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What do you mean two years of Ncuti Gatwa's Doctor Who was "always the plan?"
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00:00Doctor Who showrunners, tell us lies? Don't be silly.
00:04Of course Stephen Moffat won't ever come back to Doctor Who.
00:07Sorry, what's that?
00:08Boom.
00:09Joy to the world.
00:11Never heard of him.
00:11Of course season one will be a perfect jumping on point for newcomers.
00:15Huh?
00:16Sue Tech?
00:17Shooting out or watching Pyramids of Mars?
00:18Oh, come on!
00:19Okay, fair enough.
00:21Maybe Doctor Who does lie to us from time to time.
00:24I'm Ellie for Who Culture, here with 10 more times Doctor Who lied to your face.
00:30Number 10.
00:31No Daleks in Series 11.
00:34The 13th Doctor's first series boldly resisted bringing back elements from the past,
00:39with showrunner Chris Chibnall promising Radio Times that, quote,
00:43we've got a new Doctor, all new characters, all new monsters, and all new stories.
00:48When pressed on what this meant for the Daleks back in 2018,
00:51Chibnall rather cheekily replied that they wouldn't appear, quote,
00:55this year.
00:56He was right, of course.
00:57They appeared in 2019's New Year's Day special, Resolution.
01:02But because Resolution was filmed as part of the Series 11 production,
01:05this is a very obvious bending of the truth.
01:08There wasn't even that much of a gap between the Series 11 finale and Resolution.
01:13The Battle of Ranskor Avkolos aired on the 9th of December 2018,
01:17just over three weeks before the broadcast of the New Year's Day special.
01:20So yes, technically Chris Chibnall wasn't lying,
01:24but also technically the Daleks do appear as part of Series 11.
01:27Oddly enough though, Resolution was then included on some editions of the Series 12 box set,
01:33despite being a very clear continuation of Series 11 with the whole Ryan's dad subplot.
01:38Still, it's a showrunner's rite of passage to lie to the press about returning monsters,
01:43so we'll let Chris Chibnall off the hook with this one.
01:46Number 9.
01:47Russell T. Davis Will Never Return to Doctor Who
01:50While there are some fans who might wish that he'd stuck to his word,
01:54Russell T. Davis was pretty vocal about not wanting to return to Doctor Who.
01:58In 2019, he told Radio Times that returning to Doctor Who would,
02:02quote, be like coming back to a job I did 10 years ago, wouldn't it?
02:05Who would do that?
02:07Who indeed?
02:08Well, a year earlier, Russell T. Davis had been even more adamant in his desire never to return to the TARDIS,
02:13saying, quote,
02:14Really, think about it.
02:16Go back to the job you had 13 years ago, or go back to your old school.
02:19Walk in, say hello, take your old seat, and start giving instructions.
02:23Watch everyone's faces, shortly before they call the police.
02:26Move on.
02:26And besides, why look back?
02:28The future is golden.
02:29Four years later, Russell T. Davis did walk in, take his old seat, and start giving instructions,
02:35and nobody called the police, no matter what they thought of Empire of Death.
02:38So, was Russell T. Davis lying when he said all this?
02:42Maybe.
02:42Or maybe he did genuinely believe he wouldn't go back until lockdown happened,
02:47and David Tennant and Catherine Tate convinced him otherwise.
02:50Either way, it would certainly be interesting to hear how he feels about his decision to actually return now.
02:56Number 8. Matthew Waterhouse in Time Flight
03:00All of us probably experienced our parents lying to us about death in our youth.
03:06Spoiler alert, your rabbit didn't get taken to a special rabbit farm.
03:09Oh, and Matthew Waterhouse isn't in Time Flight.
03:12Now, yes, before you write it, Matthew Waterhouse is in Time Flight.
03:17He appears as an illusion of Adric in Part 2.
03:20But we're specifically talking about the decision to include him in the Radio Times credits for Part 1.
03:26As that particular issue of the Radio Times would have gone to press before Earthshock Part 4 had aired,
03:32producer John Nathan-Turner was keen to protect the big surprise that Adric would be killed off in the final moments of that episode.
03:39Apparently, Waterhouse's contract also extended into the production of Time Flight,
03:43which gave Nathan-Turner and writer Peter Grimwade the opportunity to deploy Adric.
03:48So, while the Radio Times listing wasn't strictly a lie,
03:51the implication that the listing made was a huge misdirection about the fate of Adric,
03:57and was intended to make people believe he would still be alive.
04:00Lesser producers than John Nathan-Turner wouldn't even consider the implications
04:04of not including Matthew Waterhouse in the pre-broadcast credits for Time Flight.
04:08It's proof of Nathan-Turner's commitment to the viewer's experience,
04:12by protecting big surprises like the death of Adric.
04:15Number 7. Searching for the Twelfth Doctor
04:19At San Diego Comic-Con in 2013, Doctor Who showrunner Stephen Moffat told Digital Spy that,
04:26quote,
04:26The search for the Twelfth Doctor has barely begun.
04:28Less than two weeks later, Peter Capaldi was unveiled as the Twelfth Doctor
04:32in a live show spectacular on primetime BBC One.
