10 Times Doctor Who REFUSED To Give Fans What They Wanted
We just want Doctor Who Confidential back, is that so much to ask?
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00:00Sometimes, Doctor Who delivers us the glorious gift of fan service,
00:04which we did cover in a recent video.
00:06However, sometimes, this happens.
00:08So, with that in mind, then, I'm Ellie with Who Culture,
00:11here with 10 times Doctor Who refused to give fans what they wanted.
00:15Number 10, bringing back Susan.
00:18If it's not the Rani, it's the Doctor's granddaughter, Susan,
00:22whom fans want to return to Doctor Who.
00:24There have been references to the Doctor's family in the new series,
00:27but to date, she's not returned.
00:29Now, some fans thought that the woman from the end of time was Susan,
00:33rather than the Doctor's mother, as Russell T Davies had intended.
00:36Peter Capaldi even mentioned possibly seeing the Doctor's granddaughter
00:39again in an interview while he was playing the Doctor.
00:42Capaldi's love of being photographed with classic companions
00:45on the Doctor Who set only fueled a desire to see Susan
00:48and her grandfather reunited.
00:50The granddad bit between the Doctor and Bill in Knock Knock,
00:52and the photo on the Doctor's desk at the university
00:55only seemed to hint to viewers that a Susan return was imminent.
00:58And then, when David Bradley's appearance as the first Doctor
01:01was revealed, it was surely a shoo-in that Susan would return
01:05for the final Christmas special.
01:06Whether it was a deliberate troll or not,
01:08the reintroduction of Bill in Twice Upon a Time
01:11takes slightly too long,
01:13especially as everyone already knew that Pearl Mackie was coming back.
01:16But as the figure emerged from the shadows,
01:18fans could be forgiven for anticipating
01:20that this could have been the return of Carol Ann Ford.
01:23Perhaps one day, she'll come back.
01:25Number nine, the return of the Rani.
01:28What do Sarah Lancashire, Keely Hawes, Michelle Gomez,
01:31and Barbara Flynn all have in common
01:32beyond being Doctor Who guest actors?
01:35They've also all been mistakenly believed to be playing
01:37a new version of the Rani in New Who.
01:40Despite having only appeared in two stories
01:42and a Children in Need special,
01:44Kate O'Mara's performance is so memorable
01:46that the character has become beloved within Doctor Who fandom.
01:50So much so that any female guest cast announcement
01:53has been met by fervent speculation
01:55that the actor involved will be playing the Rani.
01:58This reached a head when Michelle Gomez was revealed
02:00to be a female incarnation of the Master rather than the Rani.
02:03Why turn the Master into a woman
02:05when there's an evil Time Lord female right there,
02:07complained the fandom.
02:08Well, probably because the rights to the character
02:10were held by classic Doctor Who writers,
02:12Pip and Jane Baker, who first created her.
02:15The husband and wife writing team are no longer with us,
02:18so it's unclear where that leaves the character now.
02:20Regardless of boring legal things like rights,
02:23you can expect to see Gillian Anderson's inevitable casting
02:26opposite Shruti Gatwar linked back
02:27to the villainous Time Lord geneticist.
02:29Number eight, Paul McGann as the Doctor in 2005.
02:34The 2003 announcement of Doctor Who's return
02:37was incredibly exciting for fans
02:38as the show celebrated its 40th anniversary year.
02:42Once the initial excitement died down,
02:44thoughts turned to whether or not
02:45this would be a continuation or a remake.
02:48Strangely, that debate continued throughout the first series
02:51in some dark corners of the internet,
02:53right up until the 10th Doctor was reunited
02:55with Sarah Jane Smith and K-9 in season two.
02:58One of the key stumbling blocks for fans
03:00was the fact that Paul McGann wasn't involved in the new show.
03:03This was seen as hugely disrespectful by some
03:05and a missed opportunity by others.
03:07Some fans were particularly flummoxed by the idea
03:10that they wouldn't get to see McGann regenerate
03:12into Christopher Eccleston.
03:13And when McGann did return in 2013,
03:16they saw him regenerate into John Hurt instead.
03:19Of course, Russell T Davies was right to stick to his guns.
03:21Paul McGann had been the Doctor in novels,
03:24audio dramas, and comic strips since 1996.
03:27What would you do with all those already existing stories?
03:30In not establishing exactly what happened to the 8th Doctor,
03:33Russell T Davies spun a mystery that gave the Doctor
03:35an intriguing and emotional backstory for new audiences,
03:39while providing intriguing teases for fans
03:41about the state of the Doctor Who universe
03:43during the Doctor's absence from our screens.
03:46Number 7, bringing back the Christmas special.
