Cheers Russell, Welcome Steven

We knew the time had to come but it was a little bit of a shock when the BBC announced that Doctor Who producer, Russell T Davies (or RTD, if you’re just lazy) was bowing out, after the 2009 specials. Whether this was an actual leak or a ‘tactical leak’ by the Doctor Who team, we don’t know. However, the man taking over is Steven Moffat who has written the episodes The Empty Child/Doctor Dances, The Girl in the Fireplace, Blink and the forthcoming Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead.

Whether or not you liked RTD or not is irrelevant, even his biggest critics can’t really deny that he has done a superb job in bringing the show back. I don’t think anyone would have done any better than RTD and it’s his great ability to surround himself with the right people that have made the show a success.

His writing at times has been controversial. The much talked about ‘Gay Agenda’ is a sticking point, as his apparent fixation with making The Doctor ‘a god’. Some fans are also disappointed that he has made The Doctor some kind of loathrio, something which you’ll never link with William Hartnell’s doctor!

For me, RTD’s best episode has been the perfect opener – Rose. He maintained that quality with the final two episodes of both series 1 and 2. The casting of Christopher Eccelston, David Tennant, Billie Piper, John Barrowman, Freema Agyeman and Catherine Tate and many of the supporting cast, have been inspired. However, his best introduction was that of the ‘story arcs’. How shocked and surprised was we, to see that the whole of the series was linked! He’s maintained this and fans now expect the twists and turns that Doctor Who has produced these last couple of years! And despite many people trying to spoil it for us, we are always surprised!

Even in this new age of technology, RTD as still stuck to the same basic formula that has made Doctor Who a success over the last 40-odd years. A CGI effect later and we are a world away from the 60’s. But Doctor Who has never been fancy and doesn’t go overboard on special effects and that is another reason why our program is so brilliant.

RTD will go down in television history as the man who made Doctor Who great again. Our favourite program as never been as popular. Now the torch has been passed on to Steven Moffat, a talented writer who has written television hits such as ‘Press Gang’, ‘Coupling’ and more recently ‘Jekyll’. Soon he will be working with Stephen Spielberg on ‘Tin-Tin’.

He is already popular with fans and his appointment has been met with great apprehension. Let’s hope that he can continue what has been a fantastic start to the new era of Doctor Who.

Cheers Russell, Welcome Steven