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We just want Doctor Who Confidential back, is that so much to ask?
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00:00Sometimes, Doctor Who delivers us the glorious gift of fan service, which we did cover in
00:05a recent video. However, sometimes this happens. So, with that in mind then, I'm Ellie with
00:10Who Culture, here with 10 times Doctor Who refused to give fans what they wanted.
00:16Number 10, bringing back Susan. If it's not the Rani, it's the Doctor's granddaughter
00:21Susan, whom fans want to return to Doctor Who. There have been references to the Doctor's
00:26family in the new series, but to date, she's not returned. Now, some fans thought that the woman
00:31from the end of time was Susan, rather than the Doctor's mother, as Russell T. Davies had intended.
00:36Peter Capaldi even mentioned possibly seeing the Doctor's granddaughter again in an interview while
00:40he was playing the Doctor. Capaldi's love of being photographed with classic companions on
00:45the Doctor Who set only fuelled a desire to see Susan and her grandfather reunited. The granddad
00:50bit between the Doctor and Bill in Knock Knock and the photo on the Doctor's desk at the university
00:55only seemed to hint to viewers that a Susan return was imminent. And then, when David Bradley's
01:00appearance as the first Doctor was revealed, it was surely a shoo-in that Susan would return for the
01:05final Christmas special. Whether it was a deliberate troll or not, the reintroduction of Bill
01:10in Twice Upon a Time takes slightly too long, especially as everyone already knew that Pearl
01:14Mackie was coming back. But as the figure emerged from the shadows, fans could be forgiven for
01:19anticipating that this could have been the return of Carol Ann Ford. Perhaps one day she'll come back.
01:249. The Return of the Rani
01:27What do Sarah Lancashire, Keely Hawes, Michelle Gomez and Barbara Flynn all have in common beyond
01:33being Doctor Who guest actors? They've also all been mistakenly believed to be playing a new
01:38version of the Rani in New Who. Despite having only appeared in two stories and a Children in
01:43Need special, Kate O'Mara's performance is so memorable that the character has become beloved
01:48within Doctor Who fandom. So much so that any female guest cast announcement has been met by
01:54fervent speculation that the actor involved will be playing the Rani. This reached a head when Michelle
01:59Gomez was revealed to be a female incarnation of the Master rather than the Rani. Why turn the
02:04Master into a woman when there's an evil Time Lord female right there, complained the fandom.
02:08Well, probably because the rights to the character were held by classic Doctor Who writers Pip and Jane
02:13Baker, who first created her. The husband and wife writing team are no longer with us, so it's unclear
02:19where that leaves the character now. Regardless of boring legal things like rights, you can expect to
02:23see Gillian Anderson's inevitable casting opposite Shuti Gatwa linked back to the villainous Time Lord
02:29geneticist.
02:34The 2003 announcement of Doctor Who's return was incredibly exciting for fans as the show celebrated
02:40its 40th anniversary year. Once the initial excitement died down, thoughts turned to whether
02:45or not this would be a continuation or a remake. Strangely, that debate continued throughout the
02:50first series in some dark corners of the internet, right up until the 10th Doctor was reunited with
02:55Sarah Jane Smith and K-9 in Season 2. One of the key stumbling blocks for fans was the fact
03:00that
03:00Paul McGann wasn't involved in the new show. This was seen as hugely disrespectful by some and a
03:06missed opportunity by others. Some fans were particularly flummoxed by the idea that they
03:10wouldn't get to see McGann regenerate into Christopher Eccleston, and when McGann did return in 2013,
03:15they saw him regenerate into John Hurt instead. Of course, Russell T Davies was right to stick to his
03:21guns. Paul McGann had been the Doctor in novels, audio dramas, and comic strips since 1996. What
03:27would you do with all those already existing stories? In not establishing exactly what happened
03:32to the 8th Doctor, Russell T Davies spun a mystery that gave the Doctor an intriguing and emotional
03:37backstory for new audiences, while providing intriguing teases for fans about the state of
03:42the Doctor Who universe during the Doctor's absence from our screens.
03:467. Bringing back the Christmas special
03:48Doctor Who was a huge part of the BBC's Christmas Day schedule for over a decade.
03:54The Voyage of the Damned, which starred Kylie Minogue, was watched by over 13 million people.
