"Well, here we go again." - Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, Planet of the Spiders, 1974.
Part One: You've Got to Walk It Like You Talk It (Or You'll Lose That Beat)
Nearly a year ago I embarked on a rather off-the-cuff and ill-conceived ramble about the direction I'd take Doctor Who with a soft reboot if I ever got a chance. It was less of a serious pitch and more of a meditation on how even self-imposed limitations can fall apart to self-indulgence no matter how careful you are. In that way, I suppose, I garnered some sympathy for the season of the show which inspired me to write it in the first place.
Since the conclusion of Doctor Who's last season more information has come to light on the behind-the-scenes dealings, though far from anything conclusive. Likewise, we've been given a more concrete idea of the show's precarity with the handling of spin-off, The War Between the Land and the Sea, which was dropped from international broadcast by Disney and has yet to find a new distributor.
What has become crystal clear in the intervening months is that the show doesn't have much of a voice in its defence outside of the BBC. The corporation claims it still wants to stick by the show, but can't afford to keep making it without a streaming partner to front some of the costs. Something that the BBC has struggled to make materialise.
Even if the upcoming Christmas special somehow manages to clean up the show's confusing and dangling plot threads to everyone's satisfaction, it is crystal clear that the show's future is going to be on a lower budget no matter how you cut it. Even with a streaming partner, it is unlikely the BBC would be able to wrest out of them the kind of expenses they'd need for a planet-hopping monster-of-the-week show that could also compete with the likes of Star Trek or Fallout.
With all that in mind, it is very clear my original pitch is now a little outdated. More and more people are coming to the conclusion that the show will need a re-launch in the style of Jon Pertwee's 70s era, using, for the most part, a single, Earth-based location and a recurring cast of characters. Recently my thoughts got whirling again on how I'd do such a relaunch, this time with greater limitations and an even more immediate thought into drawing in new audiences.
Part Two: Some Things Will Never Change.
To be clear, most of my proposals from the last time around will remain the same. Indira Varma is The Doctor. She's still an aloof, reserved and somewhat cold incarnation with elements of Mr Spock and Vampire David Bowie. We're still skewering the tone towards older audiences, though with one foot in the fantastical to keep the kids interested.
As an aside, I've given more thought to the pushback on the subject of Doctor Who aiming for older audiences. The most common argument I've heard against is is that the show will suffer if it leaves pre-teens out as a target audience. What I think this argument misses is that a lot of younger viewers actually tend to gravitate towards media that they perceive as more mature. I know when I first got into Doctor Who it was something that felt more 'serious' and 'grown up' than I was used to. Likewise, plenty of my school friends grew up watching Star Trek: The Next Generation and The X-Files long before they were teenagers in part because those shows felt more grown up. I don't think making the show darker and more adult is necessarily going to drive away the younger viewers, but actually treating 12 year-olds as the primary audience runs the risk of driving that very audience away.
So I still want this to be a show where we do things a little more mature. As a principle, this goes hand in glove with the blueprint that the re-launch would draw upon, i.e Jon Pertwee's first few seasons. Exiled to Earth, unable to leave, with only a job at UNIT to keep them occupied and working on a solution, taking place some time in the near-future. It worked in the 70s, and it can work now, and enough things have changed that it doesn't have to feel like it is treading old ground either.
What I hope to achieve with this pitch is the to lay the groundwork for a version of Doctor Who that can not only feel like a clean break from what has become an over-convoluted and, at times, embarrassing status-quo, but also an enticing and interesting concept in its own right. A show that can bleed cool and sit on culture's razor's edge, while still being quintessentially Who.
Before we really get into it, let me make my goals clear here. This has to be a show that can be done on a shoe-string budget, but not at all feel like it. It has to feel current. It has to feel like it honours the past but also work as a brand new start with no foreknowledge of the show's canon. It has to appeal to an international audience while still retaining its British identity. There is to be no call backs, no cameos, no returning monsters or characters save the Daleks, the Cybermen and The Master.
I don't profess to know what kind of budget the BBC has access to, and what it would be able to squeeze out of a streaming deal, so all of this is purely an amateur pitch on my part, but I'm basing my estimates on the BBC's recent output.
With all that out of the way, let another needless ramble commence.
Part Three: How Can I Miss You When You Won't Go Away?
