Doctor Who’s 60 glorious years centre stage with new specials
Troy Bramston speaks to Doctor Who’s showrunner, writer and producer, Russell T. Davies, about the magic of the science-fiction show that has captured imaginations for generations.
Russell T. Davies was born in the same year that Doctor Who, the long-running British science fiction series, was first broadcast. One of his earliest memories is sitting in front of the television mesmerised as the first Doctor, the time-travelling alien adventurer portrayed by William Hartnell, regenerated into the second Doctor, Patrick Troughton. Davies was just three years old.
“My parents always had the television on and they never turned it off, which is the finest upbringing you can possibly have and it was genuinely a great education. I was seeing stuff that perhaps a lot of children didn’t see,” Davies, the writer, producer and showrunner of the celebrated series, tells Review.
“My mum always loved science fiction and she parked me in front of the television. These things that you love are bound up with your family and your childhood … so everyone watched the show and some people didn’t stick with it. But I stuck with it and found myself a very lovely life as a result.”
This week marks the 60th anniversary of the first episode, An Unearthly Child, broadcast at 5.16pm on Saturday, November 23, 1963, on the BBC. More than four million people tuned in to see this new series about a mysterious doctor, his granddaughter and her two teachers, travelling through time and space in a blue Police Box to battle evil and save civilisations.
It is a show that has captured imaginations across generations, wrestling with moral and ethical questions, combining an exploration of the past with the hope and promise of the future. When the first Doctor stepped into his time machine known as the TARDIS, forever stuck as a Police Box to blend in with its 1960s London surroundings, viewers of all ages were hooked.
For many, it is the fourth manifestation of the Doctor, played by Tom Baker between 1974 and 1981, that remains a favourite. Baker, clad in a long multi-coloured scarf, coat and hat, with a mischievous toothy grin, gave the show its highest ratings. This classic era bohemian-style Doctor still has a hold of many hearts.
“I’m really a Tom Baker man,” Davies explains. “I think that’s an extraordinary era of the show. And it also fitted my life. I was 11 years old, that’s when I went to comprehensive school. That’s when I decided to keep watching instead of going and kissing girls like all those other foolish boys did.
“Also, the casting of Tom Baker is a piece of absolute magic, the like of which is rarely ever seen on television or cinema or theatre. It’s an absolute piece of magnesium. It’s gorgeous. It shines and sparkles and makes you laugh to this day.”
The Doctor, a renegade Time Lord who fled the planet Gallifrey to explore the universe in a rickety and unpredictable time machine, has always been the crux of the show. The grumpy and intimidating Hartnell (1963-66) and wise and whimsical Troughton (1966-69) were followed by the dashing dandy Jon Pertwee (1970-74) as the third Doctor.
After the inimitable Baker came the younger and cerebral Peter Davison’s fifth Doctor (1982-84), then the cranky and tormented Colin Baker’s sixth Doctor (1984-86), and the sage vaudevillian seventh Doctor played by Sylvester McCoy (1987-89) before a long hiatus.
There were two motion picture movies with Peter Cushing as the Doctor made in 1965 and 1966 that are not canon. Even more curious is the timey-wimey incarnations of John Hurt’s “War Doctor” (2013) to have come after the eighth doctor and Jo Martin’s “Fugitive Doctor” from long past (2020-22), among others.
What made the show such a global phenomenon with a huge fan base, and the most successful ever British television show, is also the compelling writing, cast of companions and monsters who battle wits with the Doctor, who is usually armed only with a sonic screwdriver. These things made up for the low-budget special effects, clunky direction and shaky sets.
It was not until the second serial beginning in December 1963 that the Daleks were introduced – an alien race that survived a nuclear war but must live in mutated form imprisoned in a pepper-pot style metallic structure. With a cold, menacing staccato voice – “exterminate, exterminate” – flashing lights, laser gun and sucker, they both terrified and captivated kids.
After 26 seasons and seven doctors, the show was effectively axed by the BBC in 1989. A one-off UK-US movie starring Paul McGann as the eighth doctor in 1996 did not lead to a series revival. But Davies convinced the BBC to bring it back in 2005, regenerated for a new era.
“The show had sunk into neglect,” Davies recalls. “It had been half forgotten. It was remembered with a lot of sarcasm about what a cheap old show it had been, which I never agreed with. You know, nothing’s cheap in a child’s imagination. Children don’t see cheapness; they just see the ideas. And so, it was genuinely a mountainous struggle.”
With writing and producing credits on a range of programs on BBC, ITV and Channel 4, including Children’s Ward (1992-96), Queer as Folk (1999-2000) and Casanova (2005), Davies knew Doctor Who had to be reinvented. With a focus on character, storytelling and modernised effects, and less freighted with complex science fiction themes, Doctor Who was back. But many expected Davies to fail and told him so.
