Well, if, like us here at FTN, you felt pretty confident that Doctor Who was done for now after the utterly dire last two seasons, then you could be right.
Mark Gatiss, best known for The League of Gentlemen and Sherlock, was a writer on Doctor Who during the original Russell T Davies years and the Steven Moffat era and even appeared in the show, has confirmed that, as of right now, Doctor Who is dead in space.
Speaking at the Italian Global Series Festival (IGSF), Gatiss said: “I don’t think anyone knows what is going on with Doctor Who at the moment.”
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When pushed for why, he didn’t say because the writing was utterly terrible and for a show with a budget that could end hunger in the UK, it looked cheaper than an episode from the 80s, but rather said: “All I know is it’s all about the Disney deal.”
The Disney Deal saw the show injected with $100 million per series and was expected to last multiple seasons, however no-one watching it and the fan backlash meant that Disney did the smart thing and pulled out of the deal, resulting in the series floating in space with the BBC facing sole financing.
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The deal ends officially after the spinoff limited series, The War Between the Land and See, drops later this year.
In the middle of all this happening, current showrunner Russell T Davies, who was writing a column in Doctor Who Magazine, suddenly announced that he was signing of, writing: ‘We don’t know what’s happening yet and while everyone works that out, I’ll take a pause on this page. Thanks for reading!’
Hmmmmmmmm… it seems that Doctor Who, one of the greatest sci-fi shows and institutions of all time, has been well and truly run off the rails and is in a really bad shape.
However… one last little pinprick of light (unlikely, in fairness, but still, we’re ever the optimists here at FTN), is that sci-fi writer and producer J Michael Straczynski, the man behind Babylon 5, has thrown his hat in the ring to showrun.
Sort of.
When asked on X if he’d want the gig, Straczynski wrote: “I would love nothing more in life than to take on that job, it’d be the thrill of a lifetime, but we’ll see.
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“I suppose the question is, would Doctor Who fans be willing to accept an American, even a hardcore Anglophile with a UK visa, for such an inherently British series, given Babylon 5 and Sense8 and the like? Would I be worthy?”
Straczynski had previously reached out to the BBC when Chris Chibnall left after the Whittaker era, but then Davies returned and nothing came of it.
RIP Doctor Who?
Looks like it.
Thoughts? I know you have them and I wanna hear ’em all?
FIRST LOOK: J Michael Straczynski writing new five-part Amazing Spider-man series
Source: DoctorWhoTV, DoctorWhoTV
Marc
Marc is a self-confessed nerd. Ever since seeing Star Wars for the first time around 1979 he’s been an unapologetic fan of the Wars and still believes, with Clone Wars and now Underworld, we are yet to see the best Star Wars. He’s a dad of two who now doesn’t have the time (or money) to collect the amount of toys, comics, movies and books he once did, much to the relief of his long-suffering wife. In the real world he’s a graphic designer. He started Following the Nerd because he was tired of searching a million sites every day for all the best news that he loves and decided to create one place where you can go to get the whole lot. Secretly he longs to be sitting in the cockpit of his YT-1300 Corellian Transport ship with his co-pilot Chewie, roaming the universe, waiting for his next big adventure, but feels just at home watching cartoons with his kids….
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