We just want Doctor Who Confidential back, is that so much to ask?
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00:00 Sometimes, Doctor Who delivers us the glorious gift of fan service,
00:03 which we did cover in a recent video.
00:05 However, sometimes this happens.
00:08 So, with that in mind, then, I'm Ellie with Who Culture,
00:11 here with 10 times Doctor Who refused to give fans what they wanted.
00:15 Number 10, bringing back Susan.
00:18 If it's not the Rani, it's the Doctor's granddaughter Susan
00:22 whom fans want to return to Doctor Who.
00:24 There have been references to the Doctor's family in the new series,
00:27 but to date, she's not returned.
00:29 Now, some fans thought that the woman from the end of time was Susan,
00:32 rather than the Doctor's mother, as Russell T Davies had intended.
00:36 Peter Capaldi even mentioned possibly seeing the Doctor's granddaughter again
00:39 in an interview while he was playing the Doctor.
00:41 Capaldi's love of being photographed with classic companions
00:44 on the Doctor Who set only fuelled a desire to see Susan
00:47 and her grandfather reunited.
00:49 The granddad bit between the Doctor and Bill in Knock Knock,
00:52 and the photo on the Doctor's desk at the university
00:55 only seemed to hint to viewers that a Susan return was imminent.
00:58 And then when David Bradley's appearance as the first Doctor was revealed,
01:01 it was surely a shoe-in that Susan would return for the final Christmas special.
01:06 Whether it was a deliberate troll or not,
01:08 the reintroduction of Bill in Twice Upon a Time takes slightly too long,
01:12 especially as everyone already knew that Pearl Mackie was coming back.
01:15 But as the figure emerged from the shadows, fans could be forgiven
01:19 for anticipating that this could have been the return of Carol Ann Ford.
01:22 Perhaps one day, she'll come back.
01:24 Number nine, the return of the Rani.
01:27 What do Sarah Lancashire, Keely Hawes, Michelle Gomez, and Barbara Flynn
01:31 all have in common beyond being Doctor Who guest actors?
01:34 They've also all been mistakenly believed to be playing
01:37 a new version of the Rani in New Who.
01:40 Despite having only appeared in two stories and a Children in Need special,
01:44 Kate O'Mara's performance is so memorable
01:46 that the character has become beloved within Doctor Who fandom.
01:49 So much so that any female guest cast announcement
01:53 has been met by fervent speculation
01:55 that the actor involved will be playing the Rani.
01:57 This reached a head when Michelle Gomez was revealed
02:00 to be a female incarnation of the Master rather than the Rani.
02:03 "Why turn the Master into a woman when there's an evil Time Lord female
02:06 right there?" complained the fandom.
02:08 Well, probably because the rights to the character were held
02:11 by classic Doctor Who writers Pip and Jane Baker, who first created her.
02:15 The husband and wife writing team are no longer with us,
02:17 so it's unclear where that leaves the character now.
02:20 Regardless of boring legal things like rights,
02:22 you can expect to see Gillian Anderson's inevitable casting
02:25 opposite Shuti Gatwar linked back to the villainous Time Lord geneticist.
02:29 Number 8. Paul McGann as The Doctor in 2005
02:34 The 2003 announcement of Doctor Who's return was incredibly exciting
02:38 for fans as the show celebrated its 40th anniversary year.
02:41 Once the initial excitement died down,
02:43 thoughts turned to whether or not this would be a continuation or a remake.
02:48 Strangely, that debate continued throughout the first series
02:50 in some dark corners of the internet,
02:53 right up until the Tenth Doctor was reunited with Sarah Jane Smith
02:56 and K-9 in season two.
02:58 One of the key stumbling blocks for fans was the fact that Paul McGann
03:01 wasn't involved in the new show.
03:02 This was seen as hugely disrespectful by some and a missed opportunity by others.
03:07 Some fans were particularly flummoxed by the idea that they wouldn't get
03:10 to see McGann regenerate into Christopher Eccleston.
03:13 And when McGann did return in 2013,
03:15 they saw him regenerate into John Hurt instead.
03:18 Of course, Russell T. Davies was right to stick to his guns.
03:21 Paul McGann had been the Doctor in novels, audio dramas,
03:24 and comic strips since 1996.
03:27 What would you do with all those already existing stories?
03:30 In not establishing exactly what happened to the Eighth Doctor,
03:32 Russell T. Davies spun a mystery that gave the Doctor
03:35 an intriguing and emotional backstory for new audiences,
03:38 while providing intriguing teases for fans about the state of the Doctor Who universe
03:43 during the Doctor's absence from our screens.