04:35Once again, Stephen Moffat had lied through his teeth.
04:38In fact, at the time of his interview with Digital Spy in July 2013,
04:42Peter Capaldi's casting had been known by the Doctor Who production team for quite a while.
04:47Even the idea of a search for the Twelfth Doctor was a lie,
04:50with Peter Capaldi being the first choice to play the part.
04:53There would have been other names as backups in case Capaldi said no, of course,
04:57which is probably where those Rory Kinnear and Ben Daniels rumours came from.
05:01But Capaldi was always Moffat's man,
05:03and in fact Moffat had briefly considered casting him as the Eleventh Doctor before Matt Smith entered the picture.
05:09Fundamentally though, lifelong Doctor Who fan Peter Capaldi was never going to say no,
05:14and savvy Doctor Who showrunner Stephen Moffat was hardly going to kick Capaldi out of his kitchen after his successful audition.
05:20Still, it's another example of a little white lie leading to another big reward.
05:25This time during Doctor Who's glorious 50th anniversary year,
05:29in which Capaldi's Twelfth Doctor, or rather his eyebrows, was unveiled in spectacular fashion.
05:35And really, with Matt Smith's regeneration on the horizon,
05:38we should have known that the search for his replacement hadn't barely begun.
05:42The search for the next Doctor Who isn't something you rush at the last minute, is it now?
05:46Or is it?
05:486. Colin Baker's regeneration
05:50Colin Baker's departure from Doctor Who was announced on the 18th of December 1986,
05:57just 12 days after the conclusion of his final story, The Trial of a Time Lord.
06:02When the newspapers broke the gossip,
06:03they stated that Baker had declined the BBC's offer of doing four final episodes.
06:09While the kids at home probably wouldn't know this in advance,
06:12the fact remains that Baker's lack of involvement in Season 24 had been widely reported in the press.
06:18Flash forward nine months and we find the 6th Doctor lying face down on the floor of the TARDIS console room.
06:23Had Colin changed his mind?
06:25Why, of course not.
06:26Instead, it was decided that Sylvester McCoy would dress in Colin's costume and a curly blonde wig
06:31to convince the nation that they were seeing the 6th Doctor regenerate before their very eyes.
06:37The finished result is one of the least believable effects sequences ever done in Doctor Who.
06:41And that really is saying something.
06:43You can clearly see the join between McCoy's brown hair and his blonde wig,
06:47no matter how much distortion they put on his face.
06:50Hey look, we didn't say these would all be convincing lies now, did we?
06:54Number five, the final end of the Daleks.
06:57When Patrick Troughton gravely stated that it was, quote,
07:01the final end at the climax of the evil of the Daleks,
07:04the BBC genuinely didn't know if the Daleks would be coming back.
07:08Terry Nation had gone off to America in the hope of selling his creations to the US television market.
07:13However, every subsequent claim that the Daleks have been defeated once and for all
07:17has become one of Doctor Who's most consistent lies.
07:20Fundamentally, Doctor Who needs the Daleks,
07:23so every apparent genocide against Garo's finest rings a bit hollow.
07:27There's always a hidden army of Daleks in a pocket universe or light years away,
07:31or a small faction of them always survives,
07:34allowing them to return and plot their revenge against the Doctor.
07:37It's the same with the Master.
07:38Whether he's left to rot on the planet Zarephath or shot dead by his vengeful wife,
07:43we know that someday further down the line,
07:45the Doctor's best frenemy will be back to cause chaos once more.
07:49And once more again.
07:50And again.
07:51And again.
07:52And would we want it any other way?
07:53No matter how many people claim that they're tired of the Daleks or the Master,
07:57they would be distraught if Doctor Who truly delivered the final end
08:01for either of the Doctor's greatest enemies.
08:03And frankly, there's been a Dalek-shaped hole in the show for the past couple of years.
08:07So please, please keep lying to us about this one.
08:114. It was always the plan for Shooty Gatwa to exit
08:16The reality war is an appropriate title for the Season 2 finale,
08:21given the war between fact and fiction going on both behind the scenes
08:24and in the publicity for Shooty Gatwa's final episode of Doctor Who.
08:29During his last appearance in Doctor Who Behind the Scenes material,
08:32Gatwa stated that it was, quote,
08:34always the plan for him to do two seasons,
08:37and that his knees were telling him it was time to quit the role.
08:40Fast forward a few months, and he's bending those knees
08:43while leaping about the stage in his new play, Born With Teeth.
08:46And if it was always the plan,
08:48then why did he let slip on a 2024 episode of The Graham Norton Show
08:52that filming was due to start on Doctor Who Season 3 next year?
08:56In reality, the plan was clearly for Shooty to do one or two more seasons,
09:01and then move on.
09:01However, Disney dragged its feet on committing to future seasons,
09:05and thus, here we are.
09:07Now, you can't blame an up-and-coming talent like Gatwa
09:09for wanting to stretch his knees a little, can you?
09:12And you also can't blame him for blurring the truth.
