TLIAFD: The Doctor Is Who?
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Heavy
Banned
Comicbook TLIAFD for this timeline next?
Comic books would be trickier, I think. There's so many of them, they change all the time and (and this is the most important point) they have so many writers. I think it would be much easier to do movies. I think it would be easier to have a go with James Bond movies or superhero movies.
I mean, I've managed to use superhero movies to work out a fudge for why Titanic isn't the highest-grossing film of all time ITTL.
(Dick Tracy is a bigger hit and gets sequels; this has a knock-on effect of making The Rocketeer a bigger success; this leads to the other pulp hero adaptations having better luck in the 1990s; James Cameron makes an adaptation of The Phantom with Billy Zane as Kit Walker which is released in 1996, then he makes a sequel in 1997 instead of Titanic, then he makes a Mandrake the Magician movie with Tim Roth as Mandrake, then they do a crossover in 2000.)
Here's a fun PoD for anyone interested: Sergio Leone wanted to create a franchise of superhero movies based on the King Features Syndicate characters like the Phantom and Mandrake in the 1970s, i.e. before Richard Donner's Superman.
I have to say I'm not a regular Doctor Who viewer or a huge comic book fan but I've dabbled in both and know a great deal of people who are and so have picked up enough by osmosis that this timeline seems to be written entirely for me.
I get every reference near enough. Which is rare for these things.
We obviously grew up in similar cultural environments @Heavy. Which is why this timeline is such a delight to me.
I get every reference near enough. Which is rare for these things.
We obviously grew up in similar cultural environments @Heavy. Which is why this timeline is such a delight to me.
Alex Richards
Donor
Also, am I right in thinking Phantom Menace features a much older Anakin, or did I misread that footnote.
Alex Richards
Donor
Between this and Northern Lights I'm beginning to feel a bit sad we can't get to this TL.
Heavy
Banned
It is very good of you to say so.
I may not know about history and politics like a lot of folks on AH.com do, but I think I know a lot (at least comparatively) about pop culture trivia, so I'm happy that I have been able to use that to finally write a timeline (and it only took me five years) which people are enjoying.
Heavy
Banned
I don't really have any attachment to Philip Pullman's books, because when I was little I read Harry Potter (His Dark Materials would have been much too challenging for me; I've never actually tried it but I saw the movie in the cinema when it came out, curiously enough as part of a church youth group trip) but I thought I'd put that in because I'd recently read that Dalton had played Lord Asriel in a stage production a few years before The Golden Compass was released. It seemed like an amusing in-joke. That's what the footnotes are there for 90% of the time.
Oddly my favourite of the series, Carry On Screaming (no Sid James and an Edwardian SF/horror plot) has both Jon Pertwee and Peter Butterworth (aka The Time Meddler) in supporting roles. Bernard Bresslaw (Varga in The Ice Warriors), Joan Sims (Katryca in The Mysterious Planet) and Angela Douglas (Doris Lethbridge-Stewart) also appeared.
I do like where this is going. Two questions
1: Is it possible for Time Lords to regenerate willingly? I know Romana I did it but has it been established as possible?
2: (And I admit this feels like a stupid question) Can we get a rundown on Doctors 8 through 11's outfit choices? That to me has always been an important part of who an individual Doctor is.
1: Is it possible for Time Lords to regenerate willingly? I know Romana I did it but has it been established as possible?
2: (And I admit this feels like a stupid question) Can we get a rundown on Doctors 8 through 11's outfit choices? That to me has always been an important part of who an individual Doctor is.
Heavy
Banned
It's not entirely clear but I don't see any reason why it wouldn't be. You could conceivably argue that it wasn't even completely established that it happened every time an incarnation "died" until they got to Peter Davison regenerating into Colin Baker. Before that, you might have assumed that he could only do it once (One to Two), the Time Lords could force it to happen again (Two to Three), he was given another regeneration from K'anpo (Three to Four) and he needed the Watcher to merge with him the next time (Four to Five).
