Why Doctor Who Is About To Change Forever

I'm Ellie for Who Culture and today we're going to talk about why Doctor Who is about to change forever

So let's go all the way back to the early 2000s. Doctor Who is a dormant yet still very popular franchise that's about to make a comeback under the guidance of acclaimed drama writer Russell T. Davis

Working alongside him, not just on that first series, but in subsequent series

were writers like Mark Gatiss, Paul Cornell, and Stephen Moffat, all of whom had some sort of Doctor Who pedigree in one way or another

be it contributing to the expanded Who-niverse, writing comedy sketches, or simply just being known as a big fan of the show

Russell was also joined by composer Murray Gold, who he'd worked with previously on Queer as Folk and The Second Coming

and producers Julie Gardner and Phil Collinson, who would all go on to have significant impact on Doctor Who across the modern era

Ever since 2005, it's been this general ballpark of creatives that have been at the core of Doctor Who

Literally right up to the present day. Russell is still here. Murray is still here

Julie and Phil are still here. And Stephen Moffat was just here

Billy Piper and David Tennant are also here. Even the show itself still using a 45-minute Monster of the Week format feels a bit archaic at this point

when a lot of its peers have moved on to more complex, serialised narratives

Again, despite all the change we've seen over the last 21 years, Doctor Who has sort of stayed the same

I think a perfect example to compare this to would be Star Trek

If you look at how Star Trek used to be in the 60s, in the 90s, and in the early 2000s

it still followed that same structure that Doctor Who is following still. 45-minute episodes

Monster of the Week episodes, very episodic. Not a lot of crossover across its stories

And that absolutely did work. But where Doctor Who hasn't, Star Trek has then moved into the more

serialized format. Some of those shows, it really, really worked for. Others, they've attempted to

kind of create a combination of both. Strange New Worlds is a perfect example of where they're

trying to stick to that episodic formula, but also introducing elements of that serialised

storytelling as well. And for me, I would actually say that that's probably the best structure of all

of the more modern Star Trek shows, and it is something that I feel Doctor Who could embrace

more in the future. Trying to find a good balance of having an episodic of sorts structure

and making sure we do have Monsters of the Week and aren't sticking to the same monster across

all of the episodes, but also finding a way to have more of a through line. And it is something

we have seen explored in Doctor Who, but not necessarily as much as we need to, to kind of

embrace the modern landscape of television storytelling. Now, before I continue, I do want

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now i know what some of you are saying what about the moffat era what about the chibnall era and

the disney era those are all big changes too and on the surface it does seem that way if you really

think about it they actually weren't that different at all the handover from russell t davis to moffat

brought a fresh, enchanting vibe to the show and a new lead cast, but it was very much a continuation

Storylines like River Song, the best character, and things like The Time War helped maintain a

sense of rhythm with what had come before. And behind the camera, it was a similar story as well

Moffat, of course, having penned some of the most acclaimed episodes already in the Russell T. Davis

era, and Murray Gold continuing his brilliant work into the Moffat era as well. And there was even a

brief period where David Tennant was going to stick around for one more series under Moffat

demonstrating how close-knit everything was at that time. The Chibnall era brought with it probably

the biggest change in the show since 2005 with a vastly new creative team and a completely

different direction for the Doctor. But with Chibnall himself being raised in the house that

RTD built, having written Doctor Who episodes like 42 and The Power of Three and contributing

significantly to Torchwood, that DNA still remained. Particularly as the era progressed

You know, it started off with, we're not going to be bringing back any known monsters, we're going

to be doing new things. But then it kind of got to all the Gallifrey being destroyed again

Captain Jack Harkness returned, and so did the Bronze Daleks. And then we have the Disney era

It was billed as a seismic change for Doctor Who in just about every way. But really? It was

basically 2005 volume 2. Hey look I'm not complaining about that it was absolutely great

to see all of my childhood favourites come back to our screens whether that was David Tennant

whether that was Catherine Tate or whether that was Murray Gold or even Russell T Davies himself

But all of this undeniably contributed to the feeling that there's been a bit of stagnation

around Doctor Who for a while now with the show seemingly stuck in the past. Old storylines

old characters, old villains were a plenty and that tried and true monster of the week format

with hints at a wider arc had never felt more tired than in the Disney era

You could not have picked a more perfect lingering note for an era that many have

accused of being unable to move on from the glory of those early revival years

than the face who set that glory in motion. Now don get me wrong maintaining all these familiarities has made the show feel safe and it probably a really big reason why Doctor Who has become this comfort show for many of us who really don deal well with major changes in our

lives. On the other hand if the creative well becomes dry even that familiarity just becomes

less comforting and more predictable and unsatisfying especially when it feels like the

safety of what's familiar and nostalgic has almost been twisted into a form of lazy storytelling

as opposed to being a genuine desire to provide comfort to the audience

and this brings me to the now why i think this will be the biggest change doctor who has seen

in over 20 years assuming things pan out how we all expect them to that is now for one thing it's

