After this article published last Thursday, I was once again disappointed with the direction that Doctor Who is moving in. The announcement of another pair of writers for the coming series of Doctor Who brought an infuriating fact to light: As of right now, series 8 of Doctor Who will be the fourth season in a row to have no female writers. None. Really?
I am a more recent fan of Doctor Who – I have seen none of Classic Who, but I watched six of the seven series of New Who in a little over a week last January during my winter break – so I have seen the shift in the series over the past few years. The foundation of Doctor Who’s plot is the Doctor (who) is a Time Lord that travels through space and time with a companion or two to share in his adventures in the TARDIS. When the Doctor dies, he can regenerate into a new person (and thus a new face).
Previous showrunner Russell T. Davies did some amazing things for Doctor Who, starting with successfully bringing it back to BBC in 2005 with the tales of Christopher Eccleston as the Ninth Doctor and Billie Piper as Rose Tyler. His leadership brought us incredible story lines, complex companions and David Tennant’s Tenth Doctor. Davies paved a road that could have made Doctor Who one of the most progressive shows on television.
Since then, the lack of female writers is only evidence to me that Who has taken a large step back. During the Davies years, Steven Moffat wrote some amazing episodes, such as Blink (which brought the iconic Weeping Angels into canon) and the pair of episodes The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances. Thankfully, the 50th Anniversary episode that aired in November 2013 was a pleasant surprise. The episode managed to acknowledge the show’s past, look to the future of Who, and contain a fairly coherent plot. Still, the overall plots of the individual episodes in addition to the series as a whole have deflated in substance while increasing monumentally in show. While I can appreciate an episode with excellent cinematography and special effects, that (alone) is not going to steer me away from analyzing the more concrete content of an episode.
Shooting for series 8 started earlier this year with a new face, Peter Capaldi, stepping in as the Twelfth Doctor. I am hopeful for what Capaldi can bring to the role and to the show. Let’s hope Who gains a new edge and a new perspective during his run in the seasons to come.