The Tenth Doctor is shot by a Dalek and basically regenerates into himself (which was a rubbish cop out) so if he can do stuff like that, I wouldn't be surprised if he could control his regenerations as he pleased.
Well, for the most part they correspond to actual outfits: Eight is wearing a sort of Edwardian get-up because he's a Englishman with a posh voice on a Sci-Fi Channel show in 2000; Nine wears a suit but he's usually a bit scruffy along the lines of OTL Tenth Doctor; Ten is basically OTL Ninth Doctor (see the picture of Garber I used); Eleven I haven't really decided on, but I don't think he'd be wearing a bow tie (because that was Matt Smith's personal choice), I think he'd be a smart casual kind of guy, lots of turtleneck sweaters or polo shirts with sports jackets.
There's pictures of the person I'm using for the Twelfth Doctor which are incredibly Doctor-like, as you will see when I get round to them.
Heavy
Banned
The end's in sight. One big update left for the Twelfth Doctor, then I'll finish it off with a brief announcement of the newly-cast Thirteenth Doctor, and that will be it for this TL. So be sure to keep your eyes peeled, because I should have Twelve up in the next couple of days and hopefully have Thirteen up shortly after that.
Heavy
Banned
Yes, well, I never exactly said it was good, now did I?
Lots of movies I think are pretty poor that did very well and got sequels. That's true IRL and it's bound to be true ITTL; Sixth Doctor notwithstanding, I'm focusing on successes because I would feel terribly disappointed to be writing about failures. I don't really tend to enjoy the timelines you see here where things go wrong very much.
However, since I've never actually read Pullman's trilogy, I shall refrain from commenting on the quality of the film adaptations produced ITTL. As I mentioned above, I saw The Golden Compass in the cinema and didn't think it was very good. It had nothing to do with the content of it; it just was just a bad movie, badly-written and (despite what I would say is the objective quality of some members of the cast) not particularly well-acted.
Harry Potter still happens. Twilight still happens. I imagine the Hunger Games still happens. Those movies still happen, during which time the studios were very keen (as they were IOTL) to jump on the bandwagon (that's why The Golden Compass got made) and they all still end after which time the studios are still pretty desperate (as they are IOTL) to find the next big YA franchise.
12. Running (Down A Corridor) To Stand Still: The Twelfth Doctor
Heavy
Banned
THE TWELFTH DOCTOR
Noah Wyle
(2015 – 2017)
Noah Wyle
(2015 – 2017)
Following the departure of Steven Moffat as showrunner at the end of the programme's fifteenth season, Doctor Who was ready to reinvent itself once more. Dan Slott, veteran of the writers' room in one way, shape or form for almost the entire run of the rebooted version of the series, had ascended to the showrunner position and was ready to place his own stamp on the programme just as his predecessors had done. Also new to the scene was the new executive producer, Jane Espenson, an experienced television producer and a well-regarded writer in her own right who was engaged by Gallifrey Pictures after Peter DeLuise opted not to renew his contract after 2014 and parted ways with the company amicably. [1] Despite his best efforts, Slott had been unable to persuade David Harewood to stay on for another season as the Eleventh Doctor, and though disappointed, was keen to find a new actor to take on the role.
Slott had no preference between British or American actors. Having spent several years of his youth living in Britain (where he had become a dyed-in-the-wool Doctor Who fan), he was sensitive to its cultural significance and popularity in its home country. At the same time, he reasoned that after fourteen years and four corresponding Doctors, British and (North) American had between them divvied the series up fairly evenly. [2] The television landscape had changed once again in the four years since David Harewood first stepped on to the Vancouver soundstage to film his first episode as the Eleventh Doctor: the kind of genre shows the CW had been trading in for more than a decade, that the Doctor Who reboot, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and a handful of other notables had played a very significant role in influencing, inspiring and popularising, had broken out into the mainstream.
