TLIAFD: The Doctor Is Who?
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I just read it. Wow. I think he could handle the role,but it would odd to see him so violent.
Does this mean Andrew Lincoln might be available for "something"?
Does this mean Andrew Lincoln might be available for "something"?
I am admittedly a little disappointed that nobody has had anything to say about footnote [5] in the last update.
I did notice that. It's nice that David Tennant still managed to grab an iconic role even if he missed out on being the Doctor. I just hope TTL's The Walking Dead isn't the overly repetitive mess that the OTL series devolved into after Frank Darabont was forced out by AMC.
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I'm not really a massive Walking Dead fan but I did it because I was looking a picture of the character from the comic and thought he looked sort of like Tennant. On further reflection, the resemblance is perhaps remote, but
Sure, but probably not Doctor Who at the moment. I have chosen Eleven and have a pretty good idea of who Twelve will be. Still thinking about Thirteen, who the story will be ending with.
This is probably the sort of timeline where Darabont either never left or stayed in place a lot longer.
I think that does reflect the NuWho Era, however. Modern companions tend to shoulder the burden of characterization on Doctor Who. Starting with Rose, the show is largely about the companion and their relationships, and the emotions they tease out of the Doctor. Each Doctor has broad strokes, largely in terms of how they're dealing with the Time War, but they don't change terribly much.
Series 9 is the only one that foregrounds the Doctor and his emotional arc. Clara is still around but her character arc ended with "Last Christmas", and she functions as as a very Old School companion. Even her 'death' at the end of the season isn't about her, it's about the Doctor.
Nice that there's a much much happier ending for Jonathan Brandis in this timeline (and by default of not being cast to begin with Jake Lloyd).
I'm still holding out hope for someone from far out of left field, like Martin Clunes.
11. Back to British: The Eleventh Doctor
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THE ELEVENTH DOCTOR
David Harewood
(2011 – 2014)
David Harewood
(2011 – 2014)
By 2011, Doctor Who seemed almost unstoppable. As the production prepared to enter its fourth season on the CW and its twelfth season overall since the triumphant Gallifrey Pictures reboot began, the series approached an historic milestone; Doctor Who was already the longest-running science-fiction series in British television history and was now poised to snag the same title on American television as well. [1]
However, even as the pending achievement was celebrated in the pages of Doctor Who Monthly, the event threw into sharp relief one fact that had been gnawing at many fans, particularly at home in Britain (for Britain was still considered "home" for the series) that American actors had monopolised the title role for eight consecutive years between 2003 and 2010. Although both Sean Patrick Flanery and Victor Garber had enjoyed tremendous popularity in their time piloting the TARDIS, many British viewers were starting to feel concerned that Tony Head's Eighth Doctor had been a smokescreen; even with the hotly anticipated fiftieth anniversary of the programme looming ever larger on the horizon, some fans worried that (episodes filmed in Britain notwithstanding) Doctor Who had become "an American show" and the Doctor would be only played by American actors from now on. [2]
Following the departure of Russell Davies from Doctor Who, Steven Moffat decided that he still had stories left to tell for the series and opted to remain on as sole showrunner for the series. Despite the niggling doubts about the resolution of Victor Garber's final season as the Tenth Doctor, fans were nonetheless broadly enthusiastic (even if Moffat himself was occasionally viewed with an element of trepidation, nobody denied his raw talent for clever writing and creating "moments" which, typically, would quickly seized be upon by online fandom and turned into endlessly reblogged and retweeted memes and gifs) and Moffat was confident that he had by now earned the necessary cachet with the CW to enjoy suitable latitude to choose the incoming Eleventh Doctor.
Moving up to become Moffat's immediate lieutenant was Dan Slott (by then a veteran of the writers' room who also shared many of the same creative impulses as Moffat), who had started to take on an increasingly prominent role in the storytelling direction of the series with the contribution of several well-received scripts for the Time War storyline. [3] An avid fan of the series for many years, Slott had first encountered Doctor Who in the form of grainy "all-nighter" broadcasts of Christopher Neame serials on PBS in the mid-1970s (the first story Slott saw, as he would recall in interviews many years later, was "The Sting of the Black Scorpion"). He spent several of his teenage years living in Britain, where he became eager consumer of the novelisations of stories from the William Hartnell and John Le Mesurier eras published by Target Books and developed a profound appreciation for the importance of the programme's history and heritage in the UK. Slott encouraged Moffat and Peter DeLuise to cast a British actor in the lead role, but it was reportedly his idea that they should aim to make an even bigger splasy by casting a black or female actor in the role; although Art Malik had been the first non-white Doctor cast back in 1987, there was a growing sense in Doctor Who fandom that the show, especially in light of its popularity in America, was running the risk of locking out actors who were not older white men unless something just a little bit different and a little bit more adventurous was attempted with regard to the casting of the lead actor.
