Who would want to be in the shoes of Russell T Davies, the custodian of a once-great science fiction franchise now in danger of becoming lost in time and space? The franchise is, of course, Doctor Who, which returns for its latest series tomorrow amid an atmosphere of uncertainty not witnessed since the BBC cancelled it for the first time in 1989 (Davies was central to its resurrection in 2005).
As Whovians across the galaxy prepare to resume acquaintances with 15th Doctor Ncuti Gatwa, there is all sorts of speculation regarding both the actor’s future and that of the show itself. And this drama is unfolding less than three years after the BBC struck a high-profile deal with Disney+, trumpeted at the time as an opportunity to turn the Tardis-hopping Time Lord into a global brand.
One rumour is that Gatwa is ready to move on after just two seasons and that, having already filmed his big regeneration scene, is bound for LA, where he has a number of projects lined up (he had a taste of the silver screen when appearing in Barbie in 2023). The other is that, with ratings plunging to a record low of 2.1 million in Gatwa’s inaugural series, the BBC is considering repeating history and pulling the plug on the Tardis in its entirety.
But why is Doctor Who currently misfiring so badly? On paper, the return of Davies should have been nothing but good news. After all, it was he who brought back Doctor Who in 2005, having lobbied the BBC for years to take the Tardis out of deep freeze. Moreover, his first five-year first stint in charge celebrated the many different sides to the Doctor – from the romping “Smith and Jones” (2007) in which a London hospital is transported to the moon to high-stakes tension of 2008’s “Midnight”, in which the Doctor’s holiday on a planet baking in radiation goes amiss.
Since Davies’s return in 2023, however, Doctor Who has displayed an ultimately damaging obsession with chasing a family audience. What’s been lost is Doctor Who’s ability to be scary – which, along with the sense of wonder and the banter between the Doctor and their companion, was part of the appeal for decades.
In the 1970s and 1980s, Doctor Who could always be counted upon to conjure a chill at tea time. Veteran viewers may, for instance, remember the disquiet they felt when Peter Davison’s fifth Doctor was introduced to the shape-shifting robot Kamelion in 1983. Here was a hallucinatory horror forged from wonky plastic and with the body language of an oversized praying mantis ready to spring. Missing half its head, it regarded the world with a dead-eyed thousand-yard glare; it was a mechanical phantom that could have been created expressly to haunt your dreams.
Or what about the Malus – an apparition who glared through the wall of a crumbling Cromwellian ruin and whose green eyes were swirling voids of pure wickedness? Watching clips on YouTube, you can see why people found it disturbing when it materialised in their living rooms in 1984. Those baleful emerald peepers look as if they are gazing into your soul. They are the unsettling cherry atop a storyline in which the Doctor stumbles upon a historical reenactment of the English civil war and is set upon by a ghostly apparition of Roundhead soldiers – the uncanniness heightened somehow by the shoestring production values.
Whovians of a particular vintage will also remember Kandyman. He was a demented Bertie Bassett made out of giant Liquorice allsorts who tangled with Sylvester McCoy in November 1988. He did so whilst delivering lines such as “Impolite guests get to feel the back of my candy hand!” and dispatched its enemies by drowning them in “fondant surprise” – a solution made of boiling liquid candy. He should have been silly – yet the sheer manic quality of the monster brought a curdling dread.
Nowhere is the distinction between Doctors, new and old, more distinct than in the case of plastic baddies, the Autons. Played by actors wearing creepy masks, they look like apparitions from the depths of your subconscious. At one point in 1971’s “Terror of the Autons”, we see an Auton slide over the edge of a cliff, tumbling head over heels to the bottom and then springing straight back up without even pausing.
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The inhuman speed with which the Auton recovers is deeply disquieting – even more so considering stuntman Terry Walsh fell much further than was planned and suffered mild injuries yet somehow got on with the job. “Terror of the Autons” also features a memorable scene in which one of the aliens assumes the form of a black plastic chair. When an unsuspecting victim is invited to sit, the seat consumes him, his screams growing fainter as he sinks into the protean goo. Here is an orgy of body horror you might associate with a master of the form, such as David Cronenberg – one that conjures the sort of unfiltered anxiety conspicuously absent from 21st-century Who.
Davies revived them at the start of the 2005 Christopher Eccleston era. You may recollect them chasing Billie Piper’s Rose around an empty shop at nighttime. In this version, the Autons were everyday high-street mannequins brought to life. But in the original 1970s version, they are pure nightmare fuel. This tells us that Davies was prone to toning things down from the start– perfectly fine, when the storylines were otherwise interesting. But since the BBC deal with Disney, he seems determined to turn the Doctor into a glorified children’s entertainer. He more or less admitted as much when asked about the plunging viewer numbers. “It’s not doing that well in the ratings, but it is doing phenomenally well with the younger audience that we wanted.”
Given its family-friendly image, Disney might well prefer a chummy Time Lord. However, many Whovians would give anything for a jolt of old-school Auton terror. However, it is important to acknowledge that not all the criticisms of the modern era Doctor are in good faith. Predictions that the Gallifrey gadabout is about to vanish down a black hole have been pinging around cyberspace ever since the BBC had the gall to cast a woman in part in July 2017 when Jodie Whittaker was announced as taking over from Peter Capaldi. Haters were then whipped into a further frenzy when Gatwa became the first actor of colour to take on the mantle.
But even setting aside these knuckle-dragging critiques, it is undeniable that Doctor Who is in a tight spot. Fewer people are watching than at any point since the Tardis first materialised in November 1963.
Sadly, hopes that an alliance with Disney + would put some zing in its Sonic Screwdriver have proved wide of the mark. Disney seems to have had misgivings from the moment it came on board – and was immediately sticking its oar in by insisting Davies film an extra scene in the Christmas episode, “The Church on Ruby Road”, in which a giant inflatable snowman falls on the Doctor. It is a quirky moment out of keeping with the tone of the rest of the instalment – a bit of Marvel humour parachuted into the Whovian universe. Not that it did much good. According to media reports, Disney executives consider the show’s international performance “underwhelming”. There are serious doubts about whether the studio will choose to renew the two-series deal with the BBC.
Of course, mainstream Americans not “getting” the Doctor is one thing. The Doctor isn’t a Marvel superhero. It was foolish to think he could ever become one. More worrying is the massive slump in the home-grown audience – suggesting that things have gone amiss with the BBC’s vision for the character.
Would a more terrifying Doctor Who save it? Potentially not. But it would at least improve on the bland recent batch of villains. The most recent season’s lineup of monsters included a sentient pile of snot and a mad Welsh prime minister. Neither was likely to keep anyone up late at night.
In the rush to appeal to as wide a demographic as possible, it feels that those entrusted with the brand had forgotten that part of Doctor Who’s mission was to frighten the viewer. It is no coincidence that the most significant 21st-century contribution to Whovian lore is the Weeping Angels – stone nasties that creep up on you when you aren’t looking. People love the Weeping Angels, not because they are quirky or amusing. They are simply horrific. Or at least they were until Davies’s predecessor, Chris Chibnall, overdid it with an indecipherable episode in which the Doctor herself was temporarily transformed into one.
It has long been fashionable to write off the pre-Eccleston Who as a mishmash of stilted dialogue and dire special effects. Those criticisms are not without merit – when classic Doctor Who was bad, it was awful. But it also gave us some of the greatest-ever villains in the history of science fiction. Faced with potential cancellation, the smartest thing Davies could do is to rewind to a previous era of Doctor Who and pay close attention to what made it work. The best way to guarantee the show’s future is to look to the past – and make it scary again.
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