In fact, I\u2019d be very surprised if Doctor Who<\/a> was already on Russell\u2019s radar when we spoke just before Christmas. If it had been, I suspect he\u2019d have been a bit more circumspect before casually floating the idea of a Doctor Who Channel and David Tennant teaming up with Matt Smith for a 10-part multi-Doctor adventure. Because some people will no doubt get very cross when those don\u2019t happen. (I\u2019m assuming they won\u2019t, but who knows \u2013 as Russell says, did Star Trek fans ever expect a Captain Pike prequel?)<\/p> Still, idle spitballing or not, it does at least afford us a glimpse into Russell\u2019s thinking, and the scale of his ambition to \u201cshift Doctor Who up a gear\u201d when he gets the keys to the TARDIS back in 2023.<\/p>\n And if anyone\u2019s up to the job, it\u2019s the dream team of Russell, Jane Tranter and Julie Gardner. Yes, they\u2019ve got the old Bad Wolf band back together \u2013 but don\u2019t go expecting them to just play the hits, any more than they did when they dragged Doctor Who kicking and screaming into the new century in 2005.<\/p>\n Will it be easy, this gear shift? Not for a second. Firstly, anyone who thinks this is going to mean a return to regular Saturday night audiences of eight million (faithful) viewers is probably deluding themselves; that world no longer exists. Sure, the likes of Line of Duty and Vigil may have proved that reports of linear TV\u2019s death continue to be exaggerated, but Doctor Who relies on continually refreshing its audience with a new generation of younger viewers. And, as Ofcom has warned, the traditional broadcasters are currently staring down the barrel of a \u201clost generation\u201d who, lured away by sexy young buzz brands like Netflix, Disney Plus and YouTube, increasingly view the BBC as that funny old thing your nan watches in the afternoons. (BBC One\u2019s average viewing age, lest we forget, is 61.)<\/p>\n In that context, five to six million \u2018live\u2019 viewers would probably have to be considered a good result, while \u2013 for all that Russell is famously passionate about Doctor Who being a big, Saturday night family show \u2013 the real metric by which we measure its success will increasingly lie elsewhere.<\/p>\n If, as hinted, Russell does want to expand the Doctor Who \u201cempire\u201d, what sort of expanded portfolio might we reasonably expect? The short answer: haven\u2019t got a Scooby. But has that stopped you starting to build your own fantasy Doctor Who Cinematic Universe in your head? Of course it hasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n So what\u2019s on your bingo card? How about an anthology series featuring one-shot appearances from former \u2013 possibly unseen \u2013 Doctors? (Hugh Grant as a pre-Hartnell Doctor, anyone?) A stylish period spy-fi drama about the early years of UNIT? Jo Martin\u2019s Fugitive Doctor versus The Division? A Dalek cartoon for the kids? The Humker and Tandrell Adventures\u2026?<\/p>\n Will Russell be dusting off his proposal for Rose Tyler: Earth Defender? Is Torchwood coming back? (Er, probably not.) And will they please, for the love of the mighty Jagrafess of the Holy Hadrojassic Maxarodenfoe, just give us something \u2013 anything \u2013 with Paul McGann in?<\/p>\n But stop. Before we get ahead of ourselves, is it even reasonable to think Doctor Who can operate on the same scale as those other franchises Russell mentioned in our interview?<\/p>\n For a start, Star Wars, Star Trek and the MCU are all American \u2013 and US shows are the world\u2019s default TV lingua franca. Can Doctor Who ever be a truly global player without sacrificing some the essential Britishness that\u2019s such a key part of its charm? International successes stories like Sherlock and Downton Abbey would suggest that it can, given a fair wind. Though, this time around, Russell would probably still have to think twice before writing in cameos for Ann Widdecombe and McFly, or making jokes about Christmas in Walford.<\/p>\n Also \u2013 and I hesitate slightly to say this but, isn\u2019t Doctor Who just a little bit, you know, weird<\/em>? For a big, mainstream family show, it\u2019s always had a slight element of outsider art to it, while also never quite shedding its original, Reithian mission statement to inform and educate, as well as entertain. Compared to the crowd-pleasing, bang-for-your-buck spectacle of spaceships and spandex superheroes, Doctor Who\u2019s funny, quirky stories about the Romantic Poets and Madame de Pompadour and farting green aliens becoming the mayor of Cardiff can seem like a cherishably odd proposition.<\/p>\n All of which is another reason to be grateful that it\u2019s Russell T Davies who will be steering the ship through these uncharted waters. Because here is a man who balances a healthy respect for Doctor Who\u2019s legacy \u2013 for its essential, unique DNA \u2013 without ever becoming a slave to it.<\/p>\n As a writer, he\u2019s bold and cheeky, with a knack for tackling the biggest, most profound questions with the lightest of touches. (His writing, as he put it in that same interview, is \u201clike life \u2013 sad one minute and sunny the next, and not a hair\u2019s breadth between the two\u201d.)