An MCU-Style Whoniverse; Yes, More Please

Russell T Davies has been on the media circus via Zoom &/or Skype for his new drama show, It’s A Sin. It is a series about a young gay man traversing the 80s at the height of the Aids epidemic. I honestly can’t speak for it, as I’ve yet to watch the show myself. However, I will say critics and general viewers are giving it favorable reviews alike early on. During this circus, he’s been speaking on several topics. The biggest one, and one I have an interest in talking about, is his claim that Doctor Who should have an MCU-style extended universe of spin-offs. The question (of course) was fueled by the release of the new Disney+ show WandaVision.

Ok, let’s entertain the thought of this. Surely there would be an Elisabeth Sladen-led kids show, with Sarah Jane going on adventures with pre-teen/teenage kids fighting cartoonish monsters. Let’s call it The Sarah Jane Adventures. With that for the kids, let’s go for the pervert/America market and have Captain Jack stay in Cardiff with his boyfriend and some friends who investigate monsters and sex. Let’s call that one Torchwood, and we’ll give this Chris Chibnall the rights to make the Cyberwoman a thing that gets broadcast. Yes, I am facetious, these are the two shows Davies’ is credited as creating and bringing to the larger Who-niverse for TV audiences in the late 2000s.

See, Sarah Jane Adventures ran past Sladen’s sad passing in 2011, with the lead producers of Doctor Who at the time of its creation, Russell T Davies, Julie Gardner, and Phil Collinson all on the production team of this kids show for CBBC. It was a direct spin-off of Who with his most famous companion of Classic-Who, which featured several new and classic monsters. More importantly, it saw the last appearance of Brigadier Sir Alistair Gordan Lethbridge-Stewart, among others. It also happens to be where K-9 would lay-rest following “School Reunion,” when he was brought back to life.

Torchwood was a thing that definitely did happen, and I wish it didn’t. It was a show entirely for perverts, with either the first or second monster of the show being a purple gas-thing that survived on orgasms. No, I’m not joking. I am not talking about Captain Jack either. Though, he was the best thing about an otherwise useless show for the worst of humanity, written by horrible people. Writers for the show included Chris Chibnall, Toby Whithouse, Noel Clarke, Russell T Davies, and… No, I believe only one of those people is truly horrible, and we’ll get to him in a minute.

Those are only two spin-offs by Davies himself, and his successor tried to do the same and failed miserably. Moffat didn’t create Class, but he was a producer for the show’s single series of eight episodes. Class, as the name would imply, was about strategically diverse-enough 16-17-year-olds devoid of character in a school. They were tasked with doing all the admin the 12th Doctor couldn’t be bothered doing. There are few shows I’ve drawn seething hatred for, mostly spin-off material that just doesn’t work as a concept. Between this, Doctor Who of the time, and Star Trek: Discovery, my 2016-2017 sci-fi was non-existent and made me want to climb in an oven to end it all.

To be very polite on the existence of Class, I hope everyone involved with the show’s creation jumps head-first into a bin and fires themselves into the heart of a black hole. See, the problem with such a show is that Doctor Who is such a sanitized program that once you’re adding in sex and swearing in place of time travel or something interesting, you’ve lost my attention. A cast of 16-17-year-olds (as played by early 20-somethings) all milling about, awkwardly rubbing up against each other like they want to go behind the bike shed and stick fingers in each other, just simply bores me to death. I can’t think of a worse concept for a show, and that’s everything the CW has been producing for years now.

In an interview with Doctor Who Magazine, Radio Times, and Waitrose Weekend writer Paul Kirkley, Davies states, “There should be a Doctor Who channel now. You look at those Disney announcements, of all those new Star Wars and Marvel shows, you think, we should be sitting here announcing The Nyssa Adventures or The Return of Donna Noble, and you should have the Tenth and Eleventh Doctors together in a 10-part series.” He’s right, there should be some form of a larger universe of Doctor Who going on all the time, with different characters and Doctors crossing over. Ok, yes, I am being facetious again.

