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Will a Doctor Who movie ever happen again? David Tennant and Billie Piper certainly hope so. And the TARDIS gets a royal visit, but is it more significant than we realise? Here's Ellie with the latest Doctor Who news!
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00:00Hello everybody, Ellie here for WhoCulture, and we have another weekly roundup, so I have a few
00:05things I want to talk to you about. As usual, there'll be timestamps in this video, so jump
00:09around if you want to, and let's get straight into it, shall we? Quickly, before we get into
00:14any of the main topics, just a quick shout-out and congratulations to Russell T. Davis, who
00:20actually won the Outstanding Contribution to Television Award at the BAFTA Cymru Awards last
00:26night, so well done RTD, Welsh recognition, we love to see it. Another thing I want to
00:31quickly talk about, of course, it was week two of Strictly Come Dancing, which if you're
00:36not familiar, if you're in the US, it's basically the UK version of Dancing with the Stars, it's
00:41a dancing competition where they have non-dancers, celebrities, paired up with a professional
00:46dancer, and each week they are challenged with different dancers, and it's a lot of fun.
00:50And Alex Kingston is a contestant this year. Now, last week, I thought her dance was absolutely
00:56wonderful, she did the Viennese Waltz, and I think she was criminally underscored, and
01:01to a person, everyone I've spoken to about it is in agreement. Now, I might be slightly
01:07biased, but even people who have absolutely no care in the world also agreed that she was
01:12underscored last week. Now, this week, they absolutely made up for it because she had the
01:17highest scores of the evening for her Samba, and she looked like she was having a really
01:22great time, it was a wonderful dance, and I'm so excited to see her doing more dances.
01:27Next week is movie week, and it's already been revealed that they are doing The Devil Wears
01:33Prada, and she'll be playing Miranda Priestly, so she's basically embodying her inner Meryl Streep
01:37next week, and I can't wait to see it. I'm not sure what dance she's doing, but whatever
01:42it is, it's gonna be great. Very excited. Come on, Alex, please make sure you are voting,
01:48you can vote just after the episode finishes airing on Saturday evenings via the BBC website.
01:55This sounds like an ad, it's not, I just want everyone to vote for Alex Kingston because she
01:58deserves to stay in the competition. Anyway, moving on. Did anyone else notice the new Doctor's
02:04been cast? Only kidding, only kidding, but I'm sure many of you have seen over the weekend
02:11some images surfacing of Prince William visiting the set of the TARDIS. So he visited Bad Wolf
02:19Studios on the 10th of September, so coming up to almost a month ago at this point, and
02:24it was part of the 10th anniversary celebrations of Bad Wolf Studios, and as part of that he
02:29was given a tour of the TARDIS set. Now obviously Prince William is not playing the 16th Doctor,
02:36although what a curveball that would be, could you imagine? But obviously it does say something
02:41for how much of a British mainstay, how much, how big a part of British culture Doctor Who
02:46is to have literally the Prince of Wales visiting the set of the show. I can't imagine they visit
02:52many sets, I mean they do visit sets, don't get me wrong, but it just speaks to how much
02:57of a British icon, how much, how much it is ingrained within British culture that the Prince
03:03of Wales is visiting the set. But that's not really the important focus of this here, what
03:09really is the focus here is there had been a lot of rather dubious rumours floating around
03:14that they'd torn down the TARDIS set. Evidently, as of a month ago, that is not the case. TARDIS
03:21still standing, so Prince William could walk across it. Now to be honest I wouldn't necessarily
03:27say this is a positive thing to take away or a negative thing to take away. Obviously I didn't
03:32really take much heed to rumours that the TARDIS had been dismantled. The thing is they've never
03:38ever said they've cancelled Doctor Who. We might be in a little bit of limbo at the moment,
03:42but I think we're all in agreement that the show hasn't completely disappeared, it will
03:45be back. So it stands to reason that they're not going to tear down the sets until they know
03:49exactly what it is that they're doing. And even if Disney does decide to pull the plug
03:53and does decide, well I think we're kind of all maybe on the same page that Disney aren't
03:58moving forwards. But regardless of Disney's involvement, presumably Bad Wolf Studios is
04:03still going to be the location where Doctor Who is filmed. So it makes sense that the TARDIS
04:06set is still going to be standing. You know, whether there's a gap, whether there's a wait
04:10or a delay, they're still presumably going to need the TARDIS set. And it's going to cost
04:14a lot of money if they dismantle it prematurely and then go, oh we needed that. So yes we may
04:20be in a time of uncertainty, but I guess we can take it as a positive in as much as
04:25they
04:25clearly have confidence the show is going to continue. We should have that as well, the
04:29TARDIS is still standing. Once they rip down the sets, that's when we should start worrying.