<\/p>\n That said, this will be a different, older Russell, writing in a changed world. In 2005, he struck a defiantly optimistic tone: \u201cI do think we live in an age where every day you open up a newspaper and it tells you that you\u2019re dying \u2013 coffee is going to kill you and bird flu is going to kill you and genuine things like global warming are going to kill you,\u201d he said at the time. \u201cI wanted to do something that said there is<\/em> a future of monorails and zip-suits and jetpacks and fun.\u201d<\/p>\n Contrast that to the dystopian vision he painted in 2019\u2019s Years and Years, in which no hot button \u2013 from Trump, Isis and the refugee crisis to the banks, #fakenews and Brexit \u2013 was left un-pushed. Yes, he was writing for a different audience but, just as It\u2019s A Sin can be read as the yin to Queer as Folk\u2019s yang, so Years and Years often feels like the hangover to noughties\u2019 Who\u2019s Panglossian faith in the human race.<\/p>\n I still wouldn\u2019t bet on Russell \u201cgoing dark\u201d, though. Of the three modern showrunners, he\u2019s the one who\u2019s charted furthest away from the idea of Doctor Who as, to use Mary Whitehouse\u2019s memorable epigram, \u201cteatime terror for tots\u201d. Of all his Doctor Who scripts, there\u2019s probably only two \u2013 Tooth and Claw and Midnight \u2013 that fully lean into Doctor Who\u2019s horror tradition. He tended to leave that to Steven Moffat, who, in 2010, noted that he was \u201cmore at the fairytale and Tim Burton end of Doctor Who, whereas Russell is probably more at the blockbuster, Superman end of the show\u201d.<\/p>\n Quite how much<\/em> Russell will be writing is another thing we can add to the list of don\u2019t knows: you\u2019d forgive him if, for the sake of his own sanity, he wanted to step away from the script treadmill a bit more this time. But that\u2019s easier said than done, as he has the scars to prove.<\/p>\n Either way, one of the biggest joys of this whole out-of-left-field curveball is that we\u2019ll be getting Russell T Davies at the absolute top of his game. Coming off the back of A Very English Scandal, Years and Years and It\u2019s A Sin, his stock has arguably never been higher. And this is what he has chosen to spend it on \u2013 in large part, presumably, out of sheer, unbridled love for Doctor Who.<\/p>\n Gosh. Exciting, isn\u2019t it? But if you simply can\u2019t wait two years to see what Doctor Who\u2019s going to look like in its next bold, ambitious and thrilling reinvention, the good news is you don\u2019t have to: there\u2019s a bold, ambitious and thrilling reinvention coming our way in a matter of weeks, when Jodie Whittaker embarks on one of the Doctor\u2019s most epic adventures yet<\/a>.<\/p>\n So in our haste to find out what the era of \u2013 oh go on then \u2013 RTD2 is going to look like, let\u2019s not wish away what we\u2019ve already got because, from every angle, this is shaping up to be a very good time to be a Doctor Who fan.<\/p>\n Doctor Who returns to BBC One this autumn. For more, check out our dedicated Sci-Fi<\/a> page or our full TV Guide<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n The showrunner’s second coming sees him poised to take advantage of a dramatically changed television landscape \u2013 but it also presents some big challenges… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":5040,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2021\/09\/what-can-doctor-who-fans-expect-from-russell-t-davies-return.jpg",615,409,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2021\/09\/what-can-doctor-who-fans-expect-from-russell-t-davies-return-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2021\/09\/what-can-doctor-who-fans-expect-from-russell-t-davies-return-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2021\/09\/what-can-doctor-who-fans-expect-from-russell-t-davies-return.jpg",615,409,false],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2021\/09\/what-can-doctor-who-fans-expect-from-russell-t-davies-return.jpg",615,409,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2021\/09\/what-can-doctor-who-fans-expect-from-russell-t-davies-return.jpg",615,409,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2021\/09\/what-can-doctor-who-fans-expect-from-russell-t-davies-return.jpg",615,409,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"The showrunner's second coming sees him poised to take advantage of a dramatically changed television landscape \u2013 but it also presents some big challenges...","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/5039"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\""Doctor\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/3\/2021\/09\/RTD-Julie-Gardner-db68ec2.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C413"\" "\\"\"RTD\\"")
<\/div>![\""Doctor\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/3\/2020\/06\/doctor-who-paul-mcgann-01aa86d.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C413"\" "\\"\"doctor-who-paul-mcgann\"\\"")
<\/div>![\""The\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/3\/2019\/06\/17831315-high_res-years-and-years-1-bf0e195.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C413"\" "\\"\"Years\\"")
<\/div>![\""Doctor\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/3\/2021\/09\/Imboctor-5b29ef2.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C413"\" "\\"\"Doctor\\"")
<\/div>
","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"