'Doctor Who' Announces Writers For Next Season
Which episodes is Russell T. Davies NOT writing?
Doctor Who showrunners tend to write a lot of the episodes under their purview. At least, the three that have steered the ship in the 20 years since the series resumed. Couple that with current showrunner Russell T. Davies’s successors, Steven Moffat and Chris Chibnall writing about a dozen stories combined (but never together) before they ascended, it’s an overwhelming majority that the trio have written, compounded by Moffat writing last season’s “Boom” and the most recent Christmas special “Joy to the World”. But a majority isn’t the entirety, so when the last 8 years have seen the season episode count drop by a third, from 12 or 13 down to 8, it means less opportunities for a Davies sprawl to spread, but also new writers to come in and make their mark. Of all of last season’s episodes, only “Rogue” was not a Davies or Moffat effort. And so Monday morning, the franchise announced four non-Davies writers for this season, which Davies has hinted will come sooner than May on the BBC (streaming on iPlayer) domestically and Disney+ for the rest of the world. Three haven’t written for the show before, while one has.
Our returning face is Pete McTighe, who returns with his first full episode in five years. He returns having written Thirteenth Doctor-era episodes “Kerblam!” from series 11 and “Praxeus” from series 12, as well as the wraparound segments of the Tales of the TARDIS for The Mind Robber and The Curse of Fenric. If the name sounds familiar, it’s from my coverage of the upcoming Doctor Who spinoff, The War Between The Land And The Sea, which a leaked Disney+ graphic positions its release as before Wonder Man but after Percy Jackson season 2 and Marvel Zombies, so a definite mid-fall release. He wrote the miniseries with Davies and is an executive producer. Outside of the Whoniverse, McTighe created and wrote The Pact for the BBC, and wrote for The Rising, A Discovery Of Witches, and the Australian series Wentworth. McTighe says says: “The TARDIS is my home away from home, so it's been a joy to step back inside, with Russell at the console and the incredible team at Bad Wolf hanging on for dear life. I love this show with all my heart and am really proud of what we've been able to achieve with my next episode.”
The first new writer is Juno Dawson, a #1 Sunday Times best-selling novelist, screenwriter and journalist, whose books include the global bestsellers This Book is Gay and Her Majesty’s Royal Coven. However that doesn’t mean Dawson is a total stranger to anything Who, as she created the first official Doctor Who scripted podcast, Doctor Who: Redacted. Launching in 2022, it is apparently distinct from the Big Finish audio dramas and featured Jodie Whittaker back as the Thirteenth Doctor, with season 2 featuring the returns of Anjli Mohindra as Rani Chandra and Alexander Armstrong as Sarah Jane Smith’s supercomputer companion Mr. Smith, reprising their roles from The Sarah Jane Adventures. Dawson says “I started watching Doctor Who with my grandma when I was ten-years-old in the 1990s. From writing fan-fiction for an audience of one, to scripting the best TV show of all time is truly a dream come true. I can't wait for fans and newcomers to see the new season.”
Inua Ellams is a writer and curator, who has published poetry books including Candy Coated Unicorns & Converse All Stars and The Actual. His plays include, The 14th Tale, awarded a Fringe First at the Edinburgh International Theatre Festival, Barber Shop Chronicles, Three Sisters and The Half-God of Rainfall. Ellams says: “For as long as I can remember television, I've been a Doctor Who fan. I started watching when I was 10 in Nigeria. The show invited me to dream, to live beyond my reality. Getting to write for the show felt like touching God; it was blasphemously humbling and exciting, and I can’t wait to share my story with the world.”
Sharma Angel-Walfall has written for the Disney+ series Renegade Nell, and the Netflix series Supacell, as well as more local programming including A Town Called Malice and Dreamland for Sky and Noughts & Crosses for the BBC. Walfall says: “I am buzzing to be a part of such an iconic show! I am a massive Russell T Davies fan, so it is a dream come true to be able to work alongside him, especially on a show that I love. It’s a real privilege to be a part of the Doctor Who family. I have loved every minute!”
Davies chimes in with “Doctor Who takes its talent from a glittering galaxy of names, and these extraordinary writers span the skies. We’ve got old hands, new stars, voices from theatre, radio and literature, the whole works! It’s the most wild and exciting season of Doctor Who yet, and I can’t wait to unleash their brilliant work.”
The fan community has known for weeks about Ellams and Walfall thanks to unmistakeable listings on their online resumes and CVs. The Doctor Who Filming Locations Twitter account has been pretty on top of things, and laid out that Davies has the first two episodes and the last two, while the middle four run Walfall-McTighe-Ellams-Dawson, with Dawson’s episode 6 being a Space Eurovision story. Walfall might have co-written.
Source: Doctor Who, Doctor Who Filming Locations