Happy birthday, Doctor
In 2005, Russell T Davies defied the critics to bring Doctor Who back to life. Now, he tells Huw Fullerton, it’s invulnerable – but it didn’t always feel that way
BBC
- Huw Fullerton
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This time 20 years ago, screenwriter Russell T Davies was under pressure. His passion-project revival of Doctor Who was about to air, starring Christopher Eccleston as the ninth Doctor and Billie Piper as his companion, Rose Tyler. It was 16 years on from the BBC’s original cancellation of the show, which to most of the world was a distant memory of wobbly sets and Daleks foiled by stairs. In 2005, TV was on a different planet. Could a series about a time-travelling alien in a police box really work in the era of The Sopranos and The Wire?
“It all felt terribly important,” Davies says now. “I’d loved Doctor Who all my life, and I think its return has now proved that it’s invulnerable. But it didn’t feel like that then. It felt very much last chance at the saloon.”
There was a lot at stake. But Davies found himself oddly confident. “In that build-up to transmission, I felt like we had a secret weapon – and that was Billie Piper,” he says. “Everyone knew Christopher Eccleston was a great actor, but knowing how good Billie was, was a terrific feeling. Because people came to criticise, people came to mock, and people came to scorn.”
In the end, Davies’s confidence was borne out. The Doctor Who revival became an overnight success, kickstarting a new era for the show that has spanned another two decades.
David Tennant took over as the Time Lord in the 2005 Christmas special. Matt Holyoak
Eccleston was succeeded by David Tennant, who recalls, “When I signed on, the first series of the new version hadn’t even transmitted. I sort of signed up to be in a second series that nobody could really be certain would ever arrive. I could have appeared in a regeneration scene at the end of series one, and that could have been it. I would have been not even the George Lazenby of Doctor Who; if I can make a slightly obscure Casino Royale reference, I’d have been the David Niven of Doctor Who!”
Following Eccleston and Tennant’s time, new Doctors – Matt Smith and Peter Capaldi – came in with Davies’s successor as series boss, Steven Moffat, while third showrunner Chris Chibnall cast Jodie Whittaker as the first female Doctor in 2017. New mythology, monsters and fan-favourite episodes were born.
Today, Davies is back in charge, with Ncuti Gatwa about to embark on his second series of adventures. He was just 12 years old when the Doctor was given a new lease of life in 2005, “probably being a nuisance somewhere in Boroughmuir High School corridors,” he jokes. “Now, I’ve just done my first Comic Con and as much as it was intense, it was a really nice way to finally get close and personal with the fans. A big, beautiful family of all kinds of people.
“It’s really special to have a character like the Doctor on our screens. He tries to leave everyone happier than when he first meets them and that’s a beautiful trait. He inspires and represents a sense of curiosity, courage and compassion in all of us.”
Matt Smith became the 11th Doctor in 2010. Mark Harrison
Doctor Who is a 20th-century show, successfully reinvented for the 21st. But perhaps more pertinently, it’s also a 2005 show that’s survived the changes in the TV landscape since then – the rise of streaming and the supposed “death” of traditional broadcasting. Doctor Who has become one of the biggest streaming successes for BBC iPlayer, with 36 million hours of New Who (specifically between 2005 and 2022) watched on the platform just last year.
The BBC tells RT there were over 70 million hours of Doctor Who watched in 2024, including its various spin-offs and iterations. So how does it keep going? “It’s a constant battle,” Davies admits. “It’s different every single week – not just on a different planet, but often a different genre, the cast keep changing, and that keeps people excited. And there’s nothing quite like that on TV. There’s nothing quite like that anthology-
show imagination of Doctor Who, where it takes these wild leaps from one episode to another.
“Never, never, never, never would you have thought we’d be here 20 years later,” he adds. “No programme would ever think that. It’s astonishing. We were literally just hoping for a second year.”
