The Ghosts of Christmas Future
SIX gathers a galaxy of stars to tell us what Doctor Who means to them. Cue Russell T Davies, Stephen Fry, Clive Barker and more...
THE GHOSTS OF CHRISTMAS FUTURE
With Who's latest Christmas special shooting, Russell T Davies found time to tell Nick Setchfield about the show's past, present and future...
You'll never top the Titanic, and you'll never top Kylie Minogue, so the worst thing we could have done was cast Dannii Minogue aboard the Lusitania!"
Russell T Davies is in flight, minting soundbites. "It's my first interview about this, so you're getting all the new lines!" he laughs.
September 2008. We're deep in a Soho media hole that's just hosted the press push for season two of The Sarah Jane Adventures, Doctor Who's short-trousered spin-off. We've found a quiet corner but we know we're being watched: three small kids are lurking, pen and paper in hand, determined to bag an inky flourish from the big man. A little cycle plays out as we talk: they run in, stare, whisper, scarper, return, regarding Davies with a sweet, giggling awe. "I'll be there now!" he beams. "It's SFX magazine!" It's easy to see him as some skyscraping Welsh Santa, dispensing Saturday magic.
ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS
This year there's a new gift beneath the tree. The latest Doctor Who Christmas special — teasingly titled "The Next Doctor" — will embroil David Tennant's Time Lord in a reliably seasonal adventure, complete with wintry, Dickensian trimmings.
"There's a Christmas ghost tale feel about it in certain scenes, certain moments," reveals Davies. "It's just a question of keeping it different. And all of our Christmas specials have been very different. We started with an Independence Day epic, then we did a screwball comedy with Catherine Tate, then we did the biggest epic you'll ever see — on a television budget! Now it's time to do a smaller, more intimate story — though having said that, the ending is ferociously huge..."
Set on Christmas Eve 1851, this "more character based" caper teams Tennant with State of Play star David Morrissey. "It's really having a male as a second lead for the very first time in our era," says Davies. "There's a female character in there — Rosita — but it's really about the two men together. Because that's what we're doing now. For the next specials there are no new companions for the Doctor. They're all going to be 'guest star of the week' or 'guest character of the week', because you don't necessarily have to cast a star. It's putting the Doctor with different sorts of people every time, which is an interesting new format. He's never travelled on his own before. I know there was "The Deadly Assassin" [solo Tom Baker tale from 1976] but that was a one-off. This is a proper new format as it goes forward."
Morrissey's role in the special remains a fanboy-taunting mystery. Some have even pegged him as a frockcoated pretender to the TARDIS throne, an eleventh incarnation hiding in the wings. Can Davies elaborate? "No," he grins. "Well, the title is 'The Next Doctor'. I can't tell you anything more than that. If I did, people would have no reason to watch it on Christmas Day. But he is amazing."
It's a title that dares people not to circle it in the Chrimbo Radio Times. But is it another example of Davies in shameless tease mode? We haven't forgotten that regeneration-that-never-was at the close of "The Stolen Earth", you tart.
"Honest to God, and no-one will ever believe this, but none of us took that cliffhanger in 'The Stolen Earth' that seriously, because we all thought everyone knows he's not regenerating! We just thought it was a great cliffhanger in the sense of 'How does he get out of that?' So it honestly took us all by surprise when suddenly the programme was on The Six O'Clock News! The viewing figures went up to 10.5 million. It went mad that week it went absolutely fucking barmy.
"Chris Chibnall sent me a lovely email, saying 'everyone's consciously realised how much they love David Tennant'. They just took him for granted before. And that moment made them sit up and go 'no, we don't want him to go.' We never saw it as teasing. We saw it as fun. So the fact that a Christmas special called 'The Next Doctor' was already planned looks like a whole sequence of teasing but it isn't, because we didn't think 'The Stolen Earth' was much of a tease." "The Next Doctor" also stages a rematch between our tight-suited hero and his gleaming, emotionless nemesis the Cybermen. "We needed a familiar enemy," shares Davies. "The central story between David Tennant and David Morrissey is so huge that you almost need the shorthand of an accepted monster, so you don't have to spend 27 scenes going 'Well, they're green, and they absorb people through their skin...' I think they're brilliant, the Cybermen, and they do new things that we've never seen them do before. And we've never done an established enemy at Christmas, so I thought 'let's try that.' They seemed to fit somehow. I wouldn't have thought of Cybermen if it hadn't been a period piece. It was the first thing I thought of, which was probably an old image of Cybermen in the snow from 'The Tenth Planet' [1966 William Hartnell adventure]. When you put them in a snowy, Victorian graveyard you think my god, that's brilliant, how can you not watch that?
