Executive Producer Refutes Claims that Doctor Who is Being Disneyfied

Executive producer Joel Collins has refuted claims that Doctor Who is being “Disneyfied” due to the BBC’s partnership with Disney Plus.

Collins tells SFX magazine (via Gamesradar): “From the Disney perspective, it’s just a bigger audience. So, the show is bigger. But it’s the same? It’s hard to explain…  So, all of the fear that everyone had, the ‘Disneyisation’ or whatever you call it, that would only happen if it wasn’t being made by Russell [T Davies]. Or by somebody who wasn’t as big a fan as Russell.”

Collins admits though that RTD has been inspired by some of Disney’s output: “Russell wanted to bring fun to it, he just wanted to bring joy into the show and challenge people in all the right ways that Russell does. But also make it fun at the right points, make it really fun, take you on a ride. So, I think that’s where the barrier to entry is removed, because adults and children alike enjoy that. And it’s not like, ‘Oh, it’s just for kids,’ or ‘It’s just for adults’ or any of this stuff.

He continued: “Actually he always looked at Pixar films, in the way he wanted this to be. If you look at that Christmas Special, he wanted it to have the fun of a Pixar film, and the complex levels of a Pixar film. No matter how well they’re animated, they’re all in the writing. They just are. They do workshops over the jokes and the humour and the nuance. They work with every bit of that writing in Pixar, to make sure that when they get to the animation it reaches every beat, and Russell just has that innately.”