03:49Doctor Who was a huge part of the BBC's Christmas Day schedule
03:52for over a decade.
03:54The Voyage of the Damned, which starred Kylie Minogue,
03:56was watched by over 13 million people.
03:59When Chris Chibnall took over Doctor Who,
04:00the Christmas special became a New Year special instead,
04:03and fans have demanded the show return to Christmas Day ever since.
04:07The shift to New Year actually made a lot of sense at the time.
04:10In recent years, New Year's Day has been
04:12when the BBC launches its flagship new dramas.
04:15For example, Stephen Moffat and Mark Gatiss' Sherlock
04:18regularly debuted on New Year's Day.
04:20So, rather than being a sign of the BBC's lack of interest in Doctor Who,
04:24it's a sign that the show's seen as a flagship drama
04:27rather than appointment television for the whole family.
04:29But that's definitely a problem,
04:31especially as the show should always be striving
04:33to reach a new, younger audience.
04:36Number 6, a Rose Tyler spinoff.
04:39When Doctor Who's 2005 relaunch proved to be a massive hit,
04:43the BBC began thinking about spinoffs.
04:45This led to the creation of both the Sarah Jane Adventures and Torchwood.
04:49But those discussions with Russell T Davies
04:51led to some other potential projects.
04:53One of these was a kids' show about the Doctor's youth on Gallifrey.
04:56But Russell T Davies rightly vetoed this idea
04:58on the basis it would have removed the Who from Doctor Who.
05:02Another spinoff that would have fared much better with fans
05:04was the mooted Rose Tyler Earth defence.
05:07Set in a parallel Earth from season two,
05:10it would have focused on the Tylers' new lives
05:12as they protected the parallel world from all manner of baddies.
05:15Russell T Davies had already planned to bring
05:17the more action hero version of Rose back for season four,
05:20so a spinoff show would have been the perfect way to build toward it.
05:24In the end, however, Russell T Davies decided not to take the project further,
05:27believing that if the Doctor wasn't able to see what Rose was up to,
05:30then the general audience shouldn't either.
05:32However, years later, Big Finish decided
05:34that if fans couldn't see these adventures,
05:37then they could hear them instead in a series of box sets.
05:40Number five, the return of Doctor Who Confidential.
05:44When Doctor Who Confidential was good,
05:46it was David Tennant interviewing Stephen Moffat
05:48about their respective childhoods as Scottish Doctor Who fans.
05:51When Doctor Who Confidential was bad,
05:53it was extensive footage of actors standing around in padded jackets
05:56in quarries at three in the morning.
05:58However, it was a show that tapped into the fascination
06:01Doctor Who fans have with how the show is made,
06:04and its absence is keenly felt to this day.
06:06Confidential was cancelled by the BBC back in 2011
06:10due to budgetary issues.
06:11It was replaced by behind-the-scenes featurettes
06:14and Doctor Who The Fan Show,
06:15that would both appear on the official Doctor Who website
06:18or its YouTube channel.
06:19Doctor Who Confidential was often a fascinating insight
06:22into the making of the show,
06:24and the decisions of those involved,
06:25so it's easy to see why fans miss that level of engagement.
06:29Rumours currently circulate that Confidential will return
06:32for the second Russell T Davies era,
06:34but fans shouldn't expect a return to the glory days
06:37of classic monster montages set to
06:39What's That Coming Over The Hill?
06:40The more likely replacement for Confidential
06:42is a post-episode chat show like Talking Dead or After Trek.
06:50Doctor Who had been off the air for almost four years
06:53as it approached its 30th anniversary in 1993.
06:56Fans hadn't given up hope on the show returning, though,
06:58especially when news broke of a feature-length
07:01straight-to-video movie.
07:02Doctor Who In The Dark Dimension
07:04had an incredibly complicated, troubled production
07:07and never made it as far as filming.
07:09With a proper Doctor Who anniversary special now quashed,
07:12fans had to make do with the surviving five Doctors
07:14and their companions interacting with the cast of EastEnders.
07:17Dimensions in Time, a 3D charity sketch for children in need,
07:21got a lot of unfair stick from fans
07:23who wanted this darker, grittier Doctor Who anniversary
07:26that had been previously promised.
07:27And yet, as anyone who's read the script will tell you,
07:30Doctor Who may have had a lucky escape from the Dark Dimension.
07:33At least in Dimensions in Time,
07:35each of the Doctors get a decent share of screen time.
07:37In The Dark Dimension, the majority of the doctoring
07:39is done by an older Tom Baker
07:41because the fourth Doctor was prevented from regenerating.
07:44They probably felt that Tom Baker was more of a draw for audiences,
07:47which may have been the case,
07:48but the plot of the considerably longer The Dark Dimension
07:52is just as convoluted and nonsensical as Dimensions in Time.