03:45 Number seven, bringing back the Christmas special.
03:49 Doctor Who was a huge part of the BBC's Christmas Day schedule
03:52 for over a decade.
03:53 The Voyage of the Damned, which starred Kylie Minogue,
03:56 was watched by over 13 million people.
03:58 When Chris Chibnall took over Doctor Who,
04:00 the Christmas special became a New Year special instead,
04:03 and fans have demanded the show return to Christmas Day ever since.
04:07 The shift to New Year actually made a lot of sense at the time.
04:10 In recent years, New Year's Day has been when the BBC
04:13 launches its flagship new dramas.
04:15 For example, Stephen Moffat and Mark Gatiss' Sherlock
04:18 regularly debuted on New Year's Day.
04:19 So rather than being a sign of the BBC's lack of interest in Doctor Who,
04:24 it's a sign that the show's seen as a flagship drama
04:27 rather than appointment television for the whole family.
04:29 But that's definitely a problem,
04:31 especially as the show should always be striving to reach a new,
04:34 younger audience.
04:35 Number six, a Rose Tyler spin-off.
04:38 When Doctor Who's 2005 relaunch proved to be a massive hit,
04:42 the BBC began thinking about spin-offs.
04:45 This led to the creation of both the Sarah Jane Adventures
04:48 and Torchwood.
04:49 But those discussions with Russell T Davies
04:50 led to some other potential projects.
04:53 One of these was a kids' show about the Doctor's youth on Gallifrey.
04:56 But Russell T Davies rightly vetoed this idea
04:58 on the basis it would have removed the "Who" from Doctor Who.
05:01 Another spin-off that would have fared much better with fans
05:04 was the mooted Rose Tyler Earth Defence.
05:07 Set in a parallel Earth from season two,
05:09 it would have focused on the Tylers' new lives
05:12 as they protected the parallel world from all manner of baddies.
05:15 Russell T Davies had already planned to bring
05:17 the more action hero version of Rose back for season four,
05:20 so a spin-off show would have been the perfect way to build toward it.
05:23 In the end, however, Russell T Davies decided not to take the project further,
05:27 believing that if the Doctor wasn't able to see what Rose was up to,
05:30 then the general audience shouldn't either.
05:32 However, years later, Big Finish decided that if fans couldn't see
05:35 these adventures, then they could hear them instead in a series of box sets.
05:39 Number five, the return of Doctor Who Confidential.
05:43 When Doctor Who Confidential was good,
05:45 it was David Tennant interviewing Stephen Moffat
05:48 about their respective childhoods as Scottish Doctor Who fans.
05:51 When Doctor Who Confidential was bad,
05:53 it was extensive footage of actors standing around in padded jackets
05:56 in quarries at three in the morning.
05:58 However, it was a show that tapped into the fascination
06:01 Doctor Who fans have with how the show is made,
06:03 and its absence is keenly felt to this day.
06:06 Confidential was cancelled by the BBC back in 2011
06:10 due to budgetary issues.
06:11 It was replaced by behind-the-scenes featurettes
06:13 and Doctor Who The Fan Show that would both appear
06:16 on the official Doctor Who website or its YouTube channel.
06:19 Doctor Who Confidential was often a fascinating insight
06:22 into the making of the show and the decisions of those involved,
06:25 so it's easy to see why fans miss that level of engagement.
06:29 Rumours currently circulate that Confidential will return
06:32 for the second Russell T Davies era,
06:34 but fans shouldn't expect a return to the glory days
06:36 of classic monster montages set to What's That Coming Over The Hill?
06:40 The more likely replacement for Confidential is a post-episode chat show
06:43 like Talking Dead or After Trek.
06:45 Number four, a proper 30th anniversary special.
06:49 Doctor Who had been off the air for almost four years
06:52 as it approached its 30th anniversary in 1993.
06:56 Fans hadn't given up hope on the show returning, though,
06:58 especially when news broke of a feature-length straight-to-video movie.
07:02 Doctor Who In The Dark Dimension had an incredibly complicated,
07:05 troubled production and never made it as far as filming.
07:09 With a proper Doctor Who anniversary special now quashed,
07:11 fans had to make do with the surviving five Doctors
07:14 and their companions interacting with the cast of EastEnders.
07:17 Dimensions In Time, a 3D charity sketch for children in need,
07:21 got a lot of unfair stick from fans who wanted this darker,
07:24 grittier Doctor Who anniversary that had been previously promised.
07:27 And yet, as anyone who's read the script will tell you,
07:30 Doctor Who may have had a lucky escape from the Dark Dimension.
07:33 At least in Dimensions In Time,
07:34 each of the Doctors get a decent share of screen time.