The growth of new online outlets made interaction with fans – and fan responses – more direct and more immediate than ever before. [3] The importance of conventions as both a promotional tool, venue for fan socialising and even as a source of income for actors was likewise greater than at any time since the first golden age of Star Trek conventions in the 1970s. With the stars of genre series such as The Walking Dead, Once Upon a Time, The Rocketeer: The Golden Age [4] and the CW's own "Batverse" franchise of Action Comics adaptations sometimes earning more in one weekend of personal appearances than their per episode rates, more actors than ever were interested in getting "franchise" work.
And where did Doctor Who find itself in all this? Even Moffat's toughest critics could not deny his talent for creating memorable "moments" in his episodes, which could easily be turned into gifs, repurposed as memes and then endlessly reblogged on Tumblr or Twitter or any number of social media fora. His decision to take a chance on David Harewood as the Eleventh Doctor had likewise paid up dividends, helping Doctor Who to reach out to heretofore untapped audiences, which had helped to make the fanbase broadly younger and much more diverse in the process. In the same fashion, Harewood's ever-thoughtful commentary (a highlight of his frequent interviews and discussions with fans) on matters relating to the representation of female and minority actors in media in general and in genre media in particular, had contributed to the programme's reputation for having its finger on the pulse on the pop culture zeitgeist. [5] Both factors taken together were certainly a big contributor to the Doctor Who social media profile.
As far as Dan Slott and Jane Espenson were concerned, nothing was broken and nothing needed fixing, and their strategy should be to identify an actor who would appeal to the younger and more diverse audience and write stories designed to appeal to "the Internet generation – the millennials". In the landscape in which Doctor Who now found itself, the producers seemed almost spoiled for choice. Thus far in its existence, the regeneration of a Doctor had usually presaged for the producers and casting directors a long and difficult process of canvassing and auditioning prospective leads, many of whom may have been reluctant to commit potentially the best years of their careers to becoming tied down in a science-fiction series. However, with Doctor Who enjoying a newfound privileged position as the solid rock of the science-fiction television environment (previously occupied by Star Trek: The Next Generation and The X-Files), the production team could be forgiven for expecting actors to start coming to them. Particularly because, in this case, that is exactly what happened.
Noah Wyle had become one of the most recognisable men on television for his lengthy run playing Dr John Carter on the hit hospital drama ER from its premiere in 1994 until after its eleventh season in 2005. Charismatic and handsome, Wyle had become one of the leading TV heartthrobs of the 1990s and was drawing a million dollar per episode salary (purportedly one of the highest in television history) by the time his association with the series came to an end. He had previously been one of the actors approached to play the Ninth Doctor in 2003 following the departure of Anthony Stewart Head while still appearing in ER, and while he had been interested, there was no way Sci-Fi could have realistically matched what NBC could offer and so Wyle politely declined the invitation. At the time, producer Philip Segal half-jokingly remarked that he would be free to audition if he ever felt the inclination when the role next became available; although perhaps not meant seriously, Wyle's interest was piqued.
During his penultimate season on ER and in the years afterwards, Wyle appeared as lead character Flynn Carsen – insecure polymath turned swashbuckling adventurer – in a series of four television films which formed the Librarian franchise, which aired between 2004 and 2010 on TNT. Generally "liked" rather than acclaimed, the series was characterised by critics as "mainstream adventure fare" and its protagonist acknowledged favourably as a kind of loose 21st century version of Indiana Jones. However, as Flynn Carsen dallied with a succession of turncoat Librarians, secret societies, ancient conspiracies, vampires and (in what is currently the final entry in the series, 2010's The Mystery of Atlantis) visitors from outer space, it began to look more and more akin to the adventures of Sean Patrick Flanery as the Ninth Doctor, then airing concurrently on Sci-Fi. Following the conclusion of the Librarian films, Wyle took the lead role (and an executive producer credit) on the sci-fi series Falling Skies (also on by TNT) which had broadcast its last episode that year. [6]
Although not initially a fan of the series, Wyle had becoming a devoted viewer of Doctor Who shortly after its revival with Anthony Stewart Head. Despite having turned down the offer to play the Ninth Doctor, his experience working on the Librarian films reinvigorated his interest; when David Harewood announced his departure, Wyle went directly to Jane Espenson, told her that he felt that he could be a good Twelfth Doctor and informed her of Philip Segal's old "promise" from more than a decade earlier. Although Espenson was not inclined to take said promise seriously, Slott was intrigued by Wyle's clear enthusiasm for the part and convinced Espenson to let him audition. The actor managed to impress the producers and was announced as the next Doctor shortly before the end of the final Harewood season.
