the Galaxy or growing subtle horror in Wandavision. Given the different kinds of established characters, a DW shared universe could pull that off... on paper.

Simply have varying types of series (existential sci-fi, action, drama, comedy) based on whom the characters are and the nature of the circumstances. A grittier and/or Earth based show for Martha Jones, and maybe a lighter and less serious program revolving around Donna Noble. And that's not even getting into companions from the classic series. Having just enough Who elements in such shows to make potential crossovers with other spin-offs and the main one without making them too similar or too jarring would be a balancing act, but it could be pulled off.

Who is specifically unique in that such shows might be set on different worlds and maybe even different times, something that comes with its own upsides and downsides. An obvious benefit is that you wouldn't have to worry about major events having to be addressed if they happen in one of the series. If the Nyssa/Tegan show is set during the late 90s, an invasion of Earth on season 18 of DW set in the current day isn't really a problem.

The problem is that such an approach risks having major contrivances to make crossovers happen and harder to make the tension of them relevant to all the involved audiences of the shows. Someone that only watches the existential sci-fi series with Ashidr and Clara is going to struggle in being interested in what happens to Rose's alternate universe to name just one hypothetical example.

[ProfessorDetective]

Who is specifically unique in that such shows might be set on different worlds and maybe even different times, something that comes with its own upsides and downsides. An obvious benefit is that you wouldn't have to worry about major events having to be addressed if they happen in one of the series. If the Nyssa/Tegan show is set during the late 90s, an invasion of Earth on season 18 of DW set in the current day isn't really a problem.

The problem is that such an approach risks having major contrivances to make crossovers happen and harder to make the tension of them relevant to all the involved audiences of the shows. Someone that only watches the existential sci-fi series with Ashidr and Clara is going to struggle in being interested in what happens to Rose's alternate universe to name just one hypothetical example.

A lot of folks were wanting a Vastra/Jenny/Strax show, for another example.

[MerelyAFan]

On some level, Big Finish has created a blueprint for a lot of this, including spin-offs based around various companions/allies. Granted a lot of it is stuff that's more tailored towards the hardcore DW fanbase (War Master is a fantastic audio series that could be a tough sell towards a general audience), but given RTD has an old script of his being produced and released next year, it's not hard to imagine him getting some ideas from how they've done things.

[sayla0079]

The problem with wanting spinoff TV shows is getting actors back depending on the show; I would love a Galifrey spin-off pre time war on TV but both Louise Jameison and Lalla Ward have aged out of the roles and Lalla left the U.K.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

Who is specifically unique in that such shows might be set on different worlds and maybe even different times, something that comes with its own upsides and downsides. An obvious benefit is that you wouldn't have to worry about major events having to be addressed if they happen in one of the series. If the Nyssa/Tegan show is set during the late 90s, an invasion of Earth on season 18 of DW set in the current day isn't really a problem.

The problem is that such an approach risks having major contrivances to make crossovers happen and harder to make the tension of them relevant to all the involved audiences of the shows. Someone that only watches the existential sci-fi series with Ashidr and Clara is going to struggle in being interested in what happens to Rose's alternate universe to name just one hypothetical example.

A lot of folks were wanting a Vastra/Jenny/Strax show, for another example.

I think Strax should have stayed dead, as fun as he was. He'd reached the end of his character arc with the final words and they just brought him back to life unceremoniously and offscreen. If you were really attached to the actor, he's LITERALLY a member of a clone race.

[Frustration]

I'll admit to not being the biggest expert on classic Dr. Who so it's possible that this commentary doesn't apply as well as I expect, but with that caveat I would say that just because Classic Who addressed some real-world issues it doesn't mean that the modern version being overtly "woke" or addressing political issues can't still amount to reduced quality. I think it's all about how exactly it is/was done.

For instance, after having shown my wife all of TOS Star Trek I wanted to show her some of Star Trek Continues, which I've long considered to be so well done in almost every category that it basically is Star Trek - that if not for the different actors, you'd never be able to tell their episodes from the real thing. Watching through some of them again, I felt almost the same way except I noticed this time through that their social commentary gets I think a lot more "heavy handed" than in the classic series, and it's to the project's detriment.

Yes. Moreover, classic Star Trek is taking minority sociopolitical positions and presenting them to the majority. The most recent Treks are taking majority positions and echoing them back to the majority.

*Any* presentation of an idea can be done poorly. But there is always a difference between challenging the audience and pandering to it, and Trek originally challenged its target audience. Now it tells its audience what they wish to hear.