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Doctor Who returning showrunner Russell T. Davies is keeping his plans close to his chest but did talk about two issue he will tackle on the show: climate change and focusing on a different approach that matches the expectations of a younger audience that is quite different from when he started his first run. At the Climate Creatives 2022 online event run by the BBC Academy, the BBC’s Chief Content Officer, Charlotte Moore, interviewed Davies about his approach to addressing social and political issues in his work on shows like Years and Years and, of course, Doctor Who.
Davies addresses how he has to think about why The Doctor, as a genius, doesn’t just cure cancer or solve Climate Change and the dodge, which is true. The best he can do in Doctor Who is to have The Doctor make a speech saying it’s really up to the human race to solve it and save themselves. Davies said he writes about things that interest and concern him now, and Climate Change is on his mind, especially when the United Kingdom is bearing the brunt of it with floods, storms, and searingly hot summers that weren’t commonplace twenty years ago. He wrote about entire communities rendered homeless from flooding and having to be relocated in his Science Fiction drama Years and Years. He fully intends to address Climate Change in his upcoming run on Doctor Who.
Why Doctor Who Should Tackle Climate Change, Younger Viewers
“I started Doctor Who when I was writing in 2004, I was worried that children and young audiences were always being told about death and destruction. I didn’t want them to walk to school thinking, ‘Oh my God, I’m going to die.'”
Davies recalls the second episode of his original run on Doctor Who where The Doctor (Christopher Eccleston) praised humanity’s resilience, how humans just pick themselves up after disasters and keep on going.
“It’s very interesting coming to Doctor Who now in 2022 where again, I want to provide optimism for that audience, and I mean, particularly, like a six-year-old watching it. I want to write optimism, I want to provide hope, but that speech seems hopelessly naïve now. I think you have to be more detailed now. You have to be more honest to get away with that speech now. You’ve got to talk about it. You’ve got to say we’re going to flood, you’ve got to say the temperature’s going up, or you’re letting us down hugely.”
“In 2005, I was trying to care for the audience and look after them. Now I’m in a position where I have to listen to that audience because those young viewers are active. They’re engaged with this. They’re passionate. It’s their world. We’ll be dead and gone. It’s their world, and they’re much more engaged. We live in an age where it’s a vast Fantasy culture. It’s The Lord of the Rings. It’s Game of Thrones. It’s Star Wars, Star Trek, it’s everything,” he said, addressing the fact that Doctor Who is part of this continuum. “This is a theory I’ve been working up at the moment: we channel all our fear and paranoia, and dread about what’s to come into our fantasy dramas. The apocalyptic future is an absolutely bog-standard set in Science Fiction films. That’s our conscience – it’s gone into Fantasy pieces. If I open a drama with the Statue of Liberty toppled in a swamp, no one would be surprised. You wouldn’t go, ‘Ooo, that’s amazing.’ Everyone would go, ‘Yeah, that’s bog-standard Science Fiction.’ We’re channeling that anxiety to the fiction and not applying enough of that anxiety to the fact!”
Davies pointed out that while he was proud of Years and Years and its message, it didn’t attract an audience. There’s always the danger of being too worthy or pedantic. “We tried that, we’ll try something else. We keep going, we’re trying new things.” Davies said he’s got another drama planned that will be produced a few years to come that is what he will be most proud of, but he can’t talk about it yet. Meanwhile, he won’t be shying away from putting messages in Doctor Who. Of course, Climate Change won’t be the only issue he will address in Doctor Who; it’s only one of a long list.
The above is only about half of the 20-minute interview with Davies. It’s worth watching the whole thing to hear him talk about his creative process and how he marries it by discussing issues like Climate Change. Of course, Doctor Who is a big part of it – it’s the 800-pound gorilla in the room. Just ignore the wildly inaccurate subtitles for the hard-of-hearing, who might end up a bit confused.
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