Well, that’s all, folks… for now. Another hiatus isn’t just rumored. It now seems all but confirmed. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, Doctor Who is the world’s longest-running and most successful sci-fi show. These reports seem to indicate it is, indeed, currently dead. It was killed by its own showrunner. That is not hyperbole; it is a harsh fact now.
Russell T. Davies was handed a golden ticket. Returning to the show after masterminding its successful 2005 reboot, the show was in the doldrums. The only way was up, and what an opportunity it was. There was a serious cash injection from a major global partner in the form of Disney+, along with all the wonders of those distribution possibilities.
The audience was quite clear in their requirements. Can we harken back to the best bits of the post-2005 reboot and perhaps dial down some of the more on-your-nose, less-than-subtle, personal progressive peccadillos of the creatives?
Davies, as the showrunner, heard this and decided what we really needed was a homosexual Afro-Scot to be dressed in a skirt, have his sexuality be the sum total of his character, and double down on increasingly clumsy storytelling on topics straight from the pages of The Guardian.
It was too much even for Disney. What should have been a great partnership of channel and reach with well-loved content instead collapsed into an abject failure of poor ratings, and unfavourable online commentary as fans deserted the show. Their two-year deal will not be extended.
Once the Disney deal officially expires, it looks as if the BBC will be waiting for new partners to come on board. This means a potential long, long hiatus. Former Doctor Who Magazine editor Tom Spilsbury has laid all this out in a Reddit post, as reported by Dark Horizons:
“My guess – and it is just a guess – is that it will be five or six years before we see anything new. At which point, it will be the children of 2005 who will be bringing the show back, just as Russell predicted. As ever, time will tell.
I suspect the show will indeed come back at some point, but as of right now, nothing is commissioned and nothing is guaranteed. Those are the facts. Time will tell, of course, but I don’t get the sense of much optimism for anything very soon from anyone l’ve spoken to…
Everything is moving much more slowly in television at the moment. On the assumption that Disney doesn’t renew before its option officially expires, that will be the point when the BBC can start to shop the show around. And that process could take a fair bit of time – it may require more than one partner just to raise the money needed.
Potential partners who may have some very specific requirements or stipulations. They may need to go back to people whom they turned down last time. Yes, the BBC could go for the ultra-cheap in-house version of the show, but I really don’t think that’s as viable an option as it used to be – the licence fee simply hasn’t kept up with inflation over the past few years.”
Previous reports have said that Netflix and HBO Max are curious about potentially buying streaming rights for the series. Would they fund a new run? If they did, there would be some stipulations. Hollywood has woken up to the damage they have allowed to happen to IP and content as a result of “current year” thinking.
Any second engagement with them from the BBC would be from a position of weakness, and it would be difficult to see a place in any structure for the showrunner who presided over this mess.
Five years in modern TV terms is a lifetime.