03:59When Chris Chibnall took over Doctor Who, the Christmas special became a New Year special
04:02instead, and fans have demanded the show return to Christmas Day ever since.
04:07The shift to New Year actually made a lot of sense at the time. In recent years, New Year's
04:12Day has been when the BBC launches its flagship new dramas. For example, Stephen Moffat and
04:17Mark Gatiss' Sherlock regularly debuted on New Year's Day. So rather than being a sign of the
04:22BBC's lack of interest in Doctor Who, it's a sign that the show's seen as a flagship drama rather
04:27than appointment television for the whole family. But that's definitely a problem, especially as the
04:32show should always be striving to reach a new, younger audience.
04:366. A Rose Tyler spin-off
04:38When Doctor Who's 2005 relaunch proved to be a massive hit, the BBC began thinking about spin-offs.
04:45This led to the creation of both The Sarah Jane Adventures and Torchwood. But those discussions
04:50with Russell T Davies led to some other potential projects. One of these was a kids' show about
04:54the Doctor's youth on Gallifrey. But Russell T Davies rightly vetoed this idea on the basis it would
04:59have removed The Who from Doctor Who. Another spin-off that would have fared much better with fans
05:04was the mooted Rose Tyler Earth Defence. Set in the parallel Earth from Season 2, it would have
05:10focused on the Tylers' new lives as they protected the parallel world from all manner of baddies.
05:15Russell T Davies had already planned to bring the more action-hero version of Rose back for Season 4,
05:20so a spin-off show would have been the perfect way to build toward it. In the end, however,
05:24Russell T Davies decided not to take the project further, believing that if the Doctor wasn't able
05:29to see what Rose was up to, then the general audience shouldn't either. However, years later,
05:33Big Finish decided that if fans couldn't see these adventures, then they could hear them instead in
05:38a series of box sets. Number 5. The Return of Doctor Who Confidential
05:43When Doctor Who Confidential was good, it was David Tennant interviewing Stephen Moffat about
05:48their respective childhoods as Scottish Doctor Who fans. When Doctor Who Confidential was bad,
05:53it was extensive footage of actors standing around in padded jackets in quarries at 3 in the morning.
05:58However, it was a show that tapped into the fascination Doctor Who fans have with how the show is
06:03made, and its absence is keenly felt to this day. Confidential was cancelled by the BBC back in 2011
06:10due to budgetary issues. It was replaced by behind-the-scenes featurettes and Doctor Who
06:14the Fan Show that would both appear on the official Doctor Who website or its YouTube channel.
06:19Doctor Who Confidential was often a fascinating insight into the making of the show and the
06:24decisions of those involved, so it's easy to see why fans miss that level of engagement.
06:29Rumours currently circulate that Confidential will return for the second Russell T. Davies era,
06:34but fans shouldn't expect a return to the glory days of classic monster montages set to What's
06:39That Coming Over the Hill. The more likely replacement for Confidential is a post-episode
06:43chat show like Talking Dead or After Trek.
06:46Number 4. A Proper 30th Anniversary Special
06:49Doctor Who had been off the air for almost four years as it approached its 30th anniversary in 1993.
06:56Fans hadn't given up hope on the show returning, though, especially when news broke of a feature-length
07:01straight-to-video movie. Doctor Who in the Dark Dimension had an incredibly complicated,
07:06troubled production and never made it as far as filming. With a proper Doctor Who Anniversary
07:10special now quashed, fans had to make do with the surviving five Doctors and their companions
07:15interacting with the cast of EastEnders. Dimensions in Time, a 3D charity sketch for children in need,
07:21got a lot of unfair stick from fans who wanted this darker, grittier Doctor Who anniversary
07:26that had been previously promised. And yet, as anyone who's read the script will tell you,
07:30Doctor Who may have had a lucky escape from the Dark Dimension. At least in Dimensions in Time,
07:35each of the Doctors get a decent share of screen time. In the Dark Dimension, the majority of the
07:39Doctoring is done by an older Tom Baker, because the fourth Doctor was prevented from regenerating.
07:44They probably felt that Tom Baker was more of a draw for audiences, which may have been the case,
07:48but the plot of the considerably longer The Dark Dimension is just as convoluted and nonsensical
07:54as Dimensions in Time. Worse still, it wouldn't have featured Frank Butcher or the Mitchell Brothers.
