Russell T Davies' exciting new era of Doctor Who can copy the template of another big franchise, but not the one that everybody's expecting. RTD has been incredibly vocal in recent years about how he sees Doctor Who as having huge franchise potential in the modern pop culture landscape. Davies' vision for the next stage of the show is backed by the BBC, who sought out a streaming partner to increase budgets and also reach a wider global audience. That global streaming partner is Disney+, an announcement which immediately got fans thinking about the implications of Doctor Who being under the umbrella of the Walt Disney Corporation.

It remains to be seen just how Doctor Who's Disney deal will impact the next season, but a recent interview with RTD in GQ gives a sense of the scale of his ambition for this new era. He says that it's "time for the next stage for Doctor Who. I thought the streaming platforms are ready, the spin-offs are ready". He also points out that Doctor Who spinoffs declined after he left the show, due to declining budgets and the BBC's commitments as a public broadcaster in the UK. With Disney on-board, there's a lot more potential for Doctor Who to become the huge franchise that Davies envisions. However, his inspiration for Doctor Who's future comes from somewhere else entirely than Disney's own franchises.

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RTD’s Approach To Spinoffs Is Inspired By Star Trek, Not The MCU

Blended image of Picard in Star Trek looking stunned and a confused Fifteenth Doctor in Doctor Who

In the same GQ interview, Davies identifies Star Trek as inspiration for Doctor Who, rather than the Marvel Cinematic Universe as had been speculated by fans. In reference to the multiple Star Trek shows in production year-round, RTD stated, "I watch the Star Trek empire with vast envy: the way that's turned itself from an old archive show into something fantastic." This is a clear indication of what Davies hopes to achieve with Doctor Who, he wants to emulate Alex Kurtzmann's approach to Star Trek, an approach that encompasses multiple different televisual forms and fictional timelines.

It makes sense for Davies to pick out Star Trek rather than the MCU as an inspiration because he's a writer who lives and breathes television. RTD criticized writers who "hate" the format of television in a recent interview with The Times. Given that a lot of Marvel's television output has been criticized for not properly embracing the format, it makes far more sense for RTD to look to Star Trek for inspiration. This is especially true given both Doctor Who and Star Trek originated on TV in the 1960s and continue to be successful nearly six decades later.

Doctor Who Suits The Star Trek Formula Better Than Marvel's

Doctor who multiple doctors stories cash grab

Ultimately, Marvel's formula for their films and TV show boils down to their superheroes having solo adventures before having to team up against a big bad like Thanos or Kang in an event movie. The problem with adapting that for Doctor Who is twofold. The first issue is that RTD already did it when he teamed up the Tenth Doctor (David Tennant) with the casts of Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures to defeat the Daleks in the season 4 finale. The second issue is that, inevitably, those heroes having solo adventures would be different incarnations of the Doctor. The benefit of applying the Star Trek formula is that, like Doctor Who, Alex Kurtzmann's franchise takes place across multiple time zones.

This allows Star Trek to tell new stories about the Enterprise crew before the arrival of Captain James T Kirk (William Shatner) or create a whole series around one Trek character like Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart). That's an ideal formula for Doctor Who as a franchise because it means that the Doctor Who spinoff shows can be anything. Star Trek: Picard season 1 was a long-form political thriller, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is a traditional episodic sci-fi show. The variety in tones of Star Trek's spinoff shows is also reflective of the flexibility of Doctor Who's format, so it's an ideal way for RTD's new spinoffs to similarly visit different worlds, time zones and formats.

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Doctor Who Could Recast Older Characters

Doctor Who Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart Kate

One of the other notable aspects of modern Star Trek is how audiences have accepted the recasting of iconic characters like Spock and Uhura. If RTD is eyeing up the franchise as an inspiration for his new era, then Doctor Who fans could expect to see fan-favorite characters recast. Audio production company Big Finish have recast several Doctors and Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart (Nicholas Courtney) so viewers are already accustomed to such changes. Also, former showrunner Steven Moffat recast the First Doctor in "Twice Upon a Time", so a precedent has been set in the modern era too.

In recasting characters like the Brigadier or even intergalactic schemer Sabalom Glitz (Tony Selby), the Doctor Who universe would have increased spinoff potential. For example, with a recast Brigadier, there could be a Strange New Worlds-style show which focuses on how the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce handled alien incursions when the Third Doctor (Jon Pertwee) was away. Star Trek has proved that, with the right amount of consideration, canon can be bent lightly in pursuit of a good story. Recasting classic characters could similarly free Doctor Who from the constraints of canon, and make RTD's sci-fi empire similarly successful to Alex Kurtzmann's.

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