Feature: Does Doctor Who Need Its Own Cinematic Universe?
Feature article by guest contributor Sam Brown.
Nobody quite knows what the second Russell T Davies era will bring. I’m not even sure Russell T Davies knows at this point. Expectations have never been higher. David Tennant is returning, maybe. Catherine Tate is back, perhaps. The second coming of Jesus Christ is upon us, potentially. But these rumours are as nebulous and exaggerated as Doctor Who rumours have always been. As a fandom, we have a particular penchant for wildly theorising without evidence. If you believe your average Whovian, the next series is surely going to feature The Rani conspiring with Omega to resurrect Adric.
One theory that holds merit, however, is the introduction of a WCU – a Who Cinematic Universe. This is not beyond plausibility. It is, in fact, decidedly plausible. The idea of an extended Doctor Who universe has captured Russell T Davies’s imagination in the past. In his swansong series, Davies interwove storylines from Doctor Who, Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures for a fittingly cataclysmic universe-ending finale. To assume that Russell reached his quota for extended universes at the end of series four would be misguided. He has been interviewed in the past supporting the idea of a WCU, calling for “The Nyssa Adventures or The Return of Donna Noble”. Certainly, the idea of a Doctor Who extended universe is appealing. Big Finish, of course, already has as a shared Marvel-esque universe in absentia of the television series, where storylines can actually meet fan expectations on the level of the MCU juggernaut. The only limit is that, as yet, we cannot visually witness this fan service. If I can hear Alex Kingston meet Paul McGann in The Diary of River Song, why can’t I also see it happen?
It seems Russell is keeping to his word. In November 2021, producers affiliated with the show registered a company called WHONIVERSE1 LTD. It is no stretch of the imagination to assume that the production is gearing up for a Marvel-style extended universe. Many fans have speculated on the prospect of a WCU, but fleetingly few have considered the potential drawbacks.
That’s not to say that the idea is unpopular. Critics have been prophesying the collapse of the cinematic universe since the original Avengers in 2012, but such prophesies have yet to come true. Marvel is doing as well now as it ever has. If anything, it’s even more popular. It’s extended not just to films but also television. Surely, Doctor Who should try and compete with the emperor before it’s too late. We live in a nostalgia-obsessed world. The show has never managed to regain the popularity of the David Tennant years. Matt Smith’s earlier tenure and the 50th anniversary aside, it appears to have dropped from most people’s consciousness, perhaps rightly. The show has become a cacophony of self-references, patting itself on the back for something that happened in a classic series episode twenty-three years ago that nobody but the most committed, die-hard fan would recognise. Casual viewers are turned off by the prospect of watching the show with an encyclopedia at their side, just in case a vital plot point hinges on something that happened in The Talons of Weng-Chiang. Dedicated viewers, likewise, often find it repulsive when the show’s canon is changed or rearranged to fit the needs of a later story. Whatever you think of the Timeless Child, it was – and is – undoubtedly controversial. Might appealing to the British public’s nostalgia for 2005- 2010 Doctor Who reignite national awareness for the show?
In truth, however, an extended Whoniverse in the vein of Marvel may just be a self-referential cacophony of a different tune. People have nostalgia for The Tenth Doctor but, after five, ten or twenty additional David Tennant episodes, fans of the show may realise that nothing – not even the sideburns – can bring back their childhood. People have nostalgia for Donna Noble but would The Return of Donna Noble not take away the emotional piquancy of Journey’s End? Nostalgia has been a dead horse in the Doctor Who fandom, and the Doctor Who production team have been flogging it for years. We live in an anesthetised creative world in which everything has to be a sequel or a reboot or a fan celebration of a popular property. The response should not be to keep injecting more anesthesia. If you time-travelled to 1983 and told a devoted Star Wars fan that Boba Fett would one day have his own television show, they would react with ecstatic excitement. In 2022, they would barely bat an eyelid. I fear we’re so inundated with fan service that, if Russell T Davies were to spend his time focusing on an extended Whoniverse, it would just be boring. Nobody cares when a character from one superhero film pops up in another anymore. It’s old hat. Nostalgia has become the CGI of storytelling: a prop that becomes more and more annoying the more you notice it. Similarly, if we never have to say goodbye to David Tennant or Catherine Tate, will we ever need to care about their return?
Russell T Davies is an astonishing writer. His mark on television is indelible, and not just his work on Doctor Who: The Second Coming, It’s a Sin and Years and Years are some of the best shows to come out this century and, like a good bottle of wine, he’s only getting better with age. If he wants to create the next shared universe, I’m sure he is doing so with the best of intentions. Nonetheless, my hope is that he applies his creative talents to new stories, new characters and new ideas, rather than becoming another unextraordinary cog in the nostalgia culture. If this means forgoing a crossover with Frobisher and River Song, so be it.