Before such considerations became pertinent, Moffat had had a few possibilities in mind to play the Eleventh Doctor, only to learn that most of them had already taken other work or would otherwise be unavailable when shooting began. Most significantly, Moffat's first choice was actually David Macdonald, the Scottish actor Davies would later disclose had been invited to audition to play the Tenth Doctor but was forced to decline for personal reasons; by then, Macdonald was already committed to AMC and consequently no longer available. Another old Tenth Doctor prospect, Peter Capaldi (who had previously gained fame as the foul-mouthed political operative Malcolm Tucker in The Thick of It) was also considered, but he too was already filming for a new American series set to premiere the following year. [4] Former James Bond actor Timothy Dalton was reportedly considered but was most likely never a realistic prospect, given his existing schedule of film work. [5] Rumours circulated briefly that Tilda Swinton could on course to debut as the first female Doctor, although it was widely accepted that an Academy Award winning actress with a reputation for appearing in art films was perhaps not the most likely candidate to commit to a potentially long-term role on an admittedly entertaining but only occasionally challenging science-fiction series broadcast on the "young adult" channel.
Eventually, Moffat – after consulting with Slott, DeLuise and network higher-ups – made a decision and contacted veteran British actor David Harewood to invite him to audition. At 45, Harewood had been acting for close to 20 years and was fairly well-known in his home country despite never quite having broken out in a major leading role. He would explain shortly after moving on from the role that, when he was cast as the Eleventh Doctor, he was in fact facing significant money problems as a result of personal issues had prevented him from working for more than a year, and was even reported to have been considering giving up acting entirely. [6] Aside from the financial security offered by Doctor Who, Harewood also appreciated that being the first black actor to play the Doctor would be symbolically significant and was optimistic that his casting would help to create similar opportunities for other black actors, in Britain as well as in America, and indeed the world beyond that. "I think Doctor Who has always had a very progressive tenor," the actor explained, "A lot of people have been congratulating me for receiving such a marvellous opportunity and they're absolutely right; I think it's a great opportunity to open doors, not just for myself, but for every person of colour in the business today."
Faced with the onerous task of following the immensity of the Time War arc, the writers' room was initially unsure of how to meet the challenge satisfactorily. It was decided that there were two realistic choices: either get everything out of the way in one go; or leave it until Harewood's putative later seasons and focus on a lighter, more upbeat tone to help establish the new character. Perhaps ominously, Moffat had already devised another plan for a long-running story arc which he explained would involve lower but more personal stakes than the Time War and would build up to the fiftieth anniversary of the series which he had no desire to interrupt just to revisit the story which he felt he and Davies had already concluded decisively.
Therefore, he ruled that Harewood's run as the Doctor would provisionally encompass two stories. The first would be a single-season arc which would function as a coda to the Time War while the second would cover two or three seasons (depending on Harewood's desire to stay on) and explore Moffat's new story. With the unofficial title "The Last of the Time Lords", the Eleventh Doctor's first season went in an unexpected direction by taking the Doctor back to Earth and reuniting him with Grace Holloway, with Yancy Butler (who by then had spent many years working to tackle her personal demons) reprising her role for a single season. Returning to San Francisco, the Doctor is uniquely characterised as no longer wanting to be the Doctor, resentful of his predecessor's decision to regenerate by choice once the Time War was "won" and, to all intents and purposes, "pass the buck" on to his new incarnation. Remembering his "first" adventures (i.e. of the revival), he seeks out Grace, learning that she has enjoyed great success in her career since leaving the TARDIS but has grown jaded at the normality of her life on Earth, and invites her on one last adventure. In the course of their new travels together, the duo encounter and eventually overcome the apparent ghost of the Master, which tempts and tests them on several occasions before he is revealed to be the villainous Time Lord's final booby trap.
When all was said and done, the Eleventh Doctor had reconciled himself to his previous incarnation's actions while Grace likewise finds a "happy ending" when she and the Doctor part ways for the second and final time, remaining on an alien world she had visited with the Eighth Doctor years before, to which she had since retained a personal connection. The Eleventh Doctor's first season and its overarching storyline were praised as one of the best of the revival, with Harewood's acting and interactions with Jason Isaac's "false Master" coming in for particularly high praise. The Doctor's characterisation was now fit to be rebuilt from the ground up, and Harewood, Moffat and the series' other writers would quickly move to take him in a different direction from his initial uncertainty about what "being the Doctor" meant in the post-Time War universe. [7] He had as much personal intensity as the Tenth Doctor, but it was now leavened by deep sense of compassion; he was a questioning crusader determined to stand up as best as he could for everyone who had fallen through the cracks of the Time War, ranging from individuals to planets to entire species. While all of the revival's Doctors have been praised for their strength of characterisation, Harewood's Eleventh Doctor is widely regarded as having the best character arc and development; for much of the preceding decade, the Doctor had been a rock against which the events of the series crashed, but in Harewood's hands he became the unambiguous focus of the programme for the first time in many years.
