Doctor Who characteristic by Jamie Holloway.
There comes a level in the life of each long-running tv sequence when its historical past begins to weigh nearly as closely as its achievements. I feel Doctor Who has reached that time.
More than sixty years of continuity offers the programme mythology, emotional historical past and a seemingly countless library of concepts. It additionally leaves each new producer with many years of expectations, contradictions, deserted storylines and fiercely defended interpretations of the Doctor.
The programme more and more feels trapped between preserving its previous and proving that it nonetheless has a future.
Steven Moffat not too long ago added to the debate by arguing that a onerous reboot can be a unhealthy thought. His feedback made me take into account how Doctor Who might renew itself with out discarding the historical past that makes it distinctive.
A tough reboot would imply beginning once more with a new First Doctor, a redesigned TARDIS and a separate continuity with no obligation to acknowledge something beforehand broadcast.
I perceive the enchantment. I additionally suppose it could be a critical mistake.
The Problem With a Permanent Reboot
An entire reset would take away a lot of the programme’s gathered baggage. A brand new artistic group might ignore Billie Piper, the Timeless Child, bi-generation, forgotten incarnations and whichever revelation the subsequent producer would possibly in any other case inherit.
The problem is that Doctor Who already treats a change of lead actor as a part of its persevering with story. A brand new face means regeneration. It doesn’t naturally sign a separate universe in the manner it’d with Batman, Sherlock Holmes or James Bond.
This is the place Moffat’s argument carries weight. An off-the-cuff viewer might assume they had been watching the subsequent Doctor, then marvel why this model had by no means encountered the Daleks, knew nothing about Gallifrey and had no reminiscence of earlier companions.
The programme would wish to maintain explaining that this Doctor belonged to a different continuity. Every acquainted monster would create additional questions on which components of its historical past nonetheless utilized.
The supposedly easy reset would quickly purchase a mythology of its personal.
There can also be an emotional price. For many followers, the information that the traveller standing in a junkyard in 1963 is the identical one who continued by way of each period is a part of the programme’s magic. That connection permits a returning character, acquainted object or musical cue to hold many years of which means.
Erasing that historical past might depart us with an imitation wearing acquainted iconography. It might additionally deepen the divisions already operating by way of fandom by asking established viewers to deal with many years of emotional funding as elective background materials.
Doctor Who ought to be taught to hold its historical past extra calmly.
A Continuity Ceasefire
My most popular answer is a radical delicate reset.
The current continuity would stay intact, whereas the subsequent period quickly stopped making it the centre of each story. Everything would nonetheless have occurred. The Doctor would nonetheless carry these lives, victories, errors and losses. New viewers merely wouldn’t want to know them earlier than the opening titles.
I’d name it a continuity ceasefire.
The subsequent period ought to start with a new Doctor, a new companion and a story requiring no earlier information. The companion would encounter the TARDIS as one thing unimaginable and barely horrifying. The Doctor can be charming in a single second and unsettling in the subsequent.
Their historical past may very well be prompt by way of behaviour, hesitation and occasional fragments quite than speeches explaining the mythology.
Gallifrey, the Time War, the Timeless Child, bi-generation and the Doctor’s disputed origins ought to all transfer firmly into the background once more. None of those concepts would require a formal reversal. Writers might merely cease constructing tales round them.
Doctor Who hardly ever solves artistic issues by issuing corrections. It survives by altering course. Ideas that when appeared enormously vital steadily recede when later writers discover one thing extra compelling to discover.
For at the least one full sequence, the central query must be easy: the place will the TARDIS take us subsequent?
Make Every Episode an Invitation
Accessibility doesn’t require a new universe. It simply requires tales that may be understood on their very own phrases.
A viewer ought to have the ability to start with the first episode of a new period and instantly grasp the necessities. There is a traveller known as the Doctor. The Doctor owns a machine that may go wherever in time and house. A human companion steps inside, and their odd life turns into impossibly massive.
That is Doctor Who.
Everything else can wait.
Older continuity ought to seem solely when it strengthens the story being informed. A returning monster ought to require no prolonged historical past lesson. A former companion ought to matter due to what they contribute now. References ought to reward established viewers with out leaving everybody else questioning whether or not they missed a vital episode fifteen years in the past.
The programme should additionally cease treating familiarity as a substitute for storytelling. Daleks, Cybermen and the Master can return, though their appearances ought to really feel consequential. A well-known title can not carry an episode by itself.
For the opening stretch of a new period, I’d favour authentic worlds, unfamiliar threats and odd individuals caught in extraordinary circumstances.
Let us uncover the Doctor by way of troublesome selections. Let the companion develop by way of expertise quite than receiving one other cosmic future.
Every episode ought to lengthen an invite quite than assign homework.
Give the New Era Room to Breathe
The subsequent period might start after a significant hole, giving the programme sufficient distance to determine a totally different tone.
The Doctor would have travelled and altered between appearances. The viewers would meet this model alongside the new companion. We would sense a bigger historical past with out requiring a detailed account of it.
That creates a real starting whereas preserving the connection to 1963.
Selected components of the previous might return over time. The secret is persistence.
A well-recognized enemy feels harmful once more after a significant absence. A former companion carries higher emotional weight as soon as the new characters have established lives of their very own. A reference to the Doctor’s historical past issues extra when it interrupts the current story as a substitute of changing into the current story.
Continuity ought to operate as texture, by no means homework.
This strategy would additionally give a new artistic group room to determine its personal identification. Every profitable period of Doctor Who has developed a distinctive rhythm, visible language and understanding of its central character. The subsequent group wants house to create one thing of its personal with out consistently measuring itself towards earlier finales and lore-heavy revelations.
Let Anything Happen Again
Moffat is correct to query whether or not a onerous reboot might ever present the clear starting its supporters think about. Regeneration makes that strategy unusually difficult, whereas the persevering with historical past stays one in all the programme’s defining strengths.
The stronger path is renewal by way of restraint.
The programme started with curiosity. A police field stood in a junkyard, bigger inside than exterior. Its proprietor was irritable, secretive and harmful. Two lecturers stepped by way of its doorways and located themselves reduce off from the whole lot acquainted.
That premise nonetheless works.
Give us a Doctor we can not instantly perceive, a companion with a recognisable life and a TARDIS that opens onto locations we now have by no means imagined.
Keep the continuity. Keep the emotional historical past. Keep each Doctor and each period out there for tales that genuinely want them.
Then enable most of that historical past to relaxation.
A everlasting onerous reboot would discard an excessive amount of. Continuing precisely as earlier than dangers studying nothing. A radical delicate reset gives a recent starting that respects the previous with out permitting it to manipulate each story.
Doctor Who must really feel as if something might occur once more…