07:59If you are interested in finding out more about this unmade movie, then be sure to check out our
08:03video covering just that. 3. Bringing Back The Brigadier
08:08Even though it was a reboot, Russell T Davies' 2005 revival of Doctor Who wasted no time in bringing
08:14back old elements. The Autons were the first villains, and Unit briefly appeared in Aliens
08:19of London and World War 3. And yet, despite this, the legendary head of the organisation,
08:24Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, never appeared in the new series. Given the Doctor's psychological
08:28trauma from the Time War, a story that paired the Ninth Doctor with an equally battle-scarred
08:33brigadier would have been fascinating. Sadly, it wasn't to be. The Brigadier was always in Peru,
08:38which increasingly sounded like a euphemism for actor Nicholas Courtney's ill health. He did get
08:42to appear in the Sarah Jane Adventures, and was due to appear alongside David Tennant in another
08:47Sarah Jane Adventures episode, but unfortunately Courtney was too ill to take part, sadly dying
08:52months later. When the Brigadier did eventually reappear in Doctor Who, it was in the hugely controversial
08:57Death in Heaven, in which the character's corpse was reanimated as a Cyberman to save the
09:02Doctor and Kate Stewart from Missy's Machinations. There was also a brief vocal cameo in Flux,
09:08but it doesn't make up for the fact that this legendary Doctor Who character never got to share
09:12a scene with any of the 21st Century Doctors. 2. Resting the Daleks
09:17Everyone loves the Daleks, right? Well, not exactly. Since the show returned in 2005,
09:23there hasn't been a single Doctor Who series that hasn't featured the Daleks in some capacity.
09:28Now, there was no Dalek special during David Tennant's final year,
09:32but one still did a flyby in a flashback during The Waters of Mars, and Matt Smith's second series
09:37didn't have a Dalek story, but a wrecked Dalek popped up to have its brain examined by the Doctor
09:42in The Wedding of River Song. There's just no escaping the Daleks, and these small cameos run
09:46the risk of lessening their impact when they return. Chris Chibnall was criticised for featuring
09:51the Daleks in each of his New Year specials, but to be fair to him, he's not the only showrunner
09:56who
09:56loves a Dalek. Classic Doctor Who had regular large gaps between Dalek stories, with only two Dalek
10:01serials in Tom Baker's entire seven-year run. The Daleks are great, obviously, but absence makes
10:07the heart grow fonder. It would be amazing if, after their appearance in Jodie Whittaker's finale,
10:12they don't appear for a few years. Returning in full strength toward the end of Shooty Gatwa's run,
10:17potentially. However, whether it's for contractual or audience engagement reasons,
10:21you can expect to see them sooner or later.
10:23Number 1. The Classic TARDIS Interior
10:26Modern TARDIS interiors have covered the full spectrum of the good, the bad, and the ugly.
10:32However, none of them have ever been able to live up to the sleek, classic white room from
10:36the original 1963-1989 run. This wouldn't be so bad if the show didn't continue to tease fans by
10:43showing how good that interior looks on modern TVs. Fans first got a look at the classic TARDIS
10:48interior of sorts in The Day of the Doctor, when it glitches into the War Doctor's console room.
10:52Then there was the TARDIS that the Doctor and Clara used to escape Gallifrey in Hellbent.
10:57Then there's the first Doctor's TARDIS in Twice Upon a Time. And finally, in Fugitive of the Jadoon,
11:02the Ruth Doctor has a variation on the classic TARDIS interior. Each time the classic console room
11:07appears, it looks considerably cooler than whatever one the incumbent Doctor is currently occupying.
11:12It's appeared in the modern run so many times now that any suggestion it wouldn't work on
11:16modern telly loses all credibility. Let's hope they finally take the plunge and put
11:21Shooty's Doctor in this design classic. And that concludes our list. If you think we missed any,
11:27then do let us know in the comments below. And while you're there, don't forget to like and
11:31subscribe and tap that notification bell so you never miss a Who Culture video. While I've got you,
11:35I'd just like to say a massive thank you for helping us pass the 100k mark. You are all amazing!
11:41Also, head over to Twitter and follow us there, at Who Culture. And I can be found across various
11:45social medias just by searching Ellie Littlechild. I've been Ellie with Who Culture and in the
11:50words of Riversong herself, goodbye, sweeties.
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