Russell T. Davies (RTD) gave us the news that we’d half been expecting but half hoping wasn’t going to transpire. The Dr Who Christmas special was cancelled. Adding to that news RTD said that he was leaving the role of showrunner (an adopted term from the U.S.) and the production company he works with – Bad Wolf – would be handing the production back to the BBC. For its part, the BBC also issued a statement, alongside RTD’s, to the effect it was fully committed to Dr Who and they would be putting the series out to competitive tender in the coming months.
This was incredibly disappointing news as we fans were eagerly awaiting the explanation to the Doctor’s regeneration as Rose Tyler. Was she Rose Tyler? Was she ‘The Moment’? Or was she someone else entirely? With RTD at the helm anything was possible and we fans lapped it up – well, most of us did.
RTD said in his statement that no script had been written for the Christmas special and no actor had been found for the role of The Doctor.
As the news filtered through the internet it exploded with conspiracy theories, such as – ‘Russell T. Davies left before he was pushed’, ‘RTD lied to everyone’, ‘RTD totally lied about the script he’d written for the Christmas special’, ‘RTD made it woke so nobody watched it anymore’ and, ‘If they hadn’t put a trans person in it or a lesbian disabled person, then it would still be on.’ and so on, and so on.
The onslaught of hate was staggering. People proclaiming to be lifelong fans exclaiming that Dr Who had gone woke and that RTD was pushing the LGBTQIA+ agenda and pandering to the lefties by making the show too inclusive. I was absolutely taken aback by the hateful nature towards my own community and other minority groups. The comments were bigoted, racist and misogynistic. Something I never expected from Dr Who fans. Had these people never watched Dr Who? The show has always been inclusive. It’s the UK’s version of Star Trek. The writers write political and ideological stories wrapped up in a children’s show. It’s always worked on both levels – for adults and children – it’s the same reason Pixar movies are big hits. Why the sudden hatred of all things DEI? Why the sudden hate towards RTD when fans had been calling out for his return in the wake of the Chibnall era? It’s baffling.
I never thought that in 2026 we’d be facing the same challenges I thought we’d resolved with years of campaigning and education. I honestly thought that attitudes had shifted and the LGBTQIA+ community was an accepted part of everyday society. I was one of those who thought that Pride was no longer needed. An outdated model that made ‘exclusivity’ of the LGBTQIA+ community. I was wrong, VERY wrong.
I know that there will be those of you reading this asking why I’m focussing on LGBTQIA+ issues when it’s about Dr Who and the ‘woke’ agenda, but the core of the comments always comes back to issues of inclusivity. As RTD recently wrote in ‘Tip Toe’ “The bigots, racists, and fascists never went away, they only hid, waiting. Waiting until we were out in the open.” That speech is frightening and all too real.
Russell T. Davies, whether you like him and his politics or not, IS a very good writer. He has proven his capability time and time again with various groundbreaking shows (Queer As Folk, Years and Years and It’s A Sin). Dr Who should be counted as one of them.
When Davies revived Dr Who in 2005, the whole country was united in welcoming its return, akin to welcoming an old friend in from the cold. RTD made Dr Who trendy, he made it exciting, he made it run. He gave us back our childish sense of wonder. 2005 was a different time, a time when the internet was still an oddity, and we got our Dr Who news from the Dr Who Magazine, SFX, and the Radio Times. There was no social media. MySpace and Friends Reunited were used for keeping in touch with mates and posting random nonsense on our ‘walls’. We devoured the words of those ‘in the know’ hung on every syllable from the experts and got excited and engaged with the rumours.
Move forward to 2026 and suddenly opinions are like arseholes, everyone has one. We can’t live without vilifying others for not holding the same opinion or thought as us. And I’m not saying if you have an opinion you should air it, and having an opinion doesn’t automatically make it a correct. There IS such a thing as fact, and fact should only become such when it is researched and peer reviewed. We have morals and codes of conduct as to how we should treat people. It’s how the world worked before Brexit and it’s how the world should work now. We lost the ability to listen to and accept each other.
You may ask what has any of this got to do with RTD and Dr Who? It’s at the heart of why it got cancelled. Opinion!
The tirade against the showrunners of Dr Who began in earnest when Chris Chibnall became showrunner and cast Jodie Whittaker as The Doctor. The internet was awash with hate for Chibnall because he’d gone ‘woke’ and was pandering to the ‘lefties’. He was being ‘politically correct’ in the wake of the #metoo movement.