Widely expected that the upcoming Christmas special will see Russell T. Davis's departure from the show

Now you can imagine the Christmas special wrapping everything up from the last few years

and then leaving a clean slate for whoever comes next. So if Russell does leave, I can see Murray Gold probably following suit as well

and even potentially Bad Wolf Studios along with producers Julie Gardner and Jane Tranter

Now whether you enjoyed the Disney era or not, nobody can argue that it clearly hasn't gone as well as everybody expected it to

And that falls at the feet of the people who made it. So it does feel a little bit like there's a thank you but goodbye moment going on behind the scenes right now

With the BBC ushering the previous era out of the door and taking its time to decide what will come next

Big change has to be stirring. How else do you explain such a long period of deafening silence? We have heard absolutely

nothing. Anything you've heard is a rumour. Speculation. Doesn't matter how many times

you've heard it, there is no concrete information about the future of the show. The last we heard

was a Christmas special. Almost a year of silence. Basically, Doctor Who looks set to lose all of

its ties to the 2005 revival for the first time since that revival began. Without Russell T. Davis

without Murray Gold, without Stephen Moffat, without Chris Chibnall and without all their

adjacent creatives who've jumped in and out of the show for the last 21 years, Doctor Who will be

the most different it has ever been since 2005. Now there are rumours of Jack Thorne taking the

reins as showrunner which does feel like just as bold a swing as getting Russell T. Davis in the

early 2000s was. Now whether that happens or not, it's not going to be a case of Russell T. Davis

handing the baton back to one of his mates. It's going to be someone completely new with a completely

new vision for the show. You can picture whoever comes in ditching that 45 minute episodic format

and going for full serialisation. And there are even murmurs of three 90 minute specials a year

akin to Sherlock, which would certainly be interesting, although I'm not sure if that's

the route I would like the show to go down. But even away from the creative side, the current

turmoil over getting big budget television funded actually dictates that Doctor Who will need to adapt in the future which is surely one of the reasons why it taking the BBC so long to decide what comes next It sad in a way because 2027 onwards will likely be the first time since

I and probably many of you started watching the show that it won't have that sense of familiarity

No familiar Murray Gold music, no returning characters or storylines, no Moffat or Russell

T Davies episodes to look forward to. Look, I've got nothing but respect for everyone who's made

the modern era of the show what it is. And without Russell T Davies and Stephen Moffat in particular

I mean, Who culture literally wouldn't exist. I would not be sat here today. My childhood would

be entirely different without these creatives. But at the same time, I am excited and ready

for something massively different. And now that I've said all that, cue the announcement that

Stephen Moffat will be returning a showrunner. Look, it does feel like it's time for some changes

As I say, Star Trek is the prime example to compare to

They made changes when they brought the show back with Star Trek Discovery

They opted for something a little bit more serialised. They opted for different ways of storytelling

that just showed the evolution of storytelling in television in the years since the previous Star Trek series had aired

And although Doctor Who is slightly different in terms of its budget

in terms of its audience, it also has to follow the same formula and format of all of its competitors on television

otherwise it's going to get left behind. Now that's not to say that I want it to become this

big budget program, in fact that's completely the opposite of what I want. I don't want things to

change in terms of the kind of foundations of what Doctor Who is, but if it wants to survive

in the current climate of television it has to adapt. An experiment at the very least of trying

to approach something more serialised would be definitely a good move. Obviously they did approach

that with Flux, but Flux came at a very odd time, which had other things playing against it, and it

would be interesting to see if they tried to approach that way of storytelling again, if it

would have the same results as Flux, or whether it actually would perform pretty well. Don't get me

wrong, I still want to see multiple aliens in multiple episodes. I don't want to completely

eradicate the monster of the week formula. Not at all. I love that. It's nice that you can just

come in one week and not necessarily need to have seen all of the previous episodes. But we know

from what we saw in the previous two seasons that with a reduced episode count you have to

reconfigure your way of looking at how you're telling the stories because eight episodes was

just not enough time to cram in all the things they were trying to cram in and that's not going

to change. Unfortunately, we're not going to go back to having series that are 14 episodes long

It's just not the way television works anymore. So there has to be some sort of change. How do we

tell the stories in a way that feels satisfying when we don't have as many episodes to tell the

story? Maybe we need to simplify things, cut things back a little bit, not try to tell five

great major stories all at once and not have enough time to flesh it out. Big changes are needed

I sense big changes are coming and I'm hoping that sooner rather than later we will hear about

some of these changes and then we can get excited about them