Russell T Davies: A Retrospective, Part One
“I don’t want to go…”
~ The Tenth Doctor, last words
This is going to be a strange post. Strange because I don’t really know enough about RTD to judge him. Of his work, I’ve only seen his venture in the new Doctor Who series (2005–2009) and the pilot episode of Torchwood, “Everything Changes”. But I’m not going to speak of Torchwood (which I have no opinion about, although I’ve heard mostly negative comments about it) and his earlier works like Queer as Folk. This is an attempt to look, in retrospect, at his impact on the series that he spearheaded for five years.
Fan opinion on Russell T Davies is polarized. Some believe he ruined the series forever, or alternatively, did nothing throughout his years but spitting on the grave of the Good Ol’ Classic™ Series. Others regard him as the second coming of insert favorite producer here and worship the ground he walks on. This is to be expected, particularly since it’s a fandom we’re talking about. I said before that I don’t call myself a fan of anything, and part of the reason is that for every relatively recent work of fiction that I happen to enjoy, I eventually end up disliking its fandom. Or rather, disliking the loudmouth “yer doin it rong” factions that constantly bicker against each other, or focus on shallow, superficial traits of the characters and write kiloscreens of slashfiction with blatant disregard for plot, characterization and background themes (especially prevalent in anime fandom, for example Haruhi Suzumiya—a fairly clever teenage SF series by a competent author and maybe the closest thing thematically that anime has to Doctor Who, turned into a joke by its own fandom).
So, as a non-fan who just happens to be interested in Doctor Who, I’ll try to present a Cliff Notes version of my strange, complex love-hate attitude to the man behind the 2005 revival, Russell T Davies. As a disclaimer, I never saw any of the old series episodes (I honestly tried to watch the First and Fourth Doctor, but found them too cringeworthy by modern standards—although I did read a lot about the old series on the TARDIS Wiki, complete with screenshots), so all I can compare the RTD series to is the Eighth Doctor movie and the three episodes of Series 5 released so far.
First things first: RTD is a brilliant marketer. He succeeded in the seemingly impossible: not only did he bring back an old SF series, fairly obscure outside the UK and mostly remembered as low-budget and over-the-top silly (after a failed revival attempt in 1996, no less), the new series turned into an unprecedented worldwide success, ensuring its bright future for years to come. He seemed to know just the right actors; Eccleston, Piper, Tennant, Agyeman and Tate were all regarded as questionable choices at best when the casting was announced, yet these naysayers quickly drowned in cries of praise when the new Doctors and companions hit the screens.
He knew how to stir and bait the press (with pretentious titles like “The Next Doctor”) and ensure publicity for the show, how to keep the wheel of speculation and rumors (sometimes outright incorrect ones, intentionally so) running, and fuel the interest in both the series and its backstage revolutions for viewers and journalists alike. And here we see one of RTD‘s persistent qualities: everything around him screams loudly. “Look at me! I’m an important piece of information! I’m here for a reason!”
He knew that simply bringing the show back in its original format wouldn’t bode well with a 21st century audience, and to survive, it had to adapt and evolve. Hence the new 45-minute format and the new in-universe aesthetics: under various pretexts, the new series “modernized” such dated (“retrofuturistic”) elements as the TARDIS interior, the sonic screwdriver, the Daleks and the Cybermen, although the police box exterior proved to be too iconic to touch in any significant way. It almost feels like a “reimagining” that’s oddly in-continuity with the previous show; granted, Doctor Who evolved quite a lot over its original 26-year-old run (heck, the series as originally conceived didn’t have the Time Lords, regeneration and the sonic screwdriver, now considered iconic elements of the mythos), but the changes between the old and new series were the most drastic modification the franchise ever faced.
And amazingly, with such drastic changes, complete with the allegedly “un-Doctorish” Christopher Eccleston, Doctor Who remained recognizably Doctor Who—whereas the 1996 movie is often claimed to be “not really Doctor Who”. (And indeed, my first impression of it, after exposure to the RTD series, was that a recognizably Doctorish Doctor somehow ended up in an alternate universe of an American cop movie.)
