Who News: He’s Back! And It’s About Time…

The BBC announced yesterday that Russell T. Davies, the man who brought Doctor Who back in 2005, is returning to the helm in 2023.

If you’ve read my Who reviews, especially the reviews of the last couple of seasons, you already know that I’m not a big fan of current show-runner Chris Chibnall. And I’m not alone. Over the past few years, since taking over Who from Steven Moffat, Chibbers has managed to reduce the flagship BBC show with monster ratings to a moderately-sized dinghy that a few die-hards catch when there’s nothing better on.

OK, maybe that’s a bit harsh. Chibbers does have his fans. But the overwhelming majority of Whovians young and old have been begging the BBC to show him the door before he does any more damage.

There will be another season of Chibbers-Who coming up this Fall, and some specials to air next year. At the end of that, current Doctor Jodie Whittaker will regenerate. The new Doctor will be someone of Davies’ choosing, probably to be announced sometime mid-next year (my guess). And then Davies will take over for the 60th-anniversary celebrations in 2023, and run the show from thereafter.

So, how do I feel about this? Cautiously optimistic. What Davies did with Doctor Who from 2005-2009 was amazing. He took a franchise that was a bit of a laughing stock to the BBC and made it thoroughly respectable. Whovians look back with great affection to the Davies era. He gave us the Ninth and Tenth Doctors, brought back Sarah Jane Smith and K9, and gave Steven Moffat the opportunity to write some of the best Who stories ever (“The Empty Child,” “The Girl in the Fireplace,” “Silence in the Library,” and possibly the apex of Moffat’s Who career: “Blink.”)

But can Davies revive Who now? We’ve had Moffat and Chibnall since 2009, so there’s been a lot of development on the show (good and bad). Also, this is not 2005. Davies is not the same writer now as he was then. He may be a better writer. Maybe he’s as agenda-driven now–or moreso–as Chibbers has been. I hope not. But people change. We have to allow that.

A sad fact about the past is that you can never go back to it. When the surviving Beatles reunited in 1995 to record a couple of never-before-heard-by-most-people songs by John Lennon, it was great. There was some Beatles sparkle there. But it wasn’t the same. Paul, George, and Ringo had all done so much by themselves over the intervening 25 years since the Beatles split, when they reunited they were different people. Older. More experienced. Wiser, perhaps.

ABBA reuniting is much the same. Yes, there’s the same chemistry, and Benny and Bjorn can still write songs together. But the songs they’ve written now (at least the two we’ve heard) are not “Dancing Queen” or “Mamma Mia.” They’re not the songs they wrote in their 20s. They’re songs they are writing in their 60s.

So while I welcome the news of Davies’s return and I am genuinely looking forward to what he could do with the show, I’m cautious. I want it to be great. And I know Davies has the talent to make it great. But let’s see.

What do YOU think? Let’s talk about it in the comments…