At 43, Wyle was perhaps at the high end of the age range in which the producers wanted to cast, but his energy and enthusiasm made him seem a much younger man. In several interviews explaining the casting choice, Slott remarked that Wyle was, "The right age to be your favourite uncle; he's old enough to be a reassuring, authority kind of guy, but he's not so old he wouldn't be approachable. And he can be a really fun, playful guy without seeming like an overgrown child." [7] Wyle's existing profile almost certainly played a significant role in his seemingly perfunctory casting; going solely by numbers, he was by some distance the biggest star Doctor Who had snagged as its lead since the revival's debut in 2000. For the most part, he was met optimistically by fans on both sides of the Atlantic, although Slott would in later years (as details of the process came out) come under criticism for "forcing through" Wyle as the Twelfth Doctor. [8]
Joining the Twelfth Doctor in the TARDIS was new companion Dawn Greenwood, a character created by Slott (but clearly very strongly influenced by Steven Moffat). [9] She was played by Willa Holland, whose casting marked the first time in history of Doctor Who that the TARDIS had a completely American crew; Slott would alter this situation partway through the Twelfth Doctor's first season with the addition of second companion Doug Taggert, a young Londoner played by British actor Franz Drameh. This would remain the show's regular full-time line-up throughout the remainder of Wyle's three seasons as the Twelfth Doctor. By some measures, this trio represented one of the youngest main casts in Doctor Who history (Wyle was 44, Holland 24 and Drameh 22), and certainly fit the aim to target the younger and more diverse audience the series had attracted since its debut on the CW five years earlier.
Wyle played the Twelfth Doctor himself as "an old man trapped in a young man's body"; a consciously "alien" individual possessed of seemingly boundless energy (his behaviour could sometimes seem to verge on manic), who loved solving problems but could easily become distracted by anything unusual enough to capture his interest. He was also self-admitted thrill-seeker consumed by an insatiable love of adventure and never shied away from a fight despite his unassuming intellectual trappings [10]. Totally assured of his own intelligence, the new Doctor dressed and lectured like a university professor, taking in a vast array of diverse subjects and often making references to the adventures of his distant youth (frequently added to other writers' scripts by Slott, an incorrigible continuity stickler). Altogether, he readily conveyed the "eccentric teacher taking his students on school field trip to the stars" theme that Slott was eager to explore. For his own part, Noah Wyle described his portrayal of the Doctor as "a mixture of Indiana Jones, Sherlock Holmes and a grown-up Harry Potter; Dan and I treat him a bit like a wizard with a sonic screwdriver for a magic wand."
Plans announced concerning the plotting of the Twelfth Doctor era were expected to be another key divergence; Slott made clear that he wanted to downplay the thoroughly involved and serialised multi-season story arcs of the Garber and Harewood years in favour of an increased focus on stand-alone episodic stories advancing a comparatively looser continuing arc. Such news was initially welcomed; although the Time War storyline had been highly acclaimed, the ongoing arcs put in motion by Moffat during his run as the sole showrunner had popularly been looked at askance for being confusing, too ambitious and unsatisfyingly resolved. So too as the use of two-part stories due to be kept at a premium (each of the three Twelfth Doctor seasons, with the notable exception of the second, featured a two-part premiere, a two-part story in the middle of the season, and a two-part finale) although this was ultimately judged to be detrimental to narrative development.