Once the show began airing the attention shifted to the writing and how bad it had gotten since Chibnall became showrunner – spoiler: they said the same thing about RTD and Stephen Moffat. What amazed me was these so-called fans of the series somehow forgot that The Doctor has spoken many times of the possibility of regenerating as a woman in previous series. It was nothing new. But that didn’t stop the haters. Why let a good fact get in the way of sexism.
When it was announced that RTD was returning to the series those naysayers suddenly rejoiced that they had gotten their way and Chibnall was out the door and he could take his leftie, woke nonsense with them.
RTD said that he would be bringing a very different vibe to Dr Who when he returned. That he would not be rehashing previous storylines and that Dr Who would have a more fantasy element to it. If you’re a fan of the series you will know that Dr Who has been massively based in fantasy for its entire run (anyone remember the Liquorice Allsorts man?).
Everything was going well until RTD announced the casting of The Doctor. I should make clear at this point that not all Dr Who fans embraced RTD the first time round nor the second. I’m focussing on the vocal group who used various platforms to spread their bigoted, sexist, racist, and fascist views. As soon as Ncuti Gatwa was announced as The Doctor the hate switchboard lit-up like the Tardis welcoming David Tenant (his return is another article in itself). Anyway, RTD makes the announcement that the actor playing the title character is – Black. Suddenly RTD had gone from saviour of the series to being as woke and leftist as the others. Even worse was the BBC had done a deal wit Disney. The mouse was going to have worldwide distribution rights. This was too much for the so-called fans to take.
An entire two seasons of – in my opinion – the most fun, whacky, thoughtful, and well-written episodes of Dr Who, were torn to shreds. Rejoiced in the low viewing figures (choosing to ignore the streaming figures which were considerable higher). Every single night the trolls took to their keyboards ripping apart the writing and the acting of each episode. Bots would post negative reviews in the thousands. These reviews would then gain traction on various influencer platforms and the monetarily aligned hacks would suddenly jump on the negativity bandwagon because it got them clicks and thusly, money.
This is the way the world works now. Keyboard warriors, self-titled ‘influencers’ posing as presenters or insiders, people passing information off as fact and we, as the consumer, did/do very little to counter it.
We don’t want to have to do our own research to see if big-tits-fake-lips is telling the truth, or if incel-idiot-man-baby has taken the time to actually educate himself properly. No, we’d rather believe the vitriol, the bigotry, the racism, the sexism etc. that we are fed because it’s easier and in some cases it feeds into our own bias and our own fears. You ask again, ‘Yeah but this is Dr Who. What the fuck does it have to do with any of that?’ It has everything to do with it.
Writing isn’t a one way street. Writers do not write just to entertain. We write because we have something to say, something worth telling. Dig a little deeper into a narrative and it speak much more to you. A story is nothing without substance, without a soul.
RTD is one of the greatest modern writers of British TV. He tackles subjects that we would rather ignore. He looks at the way society is and says, ‘You know what? Fuck. You!’. If a story challenges you, your beliefs, your thoughts, your ideals, then a writer has done his job. If they pander to you and your beliefs, then what have you learnt? What have you taken away from the experience? The only way we grow as people is by learning, listening, changing our opinions, and opening our minds.
Dr Who has always been inclusive, it’s what made us fall in love with the series in the first place. It has always been a little ‘gay’, there’s always been women of power, there’s always been different races. All RTD did was bring more to the front. He wasn’t ramming it down anyone’s throat, he was merely reflecting life as it was in 2005 and should be in 2026.
Nobody batted an eyelid.
2026 feels like we have gone back in time to the late 70’s early 80’s with our attitudes. I know people are fearful, but ask yourselves, what are you fearful of. What changed since 2016, since Brexit, since Trump, since Boris Johnson?
What changed was the bigots, the racists, and the fascists got into power. They say they are on our side, that they are one of us. They aren’t, and that’s the real reason RTD has been hounded and why Dr Who is no longer on the air, because of those ‘fans’ and because RTD had the gall to call them out by producing Dr Who in all its colourful glory.
No matter what happens Dr Who will return, maybe a year from now or maybe another sixteen, who knows, but the ‘idea’ of Dr Who will always remain. Whilst there are those brave enough to hold a mirror up to society such as RTD who will let the TARDIS Vworp onto the screen once more.
Thank you Russell, Stephen and Chris and the BBC for bringing Dr Who to life once more and fingers crossed it won’t be long before we’re joining The Doctor and his companions to battle the Daleks once more.