Episode one opens on a UNIT facility, and the text communicates we are "In the near-future." We're at a clean, but very grounded and serious army base. There is no sign of any rooftop laser guns here. We hear a voice begin to speak. It is European sounding. Maybe Swiss. The voice is reciting a speech to new recruits. It is confident, rousing, but blunt. Reminiscent of Z's speech from the first Men in Black film. The recruits are being greeted as the best of the best, that they are entering an elite and prestigious organisation, but that whatever they have been told, it will not prepare them for what they are about to face. Their goals will be secretive and confidential. The enemy will not be what they expect.
As the speech continues we see the Doctor, played by Indira Varma, enter the facility's foyer. Behind the desk is a large UNIT logo, the 70s one, making it clear what era the series is harkening back to. At the front desk, The Doctor explains that they are the organisation's new scientific advisor. The clerk at the desk is unaware that they were recruiting one, only to find that The Doctor is indeed on file.
They express confusion over The Doctor's name, which The Doctor explains sarcastically as being 'old irish.' First name The, second name Doctor. With the confusion cleared up, The Doctor makes her way to her assigned station and lab. Equipment is transported by UNIT orderlies, whom The Doctor chastises for being slow and careless with her gear. Much importance is laid upon the arrival of a blue police box, but its significance is not elaborated upon. For now it is just one of many curious objects alongside near-100 year-old computers and foggy looking chemistry sets.
In the midst of their setup, The Doctor is greeted and grilled by Brigadier Maximillian "The Beancounter" Strauss, played by Daniel Brühl. Strauss might hold a military title, but his position is primarily financial. Geneva feels as though UNIT has become quite the money sink over the years, so Strauss has been sent in to cut down on the waste, and the UK branch is his current assignment (and a meta-commentary on the budget of the show.) Strauss immediately bristles against The Doctor, questioning the need for a scientific advisor, and scrutinising their past employment with UNIT, which naturally doesn't match up.
The Doctor manages to placate Stauss for now, but it is made clear he wants to keep the scientific division on a tight leash for the sake of the budget. He's not an antagonist, but he will butt heads with The Doctor at some point.
Shortly after this, we are introduced to The Doctor's new assistant. Ben Dixon, played by David Jonsson. Ben is experienced graduate in Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, and a civilian contractor specifically recruited by The Doctor. Ben is competent, knowledgeable, and brave, but completely oblivious to the existence of aliens and dark science. He draws upon companions like Liz Shaw, and characters like Dana Scully. He is The Doctor's equal in many ways but a sceptic much of the time.
As The Doctor introduces a, somewhat credulous, Ben to the kinds of work he is going to be involved with, an alarm blares, and their first operation begins in earnest. Somewhere in rural Somerset there has been a string of deaths, apparently at the hands of a mysterious 'Knight' that has the power to control plant life. While the troops travel by helicopter, The Doctor explains that she'd rather travel in style, and introduces Ben to her chosen mode of transport. A cream coloured 1967 AC Cobra.
Arriving at the rural town of Potted Veil, The Doctor and Ben are met by the UNIT strike team's commanding officer. Our final main recurring character. Captain Corazon Cortez, played by Janina Gavankar. Cortez is a no-nonsense, right-to-the-action type, with a lot of characterisation crossover with Brigadier Bambera from Battlefield (and likewise, our UNIT uniforms should harken back to that take as well. Urban/Rural camo. UN Peacekeeper blue berets.) She begins the series as a shoot-first, ask-questions-later type, but over time learns to grow after leading too many soldiers to their deaths. She, like Strauss, doesn't really respect The Doctor's position to begin with.
(A note on the casting. At this point you may be thinking that my dream cast is already eating up a lot of the budget. I can't profess to know what kind of pay-checks Brühl, Jonsson and Gavankar draw at this moment in time. Brühl has obviously been on the Disney payroll in the past, though he does do plenty of TV and European productions. Jonsson is a rising star, so it is unknown if he'd be up for a joint lead. Gavankar meanwhile is mostly known for TV, video games and bit-parts. I'm not saying we'd be able to afford these three on a reduced BBC budget, but they should at least give you an idea of the types of performance I'd want for these roles.)
Over the course of the first half of our opening episode, we should have clearly communicated the new status-quo to our viewers. This, naturally, should raise some questions and mysteries for both new and returning audiences.
For newcomers, they should be immediately curious about what The Doctor's deal is, and what is up with that mysterious blue box. Obviously I know most new audiences are probably going to have some foreknowledge going in, but we'll tease it out all the same.
For returning audiences, several things will be made clear. Firstly, is that the public has no knowledge of alien races. Either time has been re-written, or our memories have been tampered with. This both wipes the continuity slate clean, makes near-future earth feel more grounded, and also sets us up with an ongoing mystery as to why mankind has no knowledge of past events like going mad in The Giggle, or nearly being wiped out in Flux.