Amazingly, since its return not only did Doctor Who get a second series, it has managed to air at least one episode every single year since. So, let’s step into the Tardis and take a trip back through 20 years of New Who and remember how we got here…
The Steven Moffat era
Regular Who scribe Steven Moffat took over from Russell T Davies in 2010, staying in the showrunner role for seven years with two Doctors — Matt Smith and Peter Capaldi.
“Those extraordinary days [Doctor Who plus Sherlock] are a blur to me now,” he says. “I was working too hard and fast to properly remember any of it. I have a dim impression of panic, guilt and trying to cut down on sleeping so I could get more done. It didn’t work.
“But you know what? When I told people I was a screenwriter and they asked if they’d have seen anything I’d done… boy, did I have one hell of an answer. Ah, those days, those amazing days — I wonder what they were like.”
Peter Capaldi being photographed by Richard Grassie for Doctor Who, 2015 Richard Grassie
Moffat’s second Doctor, fellow Scot Capaldi, also has fond memories. “It reawakened the child in all of us,” he tells RT. “The revival of Doctor Who was, and is, one of the most welcome sights on TV.”
“No other epic yarn is like Doctor Who,” adds Moffat. “It’s brand new and ancient at the same time. That’s the Doctor for you: you’ve known him all your life and he’s the new kid on the block. How do you live for ever? Simples. You don’t age.”
The Chris Chibnall years
In 2018, Broadchurch creator Chris Chibnall took over the show, staying for four years alongside 13th Doctor Jodie Whittaker — the first woman to take on the lead role.
“Running Doctor Who, you really are ‘running’ a million miles an hour,” Chibnall says now. “Each episode is a new world, new characters, new monster. It’s exhilarating, exhausting, amazing. The best job.”
Jodie Whittaker took over as the Doctor in 2018. Ray Burmiston/Radio Times
“It was one of the biggest gifts I’ve ever been given, playing the Doctor,” agrees Whittaker. “There’s no right or wrong way to play that character. And the most exciting thing was that, as a woman, I got to play that part! I hope the show continues to celebrate change.”
“Regeneration is literally built into the show, on and off screen,” adds Chibnall. “Some people get frustrated that it doesn’t stand still, but that’s why it’s so enduring. It can constantly surprise. And if there was any young girl aged five upwards who saw Jodie and could suddenly see themselves in the Doctor, that’s all I ever wanted to do.”
NEW SEASON PREVIEW
The Doctor and others are under surveillance from a huge red robot. Lara Cornell/BBC Studios/Bad Wolf
Robots, cartoons and an interstellar song contest
2025 isn’t just an anniversary year — it also brings a second series of Doctor Who for Ncuti Gatwa’s incumbent Time Lord, now accompanied by new pal Belinda, played by Varada Sethu. “Belinda challenges the Doctor in ways he hasn’t been before,” Gatwa tells RT. “She has absolutely no desire to be in the Tardis and really wants to get back home. Which is hilarious!
“This Doctor has been used to using his charm or the mystery of his life to win people over, but none of that works on Belinda. And she challenges the way the Doctor has been used to doing things, as she’s equally headstrong. They push each other’s limits.”
The Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) finds himself in a spot of bother. BBC
In other adventures, the Doctor will face 1950s cartoons coming to life and some seriously scary new monsters — as well as an outer-space version of the Eurovision Song Contest, airing the same night as the real competition.
“It’s just wilder swings than ever, really,” showrunner Davies says. “Episode three is absolutely terrifying and we’re still working on the finale right now, which is astonishing. But the episode I keep going back to and rewatching, is the Interstellar Song Contest. It’s terrific in all sorts of ways.” HF
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Doctor Who returns to BBC1/iPlayer on Saturday 12 April
Authors
Huw FullertonCommissioning editor
Huw Fullerton is a commissioning editor for Radio Times magazine handling comedy, entertainment and specialist drama. In a previous regeneration, he covered all things sci-fi and fantasy for RadioTimes.com.
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