Russell T Davies wants to talk about the next Doctor Who showrunner.
We’re back in August 2021, just a couple of weeks after Chris Chibnall announced he was departing the BBC series and with intense speculation raging about his successor.
Ex-series boss Davies, meanwhile, had made a surprise return to the Whoniverse thanks to the production of a “lost” script he’d written in the 1980s, now turned into a Big Finish Audio Drama starring Colin Baker and Bonnie Langford.
“I remember being in my flat, in Roath – in Claude Road, in Roath,” Davies told RadioTimes.com and other press on a virtual press call for Mind of the Hodiac, coming to Big Finish this March. “But that was ’85 and ’86 and ’87. That’s why it’s a blur. It’s just me and my little typewriter, dreaming of making Doctor Who one day. Isn’t that funny?”
With hindsight, Davies’ nostalgia may have had a deeper source. Just six weeks or so after this conversation, he was revealed to be returning as showrunner of Doctor Who on TV, flabbergasting fans who had waved goodbye to his era in 2010. Suddenly, Mind of the Hodiac’s audio adaptation began to look less like a whim, and more like the harbinger of Davies’ full return.
Certainly, the big announcement seems to have been on Davies’ mind when we spoke, with the screenwriter apparently teasing journalists with the truth throughout the interview (which has been held under an embargo until this week).
“It wasn’t at all, to be honest,” Davies began to say when we asked about how the Hodiac script was changed for audio. “I thought it was really important to— oh, can’t we just talk about who’s going to be the next Doctor Who showrunner?”
He laughed, before (virtually) turning to Hodiac co-writer Scott Handcock.
“I say Scott Handcock. Come on, Scott, you should do it. Yeah, wouldn’t that be good?”
!["Doctor]("https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/3/2021/12/mindofthehodiac-c4120e2.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C620" "\"Doctor")
Later, Mind of the Hodiac star Colin Baker may have picked up on some of the call’s subtext, wondering aloud whether it was time for the Davies era of Doctor Who to be resurrected.
“The seeds of the future Russell T Davies that we all know [are in Mind of the Hodiac],” the former (and current) Sixth Doctor said.
“They all seem to examine what it’s like to be on the outside, living as a stranger in a society that you have to live in. Which is what The Second Coming was about in many ways.
“And this script as well is about an outsider trying to— I mean, he’s a villain, so he’s trying to do horrible things. But he is one person who is different. It’s about difference. Sci-fi is always about difference in many ways, of course.”
Davies said: “Maybe that means Doctor Who came first in my thinking, though, because there I was, in the ‘60s, watching a show about an outsider coming in. So maybe that set the template. Maybe everything I’m writing is Doctor Who. Oh my God.”
“If only. If only, Russell,” Baker laughed, asking soon after: “Isn’t it time you came back?”
“By popular demand,” Davies laughed. “By popular demand! Silence. A tumbleweed just went past.”
!["Russell]("https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/3/2017/08/Russell-T-Davies-Doctor-Who.jpg?quality=90&resize=615%2C409" "\"Russell")
“Not at all,” added Bonnie Langford, back as companion Mel for the audio adaptation.
“I was actually jealous when you were there on the show, running it, because it suddenly— well, you know, it made things make sense. When I did some conventions about – I don’t know – 20 years ago or something, it was interesting to hear the other companions saying, you know, that the companions were sort of two-dimensional; we don’t really want to know too much; it’s a way to forward the story, or interject, or get in the way and create another B-stream going through it.
“And I thought, ‘Oh, good, because I was looking for something all that time, and I never found it.’ But when I saw the new Doctor Who, the way it is, I thought, ‘Oh, there it is. There’s the anchor on which to base yourself. There’s your foundations there. That’s all you need. You don’t need loads.’ But it was always something. And I think I was always busy trying to search for it too much.”
And who knows? Maybe she already gave Davies his first idea for the 60th anniversary special.
“I think it’s about time Mel hopped off that spaceship, and came back to Earth,” he told her.
Looking back, it’s easy to imagine that it wasn’t just Mind of the Hodiac that had Davies waxing lyrical about the magic of Doctor Who. This interview took place on 12th August, with the screenwriter’s return to the TV show announced on 24th September, and the whole effort must have been on his mind as he worked on his first ever Who script with two heroes.
!["Colin]("https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/3/2021/08/Colin_Baker_Bonnie_Langford-c-Tony-Whitmore-35e4238.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C413" "\"Colin_Baker_Bonnie_Langford")
“Seriously, what a joy, what an honour,” he told Baker and Langford on the call. “I wrote this for you two all those million years ago, when I was thin and ginger and gorgeous. And now I’m just an old man.
“If I thought back then that this would ever get made… you know what? Life is terrible, and awful, and the world is burning, and we’re all going to die, but sometimes the world is absolutely lovely.
“And all these years later, we get to make this. And it’s honestly a thing of absolute joy to do. I’m so happy.”
We’d have to agree – when it comes to Doctor Who, it’s a good time to be Russell T Davies.
Mind of the Hodiac comes to Big Finish in March 2022, while Doctor Who returns to BBC One this spring with Legend of the Sea Devils. For more, check out our dedicated Sci-Fi page or our full TV Guide.
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