Yeah, sure, on TV we don’t have a 10-part comedy with 10 and 11 doing their whole Abbott and Costello bit from “The Day of the Doctor.” I’d give my left testicle just to watch that once. It would be brilliant, well, at least if it was given a proper and competent writing staff and production team. However, we currently have Chris Chibnall, a man that can hardly write sci-fi. When he does slop out an episode or series it takes him a year and a half to do so. I get it, I also have those stupid Grammarly ads that keep telling me “writing is hard,” but it isn’t really.

Take this from a man who just ingests sci-fi all-day long, I am brimming with ideas that sound fun for this MCU-style thing. However, you’d need writers like Davies and Moffat who can write quickly, write snappy dialogue, and get other writers to do the same. For that entire venture, you need creative, hungry, young talent rattling down the doors of the BBC trying to create all the stupid ideas I have. Off the top of my head, a series of shorts (4-5 minute long episodes) where The Curator is counseling new series Doctors would be ace. You could make that a kids show teaching morals of how to be good.

You could have episodes where Clara goes on adventures with her class from Coal Hill Academy. Better yet, we could explain why she’s a teacher in the first place by having the Doctor drop her off in the 60s, where she takes over for Ian and Barbara as they leave with the 1st Doctor and Susan for Season 1. There could be a paranormal investigation show with Rose, Jackie, and Pete in the other world. Or perhaps a more adult aimed show where you have U.N.I.T all shouting and swearing at each other trying to pick up the pieces that the Doctor left behind. Another option would be a 7th Doctor Jackanory-style show where he sits in that beautiful TV-movie TARDIS that I mentioned a while back eating Jelly Babies and telling tales of his past lives with little cartoons.

I’d have a Michelle Gomez standalone series where she’s just in that vault from series 10, plotting schemes. I’d have River Song, Mels, and other adventures on the go. “Failed kingdoms and Empires” a series of all the tyrants the Doctor has or is about to topple, such as Greg Davies’ King Hydroflax from “The Husbands of River Song.” There could be a series of comedy shorts where Daleks have watercooler chats about their plots to take over the galaxy. One of those American-style police chase shows with the Judoon tracking down war criminals, top of the list Tony Blaire. I could give hundreds of other stupid little ideas that could/would work for this MCU-style thing but require a decent showrunner at the helm.

Though that’s not the biggest problem facing this entire idea, that would be the fact we already have this. Currently, we have the New Series Adventure books releasing actual books and audiobook exclusives, with some of the former right behind me as I write this. There was the Past Doctor Adventures series, the Virgin New Adventure main series with a catalog of books exclusively about Benny, and never forget the Target novelizations of Classic-Who episodes. Put that together with the Doctor Who Magazine which has been producing little comics thirteen times a year. Then you add all the Big Finish Doctor Who ranges currently in production with Class and Torchwood having their own ranges of audio plays.

Honestly, I have no major issues with the idea that Davies is suggesting, mostly because we’ve had it since the 90s. However, I do think the idea of this extended Whoniverse – No, I can’t be credited with that, it’s the name of a book – would need someone other than Chris Chibnall at the front of the ship. Give the man a middle of the week ITV drama about sex crimes in a grey coastal town and he’ll nail it because it is switch-off your brain TV. However, give him several fun sci-fi shows to steer and he’ll put the ship in every iceberg possible. In his last series so-far and the special, he’s had the Doctor use Nazis to solve her problems, twice. That’s not that man you want leading a show teaching morals to kids.

Let’s be honest, I’m not impartial enough on Doctor Who to suggest if this is a good or bad idea. I’ll jump at the chance to have more Doctor Who anywhere I can get it right now, There are ideas of having the likes of River back in the fold, Sylvester back as the 7th Doctor on TV, Captain Jack getting killed on mad adventures through time and space, Jenny’s adventures, and so much more fomenting in my head as I speak. I cannot wait for it to happen and I want to see Chibnall flung to the wolves so I can start next Monday, I have some very good writers in mind.