Likewise, The Doctor is not a legendary figure. Even UNIT barely have any real knowledge of her, and (almost) none of the season's villains know who or what a Time Lord is. Like with the reason behind her tethering to Earth, this is a mystery that will be teased out in time.
For now, we have a monster to track down. Along the way Cortez's haste gets a bunch of soldiers killed confronting the mysterious 'Knight,' while Ben use their knowledge of electrochemistry to establish how the creature is controlling the vegetation. By manipulating the water within the plant life itself. Eventually they trap the 'Knight' by luring it to a field that is suffering from drought, due to near-future Earth's worsening climate crisis.
The Doctor attempts to communicate with the creature, but cannot speak their language (another mystery for returning audiences.) They do manage to establish that the creature is a lost solider in power armour, lashing out in confusion after being abandoned from some far-away war. The Doctor attempts some kind of peaceful negotiation, but in the end, the language barrier is just too large, and the creature attempts to slay The Doctor the old fashioned way, only for Cortez to arrive and kill the creature at the last minute, much to The Doctor's chagrin.
We wrap the story up with Ben's world view now expanded, Cortez's conscience weighing on her, and The Doctor pondering their next move, glancing at the blue police box. Only Strauss is truly content at a cheaply concluded operation.
Part Four: Give My Regards to Broad Street.
As the series continues, The Doctor and Ben explore relatively small-scale alien incursions and mad science gone wrong around the country. A little bit of X-Files here, a little bit of Fringe there. Along the way Cortez and Strauss soften, and we delve deeper into the ongoing mysteries. Eventually Ben gains enough of The Doctor's confidence that she reveals her origins and that of the mysterious blue box, welcoming him into a baroque control room reminiscent of the TV Movie. The Doctor is an alien. A Time Lord... sort of. A time traveller, but her time machine is grounded, for reasons she can't explain. Its chameleon circuit is broken and its translator microbes inoperative. More worryingly, she suspects that time and memory, including her own, has been re-written, and that all time travellers have been grounded, not just her. Ben, for his part, starts to suffer from an existential crisis thanks to these revelations.
Along the way we also get passing references to the political climate of the near-future. Climate change is worse than ever, though finally being taken seriously. Major corporations have been severely curtailed after multiple financial crashes and scandals. China is ascendant, and Europe is beginning to form more of a mono-culture. Additionally, and I know the BBC would probably never let me do it, but I'd also like the near-future to have a united Ireland, abolished British Monarchy, and fractured United States... and in the Doctor Who pitch too (Disclaimer: That was a joke.)
After all of this drip-feeding of information, we come to the grand finale. A two part adaption of the DWM comic The Flood. Most of you probably know that this Cyberman story has a legendary reputation, and it is well deserved. The Cybermen have constantly suffered from stories that fail to capitalise on their true strengths, sometimes being pathetic remnants of a greater civilisation, sometimes being an unstoppable assimilationist force. The Flood is one of those stories that threads the needle and manages to unite the disparate characterisations.
Of course, we'd have to bleed every penny from the budget to get those Cybermen and Cyber-sets to work, but I think it could be done. Keeping earlier episodes grounded with small scale threats, more interesting through writing and concept that bombast and spectacle, could leave you with just enough of a war chest to make the finale a cinematic event. As I've said, I don't know what kind of resources the BBC has a their disposal, but speculatively, I think it could work.
The Flood is already a story where The Doctor works alongside a government organisation to fight against a secretive invasion by far-future Cybermen. With just a few tweaks you can basically adapt it verbatim. Ben gets the opportunity to shake out of his existential crisis by figuring out the weakness in the Cyberman ship, and Cortez gets to air all her guilts and doubts at the hands of the Cybermen's psychoactive chemical.
It is also an opportunity for us to explore more of the ongoing mysteries and arcs. The Doctor expresses a feeling of deja-vu, as though she has lived this moment before, implying that the events of the comic have already happened in some pre-altered timeline. UNIT would spend a lot of time trying (and eventually succeeding) to keep the reality of the invasion secret from the public, blaming the Cybermen on an experimental drone operation gone wrong. Adding to our mystery of the time-locked Tardis is as to how our far-future Cybermen are able to travel into the past. Can the Doctor salvage some of their technology in order to end her banishment?
Alas, despite the Cybermen's defeat, The Doctor finds no solution to fixing the Tardis, and Ben gets no further answers into the truth behind their altered timeline. Still, Cortez has grown more of a conscience, and Strauss has learned to put human lives ahead of numbers on a spreadsheet, and so we end the season on a high, with greater mysteries yet to be explored.