“I just knew it could work,” he remembers. “I could see a version in my head that would absolutely fit modern television and modern sensibilities while being absolutely faithful to what the show used to be. Turns out, I was right. Normally I was just sort of rubbish. I mean, half of the ideas are rubbish, half of the ideas worked, and that happened to be on the right side of the seesaw. I just had a belief and I followed it through, and luckily everyone believed it too.”
The casting of Christopher Eccleston as the ninth Doctor (2005) and also Billie Piper as companion Rose Tyler was critical to the success of the rebooted Doctor Who. Davies says newspapers speculated the new Doctor would be a comedian or magician, but he wanted a deeper, grounded, more experienced actor who could give gravitas to the storied part.
“Casting Chris, one of our greatest actors, greatest Shakespearean actors, one of our greatest stage actors, one of our greatest screen actors, literally changed the game,” Davies judges. “That man single-handedly turned around the fortune of Doctor Who simply by saying yes to the part and then by delivering the most astonishing performance.”
The new Doctor Who was a smash. It drew an audience of more than 10 million in the UK. The enigmatic philosopher, explorer, adventurer and galaxy-saving hero was back. Eccleston, in an enthusiastic, bold, leather jacket-wearing characterisation of the immortal Time Lord showed that Doctor Who was, well, timeless. But after just one season, Eccleston chose to depart.
Next came David Tennant’s animated, childlike, full of heart 10th Doctor (2005-10). (His father-in-law, Davison, portrayed the fifth Doctor.) The show was at another turning point. Again, casting the central character was critical to its survival. Tennant took Doctor Who to new heights of popularity.
“With David, what you get is the talent of a great actor,” Davies says. “A great actor is limitless in their powers: comedy, tragedy and everything in between. He can do it all. He’s not afraid of a great big slapstick pratfall and at the same time he can break your heart with a blink.”
Matt Smith (2010-13) was the next actor to helm the series, combining schoolboy enthusiasm with age-old judgment and compassion as the 11th Doctor. Peter Capaldi had a volatile mix of vulnerability, tetchiness and fearlessness as the 12th Doctor (2014-17), and Jodie Whittaker broke barriers as the first female and 13th Doctor (2018-22) bringing warmth, vitality and empathy to the role.
In 2010, flush with success in reviving Doctor Who, Davies left the program. He wrote and produced A Very English Scandal (2018), Years and Years (2019), It’s a Sin (2021) and Nolly (2023). It was announced in 2021 that Davies would return to Doctor Who as showrunner following Whittaker’s tenure.
Davies was discussing the looming 60th anniversary with Tennant and Catherine Tate, who played companion Donna Noble, and they were keen to return. When he emailed the BBC Drama Department with the idea, they responded ecstatically, and it was decided to reunite them for three specials. “I’m not sure we expected it to be taken seriously,” Davies laughs. “(Tennant) was always part and parcel of me coming back and it’s just a joy to be reunited with him.”
The three specials see Tennant return not as the 10th Doctor but as a new 14th Doctor, as revealed in Whittaker’s final appearance last year. The specials have been written by Davies. A number of characters return, and Neil Patrick Harris reprises the villainous Toymaker from the 1966 serial.
The challenge with Doctor Who has always been to keep it fresh while respecting the history, whether it is Daleks or Cybermen, returning companions or classic doctors who show up unexpectedly. The fifth, sixth and seventh doctors did suit up for a short series on BBC iPlayer this month but Davies says he is unlikely to write a multi-doctor story. It is, he says, about moving forward.
Ncuti Gatwa, a Rwanda-born actor, has been cast as the 15th Doctor and will lead a series in 2024. He makes an appearance in the specials. Davies knew immediately when watching Gatwa audition that he brings something unique to the character.
“I felt my everything bristle and tingle,” he recalls. “I knew I was in the room with something absolutely magic. He brings a new energy to it. He does things no other doctor has done. I find myself stretching the writing. When the lead actors make you work hard, that’s when the writing becomes nimble and cheeky, and bold and wild, and everything you want it to be.”
Having been so invested in Doctor Who for so long as a fan and then as a writer and producer, and having done more than anybody else to save and revive the show, and ensure its future, has Davies unlocked the secret to its enduring popularity for the past 60 years?
“It’s strange, isn’t it?” he responds. “Because I’m kind of in charge. I’m the guardian of the flame of that secret. And yet I don’t know what it is. And actually, in there is the magic of it that I can’t quite pin it down. And that’s why it keeps going. Maybe this is a constant quest to define it and find what the magic is, and maybe we never get there.”
The Doctor Who 60th anniversary specials stream on Disney+ from November 25.
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