Tonally, the Twelfth Doctor was decidedly brighter, more optimistic and straightforward than the darker, more complex takes on the character pursued previously by Russell Davies and Steven Moffat. [11] To an extent, this was reflective of Slott's instincts as a writer, but so too could Noah Wyle share in the responsibility for the change in direction. Initially unbeknownst to Slott, he had managed to negotiate an executive producer credit out of Gallifrey Pictures to last for the duration of his time as its lead actor (not the first Doctor Who lead to make such an attempt, but the first to do so successfully) and exercised a small degree of influence over the creative direction of his character. [12]
In amongst the usual recurring encounters with traditional enemies such as the Cybermen and Daleks (enough of them having escaped the Time War following the 50th anniversary to justify their return as recurring adversaries for the TARDIS crew), Slott created a novel story arc for the Twelfth Doctor's first season in which the Doctor encountered a long-forgotten opponent of John Le Mesurier's Second Doctor, the so-called "Master of the Land of Fiction". Portrayed by the acclaimed American character actor Matt Frewer and now proclaiming himself the "Lord of Stories" (the rename was judged necessary to avoid confusion with the Doctor's more famous adversary, the Master), the villain summoned up fiction's most fiendish (public domain) villains to menace the Doctor, including Count Dracula, Frankenstein's monster, Professor Moriarty and others. While comparisons with Once Upon a Time were inevitable, the storyline was very well-regarded.
However, the most famous story conceived by Slott was a rare three-part adventure that served as the finale to the second Twelfth Doctor season (the only three-part story in the entire Noah Wyle era). This story featured the inevitable return of the Master, once more played by a returning Jason Isaacs, who claimed to have been changed by his experience of being trapped in the Time War and expressed a desire to turn over a new leaf and help the Doctor to explore and protect the universe. This was, of course, a ruse, allowing the Master to trap the Doctor and use experimental telepathic technology to switch bodies with his enemy as part of a scheme to blacken the Doctor's name by stealing his TARDIS and terrorising the galaxy. His endgame, he boasted, was to prove once and for all that he could be "the superior Doctor". Wyle and Isaacs's respective portrayals of the Master as the Doctor and the Doctor as the Master proved very well-received for their successful combination of drama and humour (although the story itself raised some eyebrows).
Nonetheless, despite these successes, despite the broadly positive reaction received by the Twelfth Doctor and despite Noah Wyle's frequent expressions of clearly genuine enthusiasm for Doctor Who and his role, there was something – something undefinable – about his three years in the role never quite seemed to "click". Nobody was entirely sure what exactly that something actually was: perhaps the change in tone (for all that it was not completely unwelcome) had been too much, too soon, too fast; perhaps Wyle had enjoyed too much creative influence as an executive producer and someone should have reined him in; perhaps Jane Espenson had been the wrong choice to produce; perhaps Dan Slott, for all his skill as a writer of strong characters, simply did not have what it took to act as full-time showrunner for an ongoing science-fiction series; [13] perhaps the stories were too pedestrian, failing to live up to the adventurousness that Wyle's Twelfth Doctor always exuded; perhaps the persistent, semi-substantiated reports of Slott and Wyle not getting on, the former resenting the status as "face" of Doctor Who after so many years spent waiting in Moffat's shadow, had more than a grain of truth to them.
Whatever the reason, Noah Wyle announced that he would be standing down as Twelfth Doctor after three seasons piloting the TARDIS through time and space (although the ever dependable Willa Holland and Franz Drameh both made clear that they wished to stay for the foreseeable future, prompting the fandom to breathe a sigh of relief). Wyle's Doctor at least received a heroic exit from the series, as the Doctor was fatally poisoned by the radiation of the malfunctioning time core of an experimental Rutan time machine to save the lives of Dawn and Doug. [14] Preliminary retrospective accounts of the Twelfth Doctor era remain divided; it is oceans apart from the disaster of the James Hazeldine years but it is seldom noted as anyone's favourite. Likewise, Noah Wyle himself continues to perform favourably in historical rankings of Doctors even if his performance was sometimes divisive; most fans and critics agree that he was underserved by his stories (which themselves still they enjoy fervent support in Doctor Who fandom), which gamely tried to do something different but lacked ambition when it came down to the crunch. If and when history comes to sum up the Twelfth Doctor in one word, it is unfortunately likely to be one word which should never describe Doctor Who: "nondescript".