07:55Worse still, it wouldn't have featured Frank Butcher
07:58or the Mitchell brothers.
07:59If you are interested in finding out more about this unmade movie,
08:02then be sure to check out our video covering just that.
08:05Number three, Bringing Back the Brigadier.
08:08Even though it was a reboot,
08:10Russell T. Davies' 2005 revival of Doctor Who
08:13wasted no time in bringing back old elements.
08:16The Autons were the first villains,
08:17and Unit briefly appeared in Aliens of London and World War III.
08:21And yet, despite this, the legendary head of the organisation,
08:24Alastair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart,
08:25never appeared in the new series.
08:27Given the Doctor's psychological trauma from the Time War,
08:30a story that paired the Ninth Doctor
08:31with an equally battle-scarred Brigadier
08:33would have been fascinating.
08:35Sadly, it wasn't to be.
08:36The Brigadier was always in Peru,
08:38which increasingly sounded like a euphemism
08:40for actor Nicholas Courtney's ill health.
08:42He did get to appear in the Sarah Jane Adventures
08:44and was due to appear alongside David Tennant
08:46in another Sarah Jane Adventures episode,
08:48but unfortunately, Courtney was too ill to take part,
08:51sadly dying months later.
08:53When the Brigadier did eventually reappear in Doctor Who,
08:56it was in the hugely controversial Death in Heaven,
08:58in which the character's corpse was reanimated as a Cyberman
09:02to save the Doctor and Kate Stewart
09:03from Missy's machinations.
09:05There was also a brief vocal cameo in Flux,
09:08but it doesn't make up for the fact
09:09that this legendary Doctor Who character
09:11never got to share a scene with any of the 21st Century Doctors.
09:15Number two, Resting the Daleks.
09:17Everyone loves the Daleks, right?
09:19Well, not exactly.
09:21Since the show returned in 2005,
09:23there hasn't been a single Doctor Who series
09:26that hasn't featured the Daleks in some capacity.
09:28Now, there was no Dalek special during David Tennant's final year,
09:32but one still did a flyby in a flashback
09:34during the Waters of Mars.
09:35And Matt Smith's second series didn't have a Dalek story,
09:38but a wrecked Dalek popped up to have its brain examined
09:41by the Doctor in the Wedding of River Song.
09:43There's just no escaping the Daleks,
09:45and these small cameos run the risk
09:47of lessening their impact when they return.
09:49Chris Chibnall was criticised for featuring the Daleks
09:51in each of his New Year specials,
09:53but to be fair to him,
09:54he's not the only showrunner who loves a Dalek.
09:56Classic Doctor Who had regular large gaps
09:59between Dalek stories,
10:00with only two Dalek serials
10:02in Tom Baker's entire seven-year run.
10:04The Daleks are great, obviously,
10:06but absence makes the heart grow fonder.
10:08It would be amazing if after their appearance
10:10in Jodie Whittaker's finale,
10:11they don't appear for a few years.
10:13Returning in full strength
10:15toward the end of Shooty Gap was run, potentially.
10:17However, whether it's for contractual
10:19or audience engagement reasons,
10:20you can expect to see them sooner or later.
10:23Number one, the classic TARDIS interior.
10:26Modern TARDIS interiors have covered the full spectrum
10:29of the good, the bad, and the ugly.
10:32However, none of them have ever been able to live up
10:34to the sleek, classic white room
10:36from the original 1963 to 1989 run.
10:40This wouldn't be so bad
10:41if the show didn't continue to tease fans
10:43by showing how good that interior looks on modern TVs.
10:46Fans first got a look at the classic TARDIS interior
10:48of sorts in The Day of the Doctor,
10:50when it glitches into the War Doctor's console room.
10:52Then there was the TARDIS that the Doctor and Clara used
10:55to escape Gallifrey in Hellbent.
10:57Then there's the first Doctor's TARDIS in Twice Upon a Time.
10:59And finally, in Fugitive of the Jadoon,
11:01the Ruth Doctor has a variation
11:03on the classic TARDIS interior.
11:05Each time the classic console room appears,
11:07it looks considerably cooler
11:09than whatever one the incumbent Doctor is currently occupying.
11:12It's appeared in the modern run so many times now
11:14that any suggestion it wouldn't work on modern telly
11:17loses all credibility.
11:18Let's hope they finally take the plunge
11:20and put Shooty's Doctor in this design classic.
11:24And that concludes our list.
11:26If you think we missed any,
11:27then do let us know in the comments below.
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11:48I've been Ellie with WhoCulture.
11:49And in the words of River Song herself,
11:51goodbye, sweeties.