Doctor Who: Russell T Davies returns as programme showrunner

[Batman's Superior Cousin]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-58682472

[Colin YNWA]

Well that's interesting... and I've also no idea whether its good or bad news. Returning to things like this always feels like a sticky wicket. It could also be very backward looking... but he'll have developed as a writer and show runner. Would surely (???) only return if he wanted to do new and different things.

At the time the relaunch was a success so... well it feels awkward but you never know could be good news...

... if nothing else it'll certainly get folks talking!

[Leigh S]

WEll my immediate reaaction was cheering...

Then remembering he was championing Olly Alexander as 14th Doctor (hopefully a cover to make us not consider him as the new showrunner)

Then remembering I disliked much of Tennant Era

Possibly my reaction was postive as I had coincidentally spent the day watching a reaction video series to series 1 - got to love Eccleston!

[Magnetica]

I think it’s good news. Too many episodes have failed to engage me since he left, so hopefully he can inject some excitement back.

[Leigh S]

The only thing we can be certaain of with this news is no chance of an Eccleston appearance for the 60th then!

[IndigoPrime]

This whiffs a bit of ‘kill or cure’. Also that the BBC is fresh out of ideas and/or that no-one else wanted to do it. Still, despite some issues with the RTD run, it at least knew how to have fun and didn’t just want to make puzzles out of all of the women in the cast. It had humanity and also, arguably, the best Dalek episode of the modern run by some margin.

I just hope he gets the casting right (which is going to be very tough now), figures out how to resolve the Timeless Child rubbish but without consigning Jo Martin’s Doctor to oblivion, and hires and listens to a great script editor. Given modern TV, the last of those is, oddly, perhaps the least likely.

[Funt Solo]

I wonder about the value of producers being turned into minor celebrities and labeled as "showrunners". It's all a bit pompous. I recently opted to do the web edits on our building's site, and my boss keeps calling me the "webmaster". I feel like, with a title like that, I need a more elaborate costume to wear to work.

[judgeurko]

the show has officially de-generated. RIP Doctor Who this is the last desperate death rattle of the show RTD brought the show back he has been hired to bring it to a close.

[Mister Pops]

I am a server of the secret firefox, wielder of the flame of analytics. The dark web shall not avail you. Go back to the shadow legends! IN...VALID... PASSWORD!

[Jim_Campbell]

The man who presided over an atmosphere so toxic that Christopher Ecclestone quit after one season, that tolerated Noel ’Handsy’ Clarke and John ’Oops, is that my dick in your soup’ Barrowman, is back in charge.

Well done, BBC. Way to read the room.

[Leigh S]

Yeah, I do think there are some worrying undercurrents to the behind the scenes of RTD Era that make me wary.

My initial understanding of it was a poor work environment which encouraged/demanded unreasonable hours from people not paid enough to be making those sort of commitments.  The Barrowman stuff was open knowledge, the Clarke stuff not so much.

[von Boom]

My first thought was 'What the fuck for?'

I'm no fan of the Chibnall run but RTD feels like a massive step backward. I'm not sure who I would put in charge at the moment but it wouldn't be Davies.

[GordonR]

I haven’t seen any comment yet on another significant thing in this announcement  That the show will be co-produced with a non-BBC production company - Bad Wolf, run by RTD’s ex-partner in crime Julie Gardner and Jane Tranter, the BBC exec who commissioned the new series in the first place.

While they’re both a safe pair of hands, the BBC has ceded an huge amount of control over one of their flagship shows to an outside company.

[Leigh S]

Didnt RTD have to jump in to wrangle Torcchwood from Chibnalls icy clutches?

The Bad Wolf connection is interesting - I have a vague idea in my head about Canada or US funding already being a thing,  but this is much more than that.  The familiar names masks that a bit.

If RTD show runs this with a view to training up a decent replacement, then all good.  Otherwise, as IP says, it could become a case of kill or cure, or cure then kill if there is no one else willing or able to take it on.

[judgeurko]

Didnt RTD have to jump in to wrangle Torcchwood from Chibnalls icy clutches?

The Bad Wolf connection is interesting - I have a vague idea in my head about Canada or US funding already being a thing,  but this is much more than that.  The familiar names masks that a bit.

If RTD show runs this with a view to training up a decent replacement, then all good.  Otherwise, as IP says, it could become a case of kill or cure, or cure then kill if there is no one else willing or able to take it on.

Chibnalls clutches aren't icy. RTD on the other hand allowed sexual misconduct to take place on Dr Who & it was even made light of in a song. Disgusting.