I think that's a pretty good baseline foundation for a distinct and fresh relaunch. A new and different tone from the show's immediate past, but taking a great deal of inspiration from other parts of the show's history. A bold new status-quo, a diverse and interesting cast with a different set of dynamics than what the show has recently used, and a setting that allows some interesting hard sci-fi and topical stories to be told. You get a good writing team with some fresh and experimental ideas, and I think you'd have something that could draw in a solid new international fanbase.
Part Five: I Wish that I Knew What I Know Now
As for what comes next, I won't go into too many details. I'd envision the second season to remain on near-future earth, with a single story allowing a temporarily fixed Tardis to take The Doctor and Ben further afield, a-la Colony In Space, this time to re-introduce the Daleks in a sci-fi horror story where they stalk a ruined space base. Along the way, The Master re-emerges, played by an icy Timothy Olyphant (In this instance, I can concede there's no way our budget could afford him, but a man can dream,) to torment The Doctor and UNIT.
As for the answer behind the ongoing mysteries? We'll drip feed the details, but in time explain that the Time Lords returned (no elaboration given as to how,) and decided that the timeline of galactic history had become too chaotic in their absence. They instituted a history-wide cosmic 'pruning' to bring things back in line, grounding all time travellers for the duration. We'll keep them at arms length, used sparingly as more like the angelic god entities they were depicted as in The War Games over the squabbling bureaucrats they usually are.
Season 3, with hopefully a larger audience justifying a larger budget, would see The Doctor and Ben finally get free of Earth and give us a (mostly) full season of proper space and time travel. We'd get a second companion in the Red Sonja-inspired amphibious warrior woman I mentioned in my last pitch. Maybe she could have a funny romance with Cortez, who knows?
Long term? Eventually Varma's tenure ends and she regenerates into Benedict Wong, playing The Doctor as a more eccentric, scatter-brained professor in the style of Cushing from the 60's movies. With a fixed Tardis, The Doctor's tenure as UNIT's scientific advisor comes to an end, but I think there'd still be more fertile ground to cover with near-future Earth, so so he'd take up residence as a lecturer at Edinburgh University, as a bit of a call back to Capaldi's final season.
I think an important factor here would be setting up a new and distinct companion dynamic from one Doctor to the next. I think New Who specifically struggled over time because it kept going back to the safe and tested formula of 'quirky young British man in a will-they-won't-they relationship with an attractive young woman.' So when the newer series started to stray away from this some fans felt like it wasn't the show they fell in love with.
I think setting a clear precedent that the show can, and will, shift drastically in style and tone is crucial to its long term viability. New formulas should be adopted frequently and often.
I haven't put much thought into what I'd do with a Benedict Wong era of the show, but ideally I'd want to leave the show in a healthier place, ready to be handed off to the next show runner. No loose plot threads. A clean break once again.
As I was thinking over this pitch there were many things that I was tempted to add into it. I wanted to resolve the Timeless Child arc without retconning it, bring in Faction Paradox from the books, explore Graham's ex-companion support group from Chibnall's finale and have a multi-Doctor story with Christopher Eccleston. Yet, like I mentioned last time, It is all too easy to bog yourself down with 'Glup Shittos' and grand ideas. You lose track of what the show should be in the first place. A solid science fiction series.
Conclusion
Deep down, I know that to survive Doctor Who needs to stay lean and stay fresh. Leave convoluted lore explorations to anniversary specials and spin-off media. If RTD2 proved anything it is that there's no life-hack to getting the show a bigger audience. You can't 'fake it till you make it' with funky title cards, social media podcasts, celebrity cameos and spin-offs. Acting like you have the biggest show in the world isn't necessarily going to give you the biggest show in the world. All you end up with is a Potemkin village.
I have no idea if my above pitch would work, or if I have vastly overestimated the kind of budget the BBC has on its hands, but I hope I can give food for thought on what we as fans of the show should expect and what would probably be for the best. I think a lot of fans who joined the show in 2005 ought to understand that one day they'll face a relaunch that abandons most of their era of the show the same way the 2005 relaunch abandoned most of the classic era.
And that, I think, is the crux of the point. More than anything the show needs a completely new reinvention, whether that be in tone, setting, format or budget. The show can't survive trying to reconstruct the golden age of the 2010s Who any more than the classic series was able to reinvent the golden age of the 1970s Who.
Like the man said. Change is what makes us real. At the end of the day it's what it's all about.
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Jack Harvey 2026. Images Used Under Fair Use. Doctor Who is (c) the BBC.