With the Eleventh Doctor's "prologue" story arc out of the way, Moffat could shift focus to the story he wanted to tell, which kicked off in the thirteenth season premiere ("Asylum of the Cybermen") with the introduction of a new companion called Clara Oswald, played by American actor Chyler Leigh. Claiming that she hailed from a distant future, Clara seemed to be familiar with the Doctor and would later reveal that his first meeting with her was not her first meeting with him. More ominously, the Doctor would soon learn that Clara was a refugee from the alternate future he had glimpsed during the Time War in which the Time Lords won and imposed a tyrannical rule over the universe. How this "Impossible Girl" had arrived in the main continuity was the focus of the thirteenth and fifteenth seasons, as the Doctor criss-crossed time on a scavenger hunt for relics of the conflict, intent on puzzling out how a future he saw erased could still exist and how Clara could have escaped from it.
By some distance the greatest success of the Eleventh Doctor's era was the fiftieth anniversary adventure, the three-part story "The End of Time", which saw Russell Davies returning to co-write with Moffat. Also reappearing in a major twist (somehow kept secret right up until the broadcast date) were Anthony Stewart Head, Sean Patrick Flanery and Victor Garber as the Eighth, Ninth and Tenth Doctors; the first time more than two previous Doctors had teamed up on television. [8] Returning once more to the well of the Time War (it loosely tied into Moffat's ongoing Clara arc, although with four Doctors in the mix she ended up with relatively little to do), the Doctors discovered that the Time Lords and Daleks trapped in the Time War had unexpectedly allied themselves, and were preparing to combine their powers to break the time lock and escape to resume their war in real time. Although the Doctors were able to stop them, several Dalek ships (among other individuals and entities) managed to escape, ensuring their ability to reappear. [9]
Harewood's final season dealt with the resolution of Moffat's Clara storyline; although some of the writing was praised, most agreed that the Eleventh Doctor's run had peaked with the fiftieth, after which going "back to normal" was something of a disappointment. After four years in the role, Harewood had finally achieved the long overdue recognition many critics agreed he had earned many times over and, confident that his legacy as the Doctor was now secure, announced that he would be leaving the series at the end of its fifteenth season to explore other projects. So too did Steven Moffat decide to end his run as showrunner, handing over to his ever-loyal ally Dan Slott, the first American to enjoy exclusive status as chief writer of Doctor Who, who (having unsuccessfully tried to persuade the popular lead to stay for on another year [10]) immediately began the search for David Harewood's replacement.
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[1] This milestone nonetheless came with a significant disclaimer attached: because Doctor Who had been broadcasting 13-episode seasons since 2000, it had amassed a back catalogue of 143 episodes; a huge number in its own right, but only around half the totals of its closest competitors. Star Trek: The Next Generation had run for eight seasons and 200 episodes while The X-Files had broadcast 222 episodes in 10. Taken altogether, Smallville and Metropolis had actually run for a combined 12 seasons and 263 episodes between them, while the combined total of Stargate: SG-1 and its own direct successor, Stargate Command, would together end up totalling a mammoth 374 episodes across 18 combined seasons when Command completed its own 11 season run in 2015.
[2] Rumours abounded that the BBC was speculating ending its relationship with Gallifrey Pictures and allowing the CW to assume sole responsibility for the series, although these were entirely unfounded and Doctor Who remains a crucial component of the BBC's catalogue of programmes to this day.
[3] Slott originally made his name as a jobbing writer of superhero comics for both of the main companies, Marvel and Action, in the early 1990s. At Marvel, he worked primarily on back-up strips in various comics, while at Action, he was best known for his work in the Flash Adventures comic, which tied in to Bruce Timm and Paul Dini's The Flash: The Animated Series. Always a big fan of Doctor Who, he became involved in the series in 2001 after one of his spec scripts was produced in Anthony Stewart Head's final season, and soon became a full-time TV writer with a seat in the Doctor Who writers' room while continuing to write for Marvel Comics as a sideline.
[4] Capaldi had been cast as the villainous Rumpelstiltskin / Mr Gold the Disney-backed fantasy drama series Once Upon a Time on ABC, a role which he occupies to this day.
[5] Dalton had portrayed Lord Asriel in the 2008 film Northern Lights, a big-screen adaptation of Philip Pullman's first His Dark Materials novel, and in 2010 was filming scenes for its sequel, The Subtle Knife, which prevented him from taking much work in television.