09:14It's not like Disney, Russell, or anyone else involved
09:17is actually going to admit that their shiny new reboot hasn't gone to plan.
09:21At least, not yet.
09:22No doubt the tell-all memoirs and interviews will emerge one day,
09:25and I, for one, cannot wait to find out what really happened.
09:28Number 3. The TARDIS Is No More
09:32The shock cliffhanger to Frontios Part 1 saw the fifth Doctor's TARDIS get blown to bits
09:38on the surface of the titular planet.
09:40While there was never any serious intention to get rid of the Doctor's time machine,
09:43rumours began circulating that this was the end for the TARDIS.
09:47Unsurprisingly, the press seized upon the controversy,
09:50with the Evening Mail asking Sandwell schoolchildren to pick their own TARDIS replacements.
09:55A Mr S. Peters of Tring even wrote to the Daily Express
09:59to decry the axing of the TARDIS as sacrilege,
10:03before inviting like-minded people to make their distaste known to the BBC.
10:07In a DVD commentary, Peter Davison theorised
10:10that it was John Nathan Turner himself who spread the rumours of the TARDIS' axing.
10:14Whether or not that's true, we can all agree that some of the greatest lies are by omission.
10:18So John Nathan Turner and the BBC's refusal to comment
10:21only stoked the flames of public opinion.
10:23That, coupled with the announcement of Colin Baker's casting,
10:27helped to generate tonnes of free publicity for Davison's final season.
10:31Clearly, all this press fervour left an impact,
10:33as a preview of Attack of the Cybermen in the 5-3 press a year later
10:38asked whether Colin Baker would still have his TARDIS with him.
10:422. No Master in Modern Doctor Who
10:45In the Doctor Who confidential episode all about the long game,
10:49there was a section about The Master in which the likes of Sylvester McCoy,
10:53Peter Davison, and Russell T. Davis discussed The Master.
10:57And the incumbent showrunner didn't sound all that keen on the idea of bringing the character back
11:02in the modern era, saying, quote,
11:04I'm sure someone will bring back The Master one day, because it's a sort of irresistible idea.
11:08I just think it should be done properly.
11:10He should be written properly.
11:11I mean, The Master used to turn up in a story and say,
11:14ha ha, I'm about to destroy everything,
11:16and then you're going, why?
11:18Someone. Eh, Russell? Not you?
11:20It's clear from how Russell T. Davis approached Doctor Who in 2005
11:23that the return of The Master must have been playing on his mind when he said all of this.
11:28After all, Davis systematically brought back the Daleks, then the Cybermen,
11:33so The Master was surely the next headline villain.
11:35And with how much RTD1 feels like a cohesive package,
11:39particularly with regards to the Time War and the fates of other Time Lords,
11:43there's no doubt that he'd at least considered how The Master would be reintroduced to modern audiences.
11:49And so, two years later, Russell T. Davis could resist The Master no longer,
11:54and brought him back in the heart-stopping climax to Utopia,
11:57proving once again that playing your cards close to your chest can often be for the benefit of the viewer.
12:04Number 1. Annual Doctor Who in RTD2
12:08That's a serious plan. Annual Doctor Who.
12:11No gap years, lots of content, on and on and on.
12:15Yes, please.
12:16So, Russell T. Davis told Doctor Who magazine back in December 2022,
12:20oh boy, what a difference two and a bit years makes, huh?
12:23Here in 2025, we're not even sure when the show is coming back.
12:27Russell T. Davis' assurance of annual Doctor Who is kind of being fudged by pushing the war between the land and the sea
12:33into a 2026 release date, but the fact remains that it's a promise left unfulfilled.
12:38In fairness to Russell T. Davis, he probably believed that he'd be able to pull these plans off
12:43when he wrote his column back in 2022.
12:45But still, he must have known that there was a good chance he wouldn't be able to fulfil the promise of yearly Doctor Who.
12:52His promise ignores outside factors like streaming figures, Disney's subscriber numbers,
12:57and the corporate whims of the House of Mouse.
13:00Even taking Mickey Mouse out of the equation, it's a show that is incredibly hard to make,
13:05which is why there were so many gaps in the Moffat and Chibnall years.
13:08It got to a point where our steady diet of 13 episodes a year plus a Christmas special just became unsustainable.
13:14Annual episode counts decreased from 14 to 13 to 11, with longer and longer gaps springing up.
13:21And so with all that in mind, isn't an empty promise just as bad as an outright lie?
13:25On the optimistic side, hopefully lessons have been learned from the debacle of the Disney era,
13:30and Doctor Who might finally become the annual show we all hope it can be.
13:34And no, Russell?
13:35That doesn't include five-episode Sea Devil spin-offs.
13:39And that's our list!
13:40No, really, it's the end.
13:42Watch.
13:43Three, two, one...
13:47Ah, just kidding!
13:48See, look, I can lie too!
13:49Okay, no, it really is the end now, though.
13:51It's over.
13:52You can click off.
13:53But do make sure that when you are clicking off,
13:55you are clicking onto one of our other lovely videos when you do so.
13:58And in the words of Riversong herself,
14:00goodbye, sweeties!
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