Change and Decay

This is a follow-up to last week’s piece on the many lives of Dr Who, and a thought I had whilst reading it… which led me to a conclusion I don’t really like.

All shows depend on change. Any long-running show will need to renew itself every few years, and Doctor Who just so happens to have an in-built mechanism to do that to its lead character. But that’s not the only way in which the show changes. In 1970 the show’s entire format changed by exiling its lead character to Earth; this was a change producer Barry Letts had inherited from the previous production team, and he managed to get multiple second winds by occasionally letting the Doctor sojourn off-planet again, before finally freeing him from his exile permanently in 1973. In 1982, following a bad run of ratings for Tom Baker’s final season, the decision was made to take the show away from Saturday nights and run it twice-weekly on Mondays and Tuesdays instead. Both of those changes coincided with a change of Doctor, but ones that didn’t included the first ever change of companion in 1964, the replacement of Philip Hinchcliffe as producer with Graham WIlliams in 1977, and the decision to make the 1986 season one long 14-part story. The point is: every few years, the show needs a shot in the arm, and it can run on that for a few years before it’s time for the next dose.

It’s January 2009. David Tennant has announced his intention to leave the show, and 26-year-old Matt Smith is his replacement. Although this is a time of renewal (showrunner Russell T Davies is also departing, to be replaced by Steven Moffat), the show is in a very good place. Just six months previously the series 4 finale managed to pull in 10.5m viewers on a Saturday early-evening in July, it swept the board at the National Television Awards for the fourth year running and it’s soon to be nominated for its second BAFTA for Drama Series. The show doesn’t need a shot in the arm; the casting of the Doctor doesn’t need to be something that makes the casual viewer sit up and take notice, because they’re already paying attention. Doctor Who is pretty much Teflon at the moment.

Over four-and-a-half years later, in August 2013, and now it’s Mr Smith’s turn to depart the show. At this point, the show is in a significantly worse place than it was when he was first named; probably the first time the revived series has been in any sort of bad place at all. (I’m not suggesting causation here, you can put the pitchfork down.) Split seasons and erratic scheduling, coupled with the Doctor/companion lineup remaining the same for two and a half years (Davies had changed the regulars every series), have (among other, probably less objective, reasons) led to viewership falling. The announcement of the new Doctor is the opportunity to rectify that.

And I’m not sure Peter Capaldi’s casting did it. He is neither a rising star, nor a particularly well-known face (he is ‘best known’ for a BBC2 sitcom watched by about a million people). The show was going to get a bit of a boost from its 50th anniversary special a few months later, but the goodwill from that was only going to last so long. I think this particular casting needed to be a bit more distinctive - ratings indicate only the most modest, short-lived boost for his arrival.

You could also argue that scheduling played its part (most of Capaldi’s first series aired in a significantly later than usual timeslot), and indeed writing (the Twelfth Doctor is a bit of a dick, basically). But I think this casting needed to be a bit more distinctive (he's old enough to be his predecessor's dad, sure, but I don't think that's going to cut much ice with the casual viewership), and perhaps the ensuing shake-up of the show a bit more radical.