Russell T. Davies may have already returned Doctor Who with its special offers for the 60th anniversarybut a new, full season of the show brings with it endless possibilities. Doctor Who‘s latest relaunch is no exception: a new doctor, a new companion, new adventures and perhaps the biggest change of all, a new home beyond the borders of Great Britain on Disney+.
These aforementioned special programs will air on the Disney streamer at the same time as their terrestrial broadcast on the BBC in the UK. But if Doctor Who returns this Friday, digital first: streaming in prime time on the US East Coast and midnight local time on BBC iPlayer in the UK, before airing on television in the latter region later in the day. It is a movement that created it own share of controversy In Doctor WhoIt’s his home country, but for Davies it’s part of the necessity of why he returned to direct the series again in the first place.
“I never ran out of things to say about Doctor WhoIt’s now 61 years old, so no one has run out of material yet. But I firmly believed in the BBC’s ambitions,” Davies recently told io9 over Zoom, discussing why he wanted to return to a series that he shaped during his five-year tenure when he revived the show in 2005 , which took it from an overnight sensation to a major cultural force in the UK. “[There was a desire] to increase the budget and I do not think it is right to increase the budget from the BBC license fee [ed. note: the license fee is a yearly UK payment required by law in order to watch broadcast and streaming TV in the UK, the money from which goes to the budget of public broadcast services like the BBC]. I think at this time the BBC was under intense attack and criticism from our terrible government. The BBC license fee goes towards news production, the news and all radio and community programming, as well as the dramas are exceptional programmes. So if you want Doctor Who To have a bigger budget, it’s not right that it comes from the license fee – it’s right that we go to a bigger broadcaster, a bigger platform and co-produce with them.”
This is also a natural trend in the changing nature of television in the UK – and as someone who has been doing just that for almost 40 years in a career that has spanned children’s programming, young adult dramas and cutting-edge LGBTQ series Queer as folkand of course genre series like Doctor Who, TorchwoodAnd what’s more, Davies understood exactly what the BBC needed. “Let’s be honest: there hasn’t been a British drama in the last 30 years that didn’t involve American money. This shouldn’t surprise anyone. It’s likely that every Dickens adaptation you’ve ever enjoyed was made from this source material Masterpiece or HBO – so that’s a very normal pattern, but I’ve believed in it for a long time Doctor Who“explained the showrunner.
“I think in a way the BBC, by putting it on a bigger platform, wanted to have someone who knew the show, who knew what they were doing. But that’s me, that’s shamelessly me! I was excited about the chance to work at this level, something I had never done before. I’ve had a nice career in television, but I’ve never worked with streamers and done anything like this before. I’ve worked with America, I’ve worked with HBO. I worked with American producers. So I have the experience to take on this work, but it was all exciting. As a producer, I found that really exciting. I thought it fit Doctor Who‘s ambition and potential.
Another aspect of Davies’ television past that now influences his new work Doctor Who highlights queer storylines. A lot has already done about new Doctor Ncuti Gatwa’s gender-bending sense of style informing the Time Lord’s latest aesthetic, but the series goes beyond just pretty clothes and casually frames queer characters and stories into its world, even if not necessarily all the time is the focus (even though that is already the case). definitely comeslike the introduction of Donna Noble’s trans daughterRose, played by Heart stopperis Yasmin Finney, who appeared in the 60th anniversary specials and will appear again in the new season. It is something that suits the modern era Doctor Who, regardless of showrunner, struggled to get through in fits and starts. “Casual is the way to go. It never feels important, it feels natural. This is my world, my only world, I don’t recognize any other world,” Davies remarked. “If you look at the rest of my work, this is the work I’ve been doing since 1999. And before that, I was self-publishing for ten years – gradually introducing queer characters. Gay pride groups, lesbian ministers, gay schoolboys – I’ve done them all. Actually, I’m heading towards more like 40 years of work that I’ve put into this stuff.”
“For me it just comes naturally. I wouldn’t write otherwise. And there’s a risk that it sounds surprising, like introducing this into a heterosexual world. The world is not straight. “The world is everything, every shape and every type out there is possible,” he added. “The idea of a straight world does not exist. So I felt the freedom and the joy of doing this and I think it’s something that needs to be celebrated. It’s more of a joyful thing than a mission.”
The idea that this new era of Doctor Who is more of a continuation of Davies’ work on the show when he left it in 2009, which is also evident in the talent behind the cameras – a veritable rogues gallery of returning producers, the return of composer Murray Gold and perhaps even more interesting for fans who Return of writer Steven Moffatwho inherited the post of showrunner from Davies from 2010 to 2017. Bringing Moffat back to write a new episode – the third of the season, simply called “Boom” – was a chance for Davies to work with him as both former showrunner and as a friend.
“What was nice is that he’s a buddy and we got to know each other really well through that Doctor Who. The nice thing about it is that he writes an episode of Doctor Who “It means I can work with him again and spend time with him,” said Davies. “To [actually] I get to spend time with him… the man is excited. He’s so funny. He’s so cheeky. He can be so incredibly rude in a brilliant and clever way. As always, we find it difficult to afford anything, and the way he sees through production problems I learn a lot from him. But just spending time in his company – and I would like to say he enjoyed it too. It’s really rekindled our friendship, we have so much fun together, have a great time and at the same time work really hard on an episode that I can’t do Wait for you to see!”
Doctor Who returns worldwide with a two-episode premiere on Friday, May 10 at 7 p.m. ET Disney+and will air on BBC iPlayer at 12pm local time on Saturday May 11th, same time in the UK, before airing on BBC One later in the day.
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