Wow. I never thought this would happen. But it’s been confirmed by proper actual news sources that Russell T Davies is returning to Doctor Who for its next season, replacing Chris Chibnall (bah!) as showrunner, just in time for its 60th anniversary in 2023.
Given that I gave up on Chibnall’s run and stopped watching Doctor Who purely because of his writing, whoever took over from him was always going to be of interest to me. Most bookies were suggesting Mark Gatiss or similar, but Russell T Davies? Wow. No one had that.
Now, you only have to go over TMINE’s Doctor Who reviews to know it wasn’t the biggest fan of Davies’ largely logic-free approach to writing. But it was always fascinating to watch and he set up the foundation for the show that helped it to last 15+ years on the BBC. So, it’s going to be fascinating to see what he does with it now, with the benefit of hindsight, perhaps better resources and more experience.
It should also be noted that rather than being a purely BBC Studios production, it’s now going to be a co-production with Julie Gardner’s Bad Wolf. Gardner, of course, was possibly almost as instrumental in Doctor Who‘s successful return as Davies was, so the BBC is getting a two-for-one deal here.
