Returning Doctor Who showrunner Russell T. Davies has already hinted at his vision for the BBC's biggest science-fiction TV series. The concept of regeneration lies at the heart of Doctor Who. It doesn't just allow the main character to be switched; when the Doctor regenerates, it's a moment for reinvention. Since Doctor Who's relaunch in 2005, regenerations have also often marked the moment one showrunner departed and another took over, breathing new life into the series and preventing it feeling stale.
One such moment of regeneration is approaching, with Thirteenth Doctor Jodie Whittaker and Russell T. Davies as the new showrunner. Davies was the man responsible for the show's 2005 relaunch, and he's actually already indicated what his vision could be for the series going forward.
Speaking to the Torchwood. "There should be a Doctor Who channel now. You look at those Disney announcements, of all those new Star Wars and Marvel shows, you think, we should be sitting here announcing The Nyssa Adventures or The Return of Donna Noble, and you should have the Tenth and Eleventh Doctors together in a 10-part series. Genuinely." Aware his comments could sound absurd, he couldn't help laughing before pointing out there was a time when nobody would ever have believed Star Trek would get a spinoff starring Captain Pike.
Looking back, those comments seem almost like a pitch - a hint of the ambition Davies now has. The original series of Doctor Who had been canceled back in 1989, and when Davies brought it back in 2005 his hope was simply to re-establish it as a long-running, powerful and successful science-fiction TV series. He succeeded beyond his wildest dreams, and Doctor Who can easily be considered the BBC's flagship sci-fi drama. But now, in the age of Disney+, Davies is coming in with the belief Doctor Who can be as important as all the other major franchises - building the kind of shared universe seen in the MCU and Star Wars.
Davies will probably have made these comments long before he was approached to become the new showrunner, which makes them especially interesting. It's worth noting there's been a change in the overall management of Doctor Who over the last few years, with the show now coming under BBC Studios, the commercial subsidiary of the BBC. "It's a difference which won't really have affected how you view the show," Chibnall wrote in his farewell essay in Doctor Who Magazine, "but it affects the processes by which the programme is made, managed and planned strategically." He sounds to have been setting the scene for new corporate priorities to transform Doctor Who's direction - and Davies' ideas could well fit with those. If that's the case, then the eagerly-anticipated 60th anniversary special in 2023 may well be a lot more significant than just launching the next incarnation of the Doctor; it could also launch a Doctor Who universe.