[6] In the same interview, Harewood would comment that he had also received an invitation to audition for the role of David Estes on the Showtime series Homeland, which eventually went to Lance Reddick.
[7] Some fans have suggested that this direction was a comment on criticism of David Harewood's casting from a small ("I imagine there's more Doctor Who fans upset with a bespectacled Doctor than a black Doctor," joked Harewood) but loud contingent of less forward-thinking (i.e. racist) members of the audience; Steven Moffat has always remained cagey, insisting that he cast the best actor who auditioned and that the same story would have gone ahead anyway regardless of who was playing the Eleventh Doctor; Harewood has likewise acknowledged it as a potentially valid reading of the storyline, but that he believed it was a basic identity crisis / PTSD focused-story as opposed to any deliberate commentary on reactions to his casting. "I'm aware there was a bit of racism," Harewood remarked, "And I suppose there'll always be backwards people; that's just the world we live in. But I'm very gratified to say that I received a very warm welcome from the fans." Indeed, ratings for Doctor Who underwent a noticeable uptick during Harewood's tenure (becoming the CW's top-rated non-reality series) suggesting that he had indeed managed to expand the audience.
[8] The working title for the story had been "The Four Doctors", which was abandoned when it was decided that the reappearances of previous Doctors in the final moments of the first episode should be a surprise rather than a feature advertised prior to broadcast. The four surviving classic Doctors (Peter Wyngarde, Christopher Neame, Colin Baker and Art Malik) made cameo appearances.
[9] The Daleks had had a limited presence after the Time War arc concluded; the writers had relied more heavily on the Cyberman, Sontarans and Rutans as recurring classic villains and new series monsters like the Jovian Collective in their absence.
[10] Almost as soon as he announced his departure, Harewood landed a major film role as the Martian Manhunter in the 2016 film Supergirl Returns.
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In the interests of full disclosure, I think Tilda Swinton would be a very good Doctor and if she is cast I will look forward to her performance, but the constant speculation about her being the favourite to follow Capaldi seems a little unrealistic to me. She seems like she's too big a name to stop doing movies and artistic projects to commit to being the Doctor for three-four years. That's why I included that part. v
vI love all the little footnotes about the rest of the world. Like Timm and Dini doing Flash: the animated series. And Supergirl returns rather than superman returns.
And some excellent casting too. I now really want to see Capaldi playing Rumplestilskin and Chyler Leigh as Clara.
And some excellent casting too. I now really want to see Capaldi playing Rumplestilskin and Chyler Leigh as Clara.
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Donor
Clara as a merger of River Song and her OTL character is an interesting one.
Also- actually good Northern Lights film!
Also- actually good Northern Lights film!
Another very good choice as the Doctor, and a good variation on Clara Oswald. Nice to see that we finally get a multi-Doctor story in time for the Fiftieth.
BTW, am I right in thinking that the purely historical Doctor Who stories continued longer ITTL ? If so, does the American series continue with them as well ? It's something that I'm surprised that OTL's NuWho hasn't tried - at least for a one-off. Big Finish have shown that they can still be effective stories.
Interesting. That implies that there hasn't been a DS9, Voyager or any other Star Trek spin-off after TNG.
BTW, am I right in thinking that the purely historical Doctor Who stories continued longer ITTL ? If so, does the American series continue with them as well ? It's something that I'm surprised that OTL's NuWho hasn't tried - at least for a one-off. Big Finish have shown that they can still be effective stories.
Interesting. That implies that there hasn't been a DS9, Voyager or any other Star Trek spin-off after TNG.
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Yeah, there's a few pure historicals for the Ninth Doctor as an in-joke about Sean Patrick Flanery's having been Young Indiana Jones.
DS9 still happens, since it began in 1993 and TNG ITTL ended in 1995. However, I think it will have a fairly significant impact on the TNG movies; IOTL, the series ended in 1994 and they went directly into the production of Generations without much of a break and had it out the same year.
I think it would have a potential significant impact on Voyager as well. Voyager happened because there was demand for a rehash of TNG; if you read Piller's unpublished book about the making of Insurrection, he says as much himself. It was out in 1995 when TNG ended, but since TNG ends in 1995, it might end up with that going in a different direction. Furthermore, if you have a couple of years where DS9 and TNG are overlapping, that might change what that direction is.
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When he wrote Crisis on Infinite Earths, Marv Wolfman had the idea that the entire company could rebrand itself as "Action Comics" from 1987 onwards, because he thought that "Action Comics" would be a better competitor to "Marvel Comics" (where he had previously spent several years as editor-in-chief in the 1970s); you know, a punchier, more exciting name indicative of a complete fresh start. It didn't happen, but it did ITTL for some reason.