"And the costumes were sitting there, which helps, let's be honest," he laughs. "It's also probably my last chance to have a pop at the Cybermen..."
Yes, it's a time of torch-passing for New Who. Intriguingly, Davies is shaping the four 2009 specials in parallel with new showrunner Steven Moffat, who's mapping out his own take on the show for the grand relaunch in 2010. "They're planning season five now. They're a priority, really, so whenever we think up anything for the specials we send a synopsis to them. Not even a synopsis, really, just a description. If it was set on Venus I'd say 'Are you doing a story set on Venus?' And he would say yes or no to that. It's really simple. Constant emails! They've got the greater impetus. They've got 13 episodes to fill. They're not full-throttle at the moment and neither are we - we're all on Torchwood - but it'll get busier."
Does he feel vaguely proprietorial? "No, not at all. I laugh at it! I love not knowing what they're planning. Much as I love the show, it's a job, and this is just a way of handling that job.
"I think me and Steven should get together and invoke something called Principle One: I'll never be interviewed about you and you'll never be interviewed about me. And our lives will be so much more full!"
Davies dismisses recent tabloid tattle that the specials will be shot Stateside - "No, absolutely not. It's just internet nonsense..." - and is equally despairing of all those undying rumours that there's a big screen Who just waiting for the green light: "There's no time to spit, let alone make a bleedin' movie!" But he's enthusiastic about the four adventures that will mark an adieu to the show he resurrected.
"They're all quite different stories, all with very different locations. They're all an hour long, which is fun. It gives us that Christmas Day shape to flex our muscles a bit - the Christmas Day ones are always bigger. I know I'm describing 'The Next Doctor' as more intimate, but it's got great, hilarious action sequences."
WHO GOES THERE?
"We're really going to have a hard time now. We start filming in January, so people - fans, online - will start to see footage and photos of stuff way in advance. You don't mind people seeing things six months in advance - you can live with that, and it's quite exciting. But it worries me that you'll have a year to pick apart all those fucking details. Publicising them is going to be interesting..."
And soon, of course, Davies will be just another viewer, craving his Saturday fix. "Oh, it'll be marvellous," he smiles. "I'll probably be invited to the launch of season five - I might refuse to go, of course, in high dudgeon! So that episode will probably be spoilt for me. But after that, I'll have them all to myself, which will be brilliant. Can you imagine? How exciting!"
He walks over to meet his young fan club, reaching for the proffered pen. Maybe that's his true legacy - three wonderstruck kids who want the autograph of a man who writes for telly. You suspect that, if nothing else, will ensure a future for Doctor Who.
Captions:
Scary Monsters: Doctor Who's iconic Cyberman.
It's thumbs up from Dave for this years' Christmas episode.
Christmas special "The Next Doctor" is set in Victorian England.
Space-Time Coordinates
Navigating the decades with Doctor Who
23 Nov 1963 >> First episode - An Unearthly Child. airs, the day after the second most Important event of the decade: the Kennedy assassnation.
30 Nov 1963 >> First letter of complaint, as Miss Johnson and Mr Priddy of Wimbledon Park write in to whinge about historical inaccuracies in the depiction of Stone Age Earth. A tradition of pedantry begins.
21 Dec 1963 >> The Daleks make their first appearance - or, at least, a Dalek arm does, threatening cardiganed companion Barbara with a good plunging. Dalekmania soon sweeps the nation.
3 Jul 1965 >> First glimpse Of a fellow member of the Doctor's race as he meets The Meddling Monk in 1066. Luckily he never encounters the Fiddling Priest.
23 Aug 1965 >> Release of Dr Who & the Daleks, Me first of two big-screen adapt starring Peter Cushing, who plays the Doctor as a doddery old inventor (think James Dyson with Alzheimer's).