At the same time, the series became more self-aware, if not necessarily “darker”—a definite plus in an age where a detailed analysis of every episode’s goofs and plot holes appears on the Internet within minutes after the episode finishes airing. The first season alone explored such themes as:
- The Doctor’s loneliness and survivor’s guilt following the Time War (by itself, a good catalyst to rebuild mystery around the Doctor after we found out too much about him).
- The companion’s ties back in their place of origin, and the consequences of traveling with the Doctor for the companion and those around them. (“Aliens of London”, “Father’s Day”, “Boom Town”)
- The two reasons the Doctor needs companions. (“The End of the World” and “Dalek”)
- What distinguishes a good companion from a bad one. (“The Long Game”)
- The drastic consequences of temporal paradoxes, and the justification of the idea that you only get one attempt to change history. (“Father’s Day”)
- The consequences of careless meddling with history and “setting right what once went wrong”. (“Bad Wolf”)
While it was loud, fast-paced and zany, the new series was clever enough to occasionally employ deconstruction (in the TV Tropes sense, that is, showing a grittier side of a plot device by playing it seriously and realistically). The finale nailed the inherent wrongness of the Doctor just waltzing into a dystopia, removing the reason for its existence, and expecting things to magically get better as he carelessly hops to his next adventure. Looking ahead, I should add it would be even nicer if these themes were consistently followed.
Self-awareness expanded to concepts that were originally intentionally overlooked, of the “elephant in the living room” variety. The pervasive TV SF phenomenon of aliens speaking English, which remains to this day unexplained in the Stargate franchise, not only got an in-universe explanation that was consistently followed on, but became a plot point in a couple of episodes. Regeneration, originally just a plot device invented to allow changing actors, became its own theme explored in detail. (There is speculation that Davies hired Eccleston with the specific intent to change him into Tennant at the end of his Doctor’s arc.)
“Eccleston then apparently released a statement through the BBC, saying that he would be leaving the role at Christmas for fear of being typecast. Fan reaction to the news ranged from disappointment to irritation to outright anger. Some did point out, however, that the series is uniquely suited to deal with cast changes. The number of angry postings on the popular Outpost Gallifrey fan forum was enough for Shaun Lyon, the owner of the website, to close down the forum for two days to allow tempers to cool.”
~ Wikipedia, “History of Doctor Who”
Davies laid the groundwork, the overall thematic direction, and the threads to follow on—which largely continue to be followed, as his successor Moffat has retained the overall format: self-contained adventure-of-the-week episodes with overarching season-long plots and personal arcs for the companions. As a long-term Doctor Who fan himself, Davies has preserved (bar some exceptions) the overall series mythos, going as far as to veto Children’s BBC idea of the near-assured disaster that would a young Doctor series. (The idea of a Doctor Who spin-off for kids, however, survived and became The Sarah Jane Adventures). Granted, this was offset by the creation of Torchwood, whose reception was… mixed, to put it mildly.
A marketing ace, a competent producer, a rebuilder and a preserver, the engineer of Doctor Who‘s worldwide success. Why, then, all the fan hate? Mainly, it stems as a criticism of the one thing that Davies, in charge of Doctor Who, wasn’t good at.
He was not a good Doctor Who writer.
But that requires a second part to analyze in more detail—one that will follow soon enough, where I’ll get to looking at Davies’ writing for the four and a half seasons he produced.
I agree that Davies put his own stamp on the show (and on Torchwood, which is another really good show). I also agree that his scripts sometimes left something to be desired. I am glad that he chose Stephen Moffat to take over the show-runner duties, because his scripts are the ones that stand out for me as the better ones of the last few years (I especially like “Blink” and “The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances” stories).
Moffat’s stories always have an air of horror and danger to them, and I can’t wait to see the direction that Moffat’s Doctor will take!