A short time afterwards, Dan Slott – who had privately resolved to be the longest-lasting showrunner in Doctor Who history – announced on his newly-reactivated Twitter account that he would be leaving as showrunner as well, ending an association with Doctor Who that had lasted almost 16 years. He would return to comics writing full time, beginning a celebrated run on Marvel's The Amazing Spider-Man in the summer of 2018. In a much more surprising move, Jane Espenson said that she intended not to renew her contract with Gallifrey Pictures, although she would remain in an advisory capacity until a suitable replacement could be found to guide the programme into its record-setting 19th season. [15]
At the end of the day, this was only a setback. Even if Supernatural and the "Batverse" franchise had been nipping at its heels, Doctor Who was still the highest-rated drama on the CW and the veritable crown jewel in its popular slate of genre shows. Its momentum had lagged slightly, perhaps out of a sense of complacency in its comfortable position, but could be recovered by trying something really adventurous once again. As fans watched on and speculated, long meetings were being held between Gallifrey Picture, the CW and representatives from the BBC, after which a clear agreement was reached. Doctor Who was going to do something ground-breaking – something it had never done in the 55-year history of the programme.
The world was ready for a female Doctor.
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[1] Primarily associated with Joss Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer franchise, Espenson had written and produced a number of episodes for parent series and the first spin-off, Angel, before serving as showrunner for the third and fourth seasons of Spike & Faith. She had also worked on the fourth, fifth and sixth seasons of Ronald D. Moore's Battlestar Galactica reboot on Doctor Who's old home channel, Sci-Fi, and contributed scripts for several episodes of Moore's Western drama series Hangtown for ABC.
[2] Head and Harewood had been the Doctor for seven seasons altogether while Flanery and Garber between them had had eight, but Slott liked to joke that, "Victor's Canadian, so that about evens it out."
[3] Slott himself had become somewhat notorious for engaging forcefully on Twitter with the various and numerous critics of predecessor Steven Moffat's tenure as showrunner; this resulted in an awkward situation in which Slott had managed to become the face of the behind-the-scenes dimension of the series (Moffat had little time for or interest in social media) and consequently was already a lightning rod for criticism when he took the hot seat. He was quietly instructed to close his account shortly after his appointment.
[4] Developed for television by Joe Johnston, who had previously directed the 1991 film, The Rocketeer: The Golden Age was produced for ABC by Marvel Studios from 2012 onwards, despite not being a Marvel property. Details remain vague, but the arrangement most likely came about through Johnston's work directing the first two Captain America films for the Marvel Cinematic Universe franchise, which shared The Rocketeer's evocative "period" setting (Captain America: The First Avenger and Captain America: Revenge of the Red Skull, together chronicling the Star-Spangled Man With a Plan's adventures during the Second World War). Functioning as a reboot of the film and consistently described by critics as "relentlessly upbeat", the series stars Stephen Amell as Cliff Secord and British actor James D'Arcy as the dastardly Neville Sinclair.
[5] A reputation perhaps not entirely well-deserved. Notwithstanding the unexpectedly immense popularity enjoyed by Chyler Leigh for her portrayal of Clara Oswald (who surprisingly became one of the most popular Halloween costumes for young girls during her time on the show and whose action figures were among the most in-demand merchandise associated with the series), Moffat's ability to actually write female characters sensitively (despite what many critics observed were honest acknowledgements of his shortcomings and genuine attempts to improve) left a few things to be desired.