8 Nov 1966 >> The Cybermen make their first appearance in "The Tenth Planet", looking strangely like negative-Image minstrels In their white masks.
29 Oct 1966 >> A nation collectively "WTF?"s as the Doctor changes from irascible coot William Hartnell into Patrick Troughton's recorder-tooting "cosmic hobo". Impressively, his trousers regenerate too.
17 Feb 1968 >> The indomitable Alastair Lethbridge- Stewart, later best known as simply "The Brigadier", joins the series, fighting robotic Yeti in the London Underground.
16 Mar 1968 >> Patrick Troughton whips out an impressive tool in "Fury from the Deep" - yes, it's the first appearance of the sonic screwdriver.
21 Jun 1969 >> Troughton's Doctor is dragged home and forcibly regenerated in part ten of "The War Games", in which the Time Lords are named for the first time.
3 Jan 1970 >> Jon Pertwee debuts as the third Doctor in "Spearhead from Space", the first story broadcast in glorious colour. A well-known comedian cast in a starring role? Shocking!
2 Jan 1971 >> The Doctor gets a Moriarty to his Holmes in "Terror of the Autons", in the shape of Roger Delgado's saturnine renegade Time Lord. He is the Master, and you... will OBEY him.
30 Dec 1972 >> Who gets seriously self-referential for the first time, as Hartnell, Troughton and Pertwee join forces in tenth anniversary team-up "The Three Doctors". Hilarious comedy bickering ensues. Nice.
15 Dec 1973 >> Feisty journo Sarah Jane Smith sticks her beak in in "The Time Warrior"; Lis Sladen is still playing her now.
17 Jan 1974 >> Terrance Dicks's first Target novelization, Doctor Who and the Auton Invasion, is published. Another 7,396 will follow, all featuring the phrase "wheezing groaning sound".
8 Jun 1974 >> Jon Pertwee hands the baton to Tom Baker in "Planet of the Spiders", who runs with it for a DOCTOR record seven WHO seasons. For the first time, the process is referred to as "regeneration".
8 Mar 1975 >> Davros appears for the first time, in origin story "Genesis of the Daleks". As does a giant man-eating clam. Sadly, the clam hasn't been seen since.
May 1976 >> The Doctor Who Appreciation Society is formed. Took 'em long enough.
1 Oct 1977 >> K-9 enters the scene in "The Invisible Enemy". Interference causes the malfunctioning metal mutt to crash into the cameras.
20 Oct 1979 >> "City of Death" episode four garners record ratings of 16.1 million. The fact that ITV was off the air thanks to industrial action helped, mind...
25 Oct 1980 >> "Full Circle" airs scripted by Who fan Andrew Smith, and introducing fellow fan Matthew Waterhouse as Adric. A mere 25 years later, the fanboy takeover will be complete...
21 Mar 1981 >> off a radio telescope in "Logopolis", and is replaced by the unfeasibly young Peter Davison (29).
Disclaimer: These citations are created on-the-fly using primitive parsing techniques. You should double-check all citations. Send feedback to whovian@cuttingsarchive.org
- APA 6th ed.: Setchfield, Nick (Dec. 2008). The Ghosts of Christmas Future. SFX p. 47.
- MLA 7th ed.: Setchfield, Nick. "The Ghosts of Christmas Future." SFX [add city] Dec. 2008, 47. Print.
- Chicago 15th ed.: Setchfield, Nick. "The Ghosts of Christmas Future." SFX, edition, sec., Dec. 2008
- Turabian: Setchfield, Nick. "The Ghosts of Christmas Future." SFX, Dec. 2008, section, 47 edition.
- Wikipedia (this article): <ref>{{cite news| title=The Ghosts of Christmas Future | url=http://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/The_Ghosts_of_Christmas_Future | work=SFX | pages=47 | date=Dec. 2008 | via=Doctor Who Cuttings Archive | accessdate=26 March 2025 }}</ref>
- Wikipedia (this page): <ref>{{cite web | title=The Ghosts of Christmas Future | url=http://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/The_Ghosts_of_Christmas_Future | work=Doctor Who Cuttings Archive | accessdate=26 March 2025}}</ref>