04:34But as it stands, the TARDIS is still there. So the other thing I want to talk about is
04:39LA Comic Con, of which some guests may be familiar to you. We had David Tennant and Billy Piper
04:46both in attendance at LA Comic Con this year, and they were asked about a potential Doctor
04:51Who movie. This is what they said, okay? Billy Piper, yes. David Tennant, sure. Billy Piper,
05:00I always was pitching for that, where's the film? And DT says, where's the movie? Billy
05:04Piper says, I just love that. I would love the Doctor Who experience on the big screen.
05:08But yeah, I'd do that, wouldn't you? And DT says, oh for sure, yeah, we're available.
05:13A David Tennant and Billy Piper Doctor Who movie? I'm here for it. For as much as I've been
05:20saying, give David Tennant a rest, I actually genuinely think if we went down a route of
05:25having a standalone film, separate from everything else, I wouldn't be mad about it. I genuinely
05:32wouldn't. I don't know how it would work. Obviously you'd have to find a way for it to make sense
05:36either as a story that fits in amongst kind of the Series 2 timeline, whether you made
05:42it a Rose and Metacrisis Doctor story in the parallel universe. I'm not totally against
05:50it. For as much as I've said David Tennant needs to stop for a while. For some reason
05:55in my mind as a film, it would be different. It kind of would be separate. But okay, even
06:00if we take the David Tennant and Rose, David Tennant and Rose Tyler, David Tennant and Billy
06:04Piper element of it away, the idea of a Doctor Who movie. Hmm. There's lots of questions that
06:12come with a Doctor Who movie. Is it a good idea? Is it a bad idea? Would it help the
06:17show
06:17maybe go a little bit more mainstream? Obviously, before anyone says anything, yes, I know we
06:22have had Doctor Who movies. We had the TV movie, the 1996 TV movie. We also had the Peter Cushing
06:28films as well. So, you know, there is precedent for it. But in this day and age, it could be
06:34a game changer. And there have been ideas of Doctor Who films flirted about many times in the
06:41past. You know, there's been lots and lots of nearly Doctor Who films. And we actually have an
06:46entire article about those exact things. So do check that out. I'm hoping Danny has linked it
06:52somewhere on the screen. But yeah, there have been conversations throughout Doctor Who history of
06:57films happening. You know, at one point, maybe quite recently, actually, well, I say recently,
07:02during the Matt Smith era, which to me is recently, but I guess maybe isn't actually recently anymore,
07:07but whatever. During the Matt Smith era, there was rumours floating around of a film being
07:14directed by Harry Potter director David Yates. So there's been lots of ideas. There was another
07:20idea floated around in the past that involved Leonard Nimoy. Obviously, Star Trek fame, he
07:24was responsible for a lot of the Star Trek films. So that could have been really interesting
07:29as well. And I guess Star Trek is a really good example here of how this could be successful.
07:34The Star Trek franchise has survived for almost as long as Doctor Who. It's only a couple of years
07:41behind Doctor Who. And it's been very successful as a television series or multiple television series,
07:49but it also has had success, a lot of success with its films as well. You've had films, you know,
07:592009, and you have the new films with Chris Pine. Star Trek and both television and film have worked
08:06incredibly well together. So it's not unreasonable to assume that perhaps we could have the same
08:11success with Doctor Who. My only concern being that because it's not something that has happened for
08:17the majority of Doctor Who's run time. The kind of, the way that film in particular works now,
08:25you then have the question of would it be a full-on blockbuster in the cinema film, or are we
08:31talking
08:31TV movie similar to the 1996 TV movie? Where I would say Star Trek has been successful with this is
08:40where
08:40we've had, you know, full-on go to the cinema, watch a Star Trek movie. If you want to look
08:47at something
08:47more recent, we had the Star Trek Section 31 movie, which only aired on Paramount+. There was no theatrical
08:55release for it, and to say it died a death would be a bit of an understatement. It was not
09:01very well
09:02received, but to be fair, I don't think that has anything to do with whether it was put in the
09:07cinema
09:07or not, and a lot to do with the content. Which brings me to my next point, is what kind
09:12of film
09:13would it be? Would we go down the route of the Peter Cushing films, where it's completely stripped
09:18away and taken out of canon, and it's its own standalone thing, and it's a Doctor Who story?
