Longtime readers will know that I am a big fan of Doctor Who, specifically, the classic series and ancillary media like novels, audio dramas and comics. I initially started in 2005 with the new series, but quickly fell off due to the lack of quality in the writing and general production. Despite wonky sets, overacting and some truly dire episodes over the original run, the 1963 to 1989 series was a television juggernaut that dominated a sector of the culture for nearly 30 years and it deserves a respect that I never really felt it got since coming back in 2005. I dip in from time to time (usually with the regeneration), but I've never found anything in the current version of Doctor Who that makes me want to stick around and watch.
With the recent announcement that the series is "on hiatus" once again, and nothing new in production, the BBC has publicised that Doctor Who is out for tender, meaning that the television series is available to anyone with the money and a good pitch. Well, I don't have the money, crowdfunding exists, so that might help, but I can throw together a pitch for basically nothing. And whilst my ideal plan involves bringing Robert Holmes and Terrance Dicks back from the dead to run the series for me, I do have a few good ideas that are actually possible, which I can roll into my beer-mat pitch for a broadcast season and hopefully entertain my handful of regular readers. So let's get started with the first episode, shall we?
We need to start out what is really at least the 3rd iteration of Doctor Who with a bang, so here's a multi-Doctor story to launch us. Which Doctors is the obvious question, well, we'll have a newly-regenerated Billie Piper find herself immediately confronted by Paul MacGann, Richard E Grant (in his Scream of the Shalka incarnation) and Sean Pertwee playing the 3rd Doctor. Look, I know he said he wouldn't do it, but it's one episode, throw some money at him and remind him of his dad's legacy with the series. Our three Doctors reveal that they've finally tracked down the imposter that's been messing with their timeline (Piper) and they're sending her to Shada for her crimes. The rest of the episode is something of a mash-up of Trial of a Time Lord and The Chase as we backtrack through Doctor Who history to see the havoc wrought by the new series on the classic continuity as the entire 2005-2025 run is revealed to be a member of The Faction Paradox trying to destroy the Doctor's work and good name. We also learn that the Grant 9th Doctor has been trapped in a pocket universe (like E Space) whilst this has been going on, only to be rescued by his previous incarnations.
However, there is a twist! The 9th Doctor, through the adventures he's having, finds that he has actually been in the Matrix the entire time. After defeating Piper, he gets goodbye moments with 8 and 3 (and whoever we could get to cameo in terms of companions) and wakes up on Galifrey, with a new version of Romana to greet him and the Celestial Intervention Agency to provide the last little bit of explanation we need. Now that we've jettisoned the entire 2005-2025 continuity, pissing a lot of people off, but making me happy and getting everyone talking about the series again, the rest of the season won't be dealing too much with anything that happened in the opening story. The Doctor, now played by Grant full-time, is given his leave by the CIA and returns to an empty TARDIS to, once again, adventure in time and space.
From there, the framework is fairly loose. Like with the New Adventures novels, I'll put out to writers to send in stories that don't have an arc or major continuity revelations, just the Doctor and a Companion, who step out of the TARDIS at the start and step back in at the end. Obviously, we'll have a good Script Editor with a solid vision for the series, but basically anything goes in terms of story. No two stories should be too similar and I want to avoid the Daleks or other iconic villains for the entire first season, but again, I want to stress, pretty much anything is on the table; no bad ideas and all that. We're going back to the idea that the TARDIS can appear anywhere and anywhen and that adventures can be almost anything. A murder mystery, a ghost story, a war, a monster story, the universe is the limit.
A few other housekeeping things before we sign off. Ideally, I'd like to take Doctor Who back to being half-hour episodes broadcast weekly, with most stories between 4 and 6 episodes in length. I believe that the series works better as a serial, with cliffhangers and time to sketch out ideas, but I'd settle for every story being two-part with the longer episodes. Keeping the cold opens though, I think those help set the mood really well. The idea would be to have Grant do the one season only (unless he's really keen) before regenerating and getting a new actor in. Basically, I want to create a bridge between the classic series and a new one that skips everything 2005-2026 and has as close a 'feel' to the original as possible, and I personally think Grant is the better choice to do that (being more of a "blank space" in terms of continuity) than McGann. I think new fans either don't know, or tend to forget that Doctor Who was the biggest television series in the world for a time in the 1970s, getting a market share that's functionally unbelievable today, just by being solidly-written and competently produced most of the time. I believe it can be again, on the same merits.
Well that's me done on this unless someone contacts me with money to back me up or a plan to get it. I hope Doctor Who does come back, but I also hope it's better than it really has been most of my lifetime. Until then, I have my books, DVDs, audios and comics to keep me going on one of my favourite fictional universes.
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