[6] A fifth Librarian telefilm – which Wyle had hoped to co-write and produce himself – was mooted for 2012, but would never get any further than conceptual stages after Wyle's casting in the science-fiction series Falling Skies in 2011 left him too busy to commit to another appearance as Flynn Carsen.
[7] At 58, Victor Garber had been the oldest actor cast as the Doctor while David Harewood had left Doctor Who shortly before his 50th birthday; both the outgoing production supremoes (DeLuise and Moffat) and their incoming successors were consequently interested in casting another younger actor ("a real CW type", reported on backstage source) as the Twelfth Doctor, with names discussed including British actors Jamie Dornan (discounted when everybody involved realised no one would be able to understand his accent), Charlie Cox, Arthur Darvill and Theo James, and Americans Josh Dallas, Rick Cosnett, Ian Somerhalder and Mehcad Brooks. For a time, Kit Harrington seemed the odds on favourite but had to be discounted when the producers realised that Jon Snow had not died at the end of Game of Thrones' fifth season.
[8] While the actor's forthright pursuit of the role gave him a significant leg-up on competitors, who generally had to be approached with invitations to audition, he did have to try out for the role; there was no "coronation" (as some disgruntled fans described it) and the final say rested with Espenson as executive producer, who Wyle was successfully able to impress.
[9] Dawn, a young woman from present-day Massachusetts who wore polka-dotted clothes, always had a quip at the ready and possessed a distinctly "quirky" personality, was in fact deemed to be so similar to a typical Moffat character that many fans actively speculated that she was a leftover Slott had inherited, even though she was entirely the new showrunner's own work.
[10] At the actor's suggestion, the Twelfth Doctor's time in the TARDIS saw the reintroduction of the largely-forgotten idea dating from Peter Wyngarde's tenure almost 40 years earlier that the Doctor was an expert fencer, a characteristic Wyle relished enacting on screen.
[11] In Britain, entertainment reporters for the Daily Mail newspaper – which had typically been critical to the point of hyperbole regarding the decision to cast American actors as the Doctor (and then intensely resentful of their ensuing popularity in Britain as well as America) – went so far as to praise the Twelfth Doctor era for making Doctor Who "more of a family show than it has been since William Hartnell was in the TARDIS."
[12] Despite being best known for his appearances in adult-oriented drama, Wyle cared deeply about family-friendly entertainment having a place in the primetime television schedule and recognised that Doctor Who was well-suited to realising this aim. This was also a likely factor in the appearances of several acclaimed historical episodes during his tenure on the programme. Slott was receptive to the direction, reasoning that he or his own successor would have an obvious "new direction" for the inevitable Thirteenth Doctor by bringing back a darker or more ambiguous tone.
[13] Rumours have abounded that, after what had been a very strong start, the pressure of running Doctor Who (and a noted taste for attending conventions when he perhaps should have been writing) meant that Slott began to fall behind on his own scripts, which sometimes had to be finished collaboratively by other members of the writers' room. This rumour has been denied by Slott, Espenson, Wyle and other members of the cast and crew, although CW network memos leaked shortly after Slott quit the series appear to cast some doubt on their assurances.
[14] Slott later confessed that he was at a loss over how to handle the Twelfth Doctor’s regeneration into the Thirteenth and explained that the idea he eventually used was a holdover, suggested by Russell Davies as a possible means for Victor Garber's Tenth Doctor to regenerate more than five years earlier.
[15] Espenson subsequently admitted that she had never really acclimatised to Doctor Who, claiming that she had been hired by Gallifrey Pictures for her experience with "CW shows" more so than any affinity for Doctor Who and explaining that she had placed a great deal of reliance on Dan Slott, who was a "super fan" as showrunner.
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Another good entry. I liked your take on Jane Espenson (one of my favourite tv writers) a lot, particuarly the idea that she never quite clicked with the material.
And you've taught me that Willa Holland isn't the same person as Kaya Schodelario, which I didn't previously know.
And you've taught me that Willa Holland isn't the same person as Kaya Schodelario, which I didn't previously know.