After nearly 60 years, Doctor Who is leaving Aunty and moving in with the Mouse. The much-loved British science fiction show is no longer available to watch on the ABC for the first time since 1965, dematerialising from Australian free-to-air television after the BBC signed a deal with Disney to distribute it around the world.
Australia has a long and meaningful relationship with Doctor Who: the Australian composer Ron Grainer wrote the original theme song, and a surly flight attendant from Brisbane served as one of the Doctor’s most memorable – and loud – companions. (Janet Fielding, who played Tegan Jovanka, companion to the fourth and fifth Doctors.)
The ABC was one of the first networks to license Doctor Who, airing the first episode in January 1965. While the UK only got one episode a week, Australians could watch Doctor Who every weeknight due to our laws allowing repeats. For more than five decades Australian parents turned on the ABC and sat down with their kids to watch the gallant Gallifreyan battle unspeakable horrors. Those children grew up and showed it to their kids, who showed it to their kids. Just as the Doctor regenerated, so too did the fans.
But now Doctor Who will only be available to Australian viewers on Disney+. Three new specials, the first of which starts on Sunday local time, are helmed by Russell T Davies, the genius who crafted both the Christopher Eccleston (ninth Doctor) and David Tennant (10th) eras of the show.
“I never planned on coming back!” Davies says on Zoom, beaming at me from an opulent drawing room. “Until the pandemic, when a fan called Emily Cooke had the idea to tweet along some episodes. And she got me, David and Catherine involved … believe me, getting David and Catherine to a computer to tweet? A major piece of work. Easier to climb the Eiger, naked.”
But all three of them “loved” revisiting the old episodes, which they hadn’t seen in years. Russell says it was Tate herself who insisted they should reunite for something new. “I thought, ‘Never going to happen.’ Then she texted me saying, ‘David says yes!’ And at that point I think … well, now it’s my job to tell the BBC!”
Davies exudes optimism and romanticism in both his speech and his writing. He looks genuinely chuffed when I say so. “That’s a very lovely thing to say,” he says, hand on heart. “I think that describes my writing, though sometimes I think the opposite. I mean, there’s no such thing as a love story that ends happily, because one of them dies first. Sometimes I think I write fiction to invent happy endings.”
“Although Doctor Who is intended for absolutely everyone to watch, I do think it’s – very powerfully – a show that children can watch,” he adds. “And actually, there’s a lot of worry in the world about the mental state of children. They’re seeing awful things online. I think they’re being told every day that the world is burning, flooding and ending. And if Doctor Who can be positive and optimistic, and give them an escape, heroes with great morals for 45 minutes … well, I think that’s no bad thing.”
Those 45 minutes will now, for Australians, air on Disney+ but while some fans are up in arms, others simply aren’t bothered. “Controversially,” says Rove McManus, who hosted the ABC’s Doctor Who chatshow Whovians, “I don’t see that it’s a problem that the show is moving to Disney. I think that for the longevity of the show, having it with someone who can put it out there in a modern way is important.”
“I know that there are people who are upset by the move, and I absolutely get it,” he adds. “But I also feel that if you’re a fan of Doctor Who enough that you’re outraged by this, then you’re also probably enough of a fan that you’re already watching Marvel shows, Star Wars shows. Maybe if you’re mad, you’re already on that particular streamer?”
“It’s been hard to find it all in one place,” says Jane Burke, a lifelong Who fan from Bendigo, Victoria. “Honestly, if it’s all on the same streamer and looks good – and if the new stuff is good, obviously – I’m a happy camper!”
“I’m sad Doctor Who is leaving its long time home,” says Stephen “Bajo” O’Donnell, a Whovians regular and former Good Game host. “Which will no doubt make it less available to some existing fans. But I’m excited it will be exposed to new audiences, and that hopefully it will be in 4K! It’ll be nice to see it truly shine this way for the first time for us Aussies.”
Davies does sympathise with any Australians upset by the move. “I know it’s been hard in Australia!” he exclaims. “I know that a lot of lifelong fans who followed it on the ABC feel horrendous that it’s changing channels, and I just had to take a deep breath and say … that’s what happens to shows now. I’m equally gutted that I have to go and find Drag Race on a separate channel.”
But, I ask him, can a US institution like Disney act as a steward for such an intrinsically British show? “They wouldn’t come in as producers on this in order to change it,” he says. “They literally fell in love. It’s been a real joy in the production … seeing them fall in love with it, seeing them discover how far it can go, how wild it can go. I think the only question we had on a cultural level … ”
He pauses for effect, “… is that they didn’t know what a pram was.”
The new Doctor Who special, The Star Beast, is available to stream on Disney+ in Australia from 26 November. Paul F. Verhoeven is the writer of the Big Finish Doctor Who audio play, The Green Man.
