Doctor Who Showrunner Finally Reveals What Killed the Show

Straight from the showrunner's mouth

Ask what ruined Doctor Who, and some folks online will froth at the mouth and blame anything that dared to take the British sci-fi show in a new direction. The reality, as former Doctor Who showrunner Russell T. Davies reveals, is far more normal: a slowness to act.

In an extract from Davies’ new memoir, The Queerest of Folk, published in The Guardian, the Doctor Who showrunner who first revived the series in 2005 discussed the slow, public hanging the sci-fi show endured after its controversial partnership with Disney, which lasted two seasons, didn't work out. He also spoke out about the attempts to pull Doctor Who back from the brink of disaster — including the controversial choice to have the Fifteenth Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) regenerate into New Who’s first companion, Rose Tyler (Billie Piper).

The collapse of Doctor Who in the words of Russel T. Davies

In the most shocking disclosure from the extract, Davies places the blame for Doctor Who’s death (and for why it is currently up for competitive tender) on the BBC and its inability to act during a time of crisis.

To be clear, Davies attributes the BBC’s delay to its status as a “vast institution” that had to constantly deal with “press barons” and “right-wing media poised to attack every decision” it made. The BBC also saw departures, including chief content officer Charlotte Moore, who, according to Davies, had been one of “Doctor Who’s greatest champions.”

With Disney gone — a partnership that, let’s be honest, was a pretty poor fit from the get-go — and the BBC in no rush, the people working on Doctor Who were stuck in limbo. Davies and his team had already filmed an ending for Gatwa for the finale of the second season of Doctor Who's Disney revival: In this version, the Fifteenth Doctor regenerates, as seen in the aired finale, but without Piper showing up. Instead, the regeneration was open-ended, with no reveal of whom the next Doctor would be.

However, Davies thought that the open-endedness in that scene could suggest that Doctor Who as a series was ending for good, and so he called for a Zoom meeting with BBC executives to convince them that Gatwa should regenerate into Piper instead. The actress was on board and, as Davies writes in his excerpt, “it worked, because everyone paid attention to the show once more.” Davies did not elaborate on whether most of that attention was positive.

Doctor Who's former showrunner thinks the future can be 'bold and bright'

Unfortunately, the gamble on including Piper didn’t work out. While the BBC wanted a Doctor Who Christmas special — and they loved Davies’ pitch for one featuring Daleks in an old English village — everything remained slow. Piper would go on to work on Wednesday; Davies was busy with his new show, Tip Toe; and the BBC’s financial troubles kept worsening. This continued deliberation from the BBC and the wider landscape finally led Davies to put up his hands and say, "enough was enough." There was little point spending so much money on a one-off special before Doctor Who went into competitive tender and a new era of timey-wimey greatness began — hopefully.

“This new plan sets the show free,” Davies writes in his memoir. “The future can be planned by a brand-new team. Clean and bold and bright.”

Given that Davies left whoever takes over with the task of addressing Piper's return, we’re not so convinced that the new direction of Doctor Who after the competitive tender will be as “clean” as the ex-showrunner claims. Even so, now that we know what killed Doctor Who, Whovians can set their expectations for the future — especially as the BBC’s financial troubles do not seem to be going away anytime soon.