09:23I'm not sure if that would work. I don't know if there would be much interest in that. I think
09:27a lot
09:27of people maybe would get a little bit confused or irate about us having a different Doctor. Having said
09:33that if it perhaps followed Jo Martin, and we had a Fugitive Doctor movie, that could work very well.
09:41That could be really really interesting actually, because we've had a lot of conversations about
09:47where does Jo Martin fit in the timeline? Where does she fit in terms of, we see her pop up
09:53every
09:53now and then, but we don't really have a lot of her story. And how do you slot that into
09:59the rest of Doctor Who canon and lore, without disrupting the show as a whole?
10:06Now personally I've spoken about how I feel, you know, having either a spin-off series, or having
10:11a series as a kind of placeholder in between the season we've just had, and whatever we're going
10:17to get in the future, to something there. But equally I think a movie would actually be very good,
10:22give us something to tell a story for this character that we have so much potential, and so many
10:26questions about, there is a really good area that could work for a Doctor Who movie.
10:32Where it needs to be very careful is in what story it tells, and it not interfering too much with
10:36canon
10:39retroactively. We've seen a lot of that in the past, and it can rub people up the wrong way.
10:44Equally maybe taking the cinema element out of it, but we've had feature-length Doctor Who episodes
10:49in the past, The Power of the Doctor, The Day of the Doctor. You know, feature-length episodes can be
10:53very, very good. I mean, in fact, right, here's the thing as well. If you've got fans of a franchise,
11:00they will go and see the things. This weekend I went to see the new Downton Abbey film.
11:07Was it essentially a feature-length Downton Abbey episode? Absolutely. But I still enjoyed it,
11:13and I still went to watch it because I'm a fan of Downton Abbey. So it doesn't have to be
11:17some major
11:18blockbuster event in the same vein as a Marvel film. That's not necessarily what we want from Doctor Who,
11:25and you know, you've heard me say time and time again that I don't want Doctor Who to be all
11:28about
11:28spectacle. But just make it something that feels like, yes, I want to go and watch that in the cinema.
11:34Basically make a feature-length episode. But I can say I would allow for a bigger budget in terms of
11:41making a film than what I've been saying in the past about kind of reducing the budget of the more
11:46recent
11:46seasons of Doctor Who. I think, though, what it really comes down to as well is once Doctor Who
11:51has found its new distributor, because when it comes to making a film, you've then got the question of
11:55who's going to handle the global distribution of it. If we go back to Star Trek as an example,
12:03Paramount is the home of Star Trek, or supposedly. Paramount is the home of Star Trek, so you know
12:07where it's going to be, whether it's going to be a film in the cinema or whether it's going to
12:11be
12:11something on their own streaming platform, you know that Paramount have got it covered. Similarly,
12:16if Disney were still involved, you'd know that Disney are going to be the distributors, handle
12:20the global distribution, they might opt for a theatrical release, but you've also got it
12:24streaming on Disney Plus. So I think what really needs to happen is let's let them sort out what
12:29the hell is going on with the actual show itself. But I am not against a film. I would actually
12:34be
12:34quite interested to see. What do you guys think? Let me know in the comments down below. Your thoughts on
12:41a potential Doctor Who movie going forward. If you're here for it, if you're up for it, tell me
12:47what you want it to be. Do you want it to be the current Doctor in their own film? Do
12:52you want it
12:53to be a previous Doctor in an unseen story, you know, similar to what Big Finish have done? Would
12:58you like it to be a completely standalone character that's completely away from the rest of the canon,
13:03like the Peter Cushing movies? Let me know in the comments down below, what would you like a Doctor
13:08Who movie to look like? In the meantime though, I've been Ellie for Who Culture and in the words of
13:12River Song herself, goodbye sweeties.
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