07:37 In The Dark Dimension, the majority of the doctoring
07:39 is done by an older Tom Baker
07:41 because the fourth Doctor was prevented from regenerating.
07:44 They probably felt that Tom Baker was more of a draw for audiences,
07:47 which may have been the case,
07:48 but the plot of the considerably longer The Dark Dimension
07:52 is just as convoluted and nonsensical as Dimensions In Time.
07:55 Worse still, it wouldn't have featured Frank Butcher or the Mitchell Brothers.
07:58 If you are interested in finding out more about this unmade movie,
08:02 then be sure to check out our video covering just that.
08:05 Number three, Bringing Back The Brigadier.
08:08 Even though it was a reboot,
08:09 Russell T. Davies' 2005 revival of Doctor Who
08:12 wasted no time in bringing back old elements.
08:15 The Autons were the first villains,
08:17 and Unit briefly appeared in Aliens of London and World War III.
08:20 And yet, despite this, the legendary head of the organisation,
08:23 Alastair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart,
08:25 never appeared in the new series.
08:27 Given the Doctor's psychological trauma from the Time War,
08:29 a story that paired the Ninth Doctor
08:31 with an equally battle-scarred Brigadier would have been fascinating.
08:35 Sadly, it wasn't to be.
08:36 The Brigadier was always in Peru,
08:38 which increasingly sounded like a euphemism
08:40 for actor Nicholas Courtney's ill health.
08:42 He did get to appear in the Sarah Jane Adventures,
08:44 and was due to appear alongside David Tennant
08:46 in another Sarah Jane Adventures episode,
08:48 but unfortunately, Courtney was too ill to take part,
08:51 sadly dying months later.
08:53 When the Brigadier did eventually reappear in Doctor Who,
08:55 it was in the hugely controversial Death in Heaven,
08:58 in which the character's corpse was reanimated as a Cyberman
09:01 to save the Doctor and Kate Stewart from Missy's machinations.
09:05 There was also a brief vocal cameo in Flux,
09:07 but it doesn't make up for the fact that this legendary Doctor Who character
09:10 never got to share a scene with any of the 21st century Doctors.
09:14 Number two, Resting the Daleks.
09:17 Everyone loves the Daleks, right?
09:19 Well, not exactly.
09:21 Since the show returned in 2005,
09:23 there hasn't been a single Doctor Who series
09:25 that hasn't featured the Daleks in some capacity.
09:28 Now, there was no Dalek special during David Tennant's final year,
09:32 but one still did a flyby in a flashback during the Waters of Mars,
09:35 and Matt Smith's second series didn't have a Dalek story,
09:38 but a wrecked Dalek popped up to have its brain examined
09:41 by the Doctor in the Wedding of River Song.
09:43 There's just no escaping the Daleks,
09:45 and these small cameos run the risk of lessening their impact when they return.
09:49 Chris Chibnall was criticised for featuring the Daleks
09:51 in each of his New Year specials,
09:53 but to be fair to him, he's not the only showrunner who loves a Dalek.
09:56 Classic Doctor Who had regular large gaps between Dalek stories,
10:00 with only two Dalek serials in Tom Baker's entire seven-year run.
10:04 The Daleks are great, obviously,
10:06 but absence makes the heart grow fonder.
10:08 It would be amazing if after their appearance in Jodie Whittaker's finale,
10:11 they don't appear for a few years.
10:13 Returning in full strength toward the end of Shooting Gap was run, potentially.
10:17 However, whether it's for contractual or audience engagement reasons,
10:20 you can expect to see them sooner or later.
10:23 Number one, the classic TARDIS interior.
10:26 Modern TARDIS interiors have covered the full spectrum
10:29 of the good, the bad and the ugly.
10:31 However, none of them have ever been able to live up to the sleek,
10:35 classic white room from the original 1963 to 1989 run.
10:39 This wouldn't be so bad if the show didn't continue to tease fans
10:42 by showing how good that interior looks on modern TVs.
10:45 Fans first got a look at the classic TARDIS interior of sorts
10:48 in The Day of the Doctor,
10:50 when it glitches into the War Doctor's console room.
10:52 Then there was the TARDIS that the Doctor and Clara used
10:55 to escape Gallifrey in Hellbent.
10:56 Then there's the first Doctor's TARDIS in Twice Upon a Time.
10:59 And finally, in Fugitive of the Jadun,
11:01 the Ruth Doctor has a variation on the classic TARDIS interior.
11:05 Each time the classic console room appears,
11:07 it looks considerably cooler than whatever one
11:09 the incumbent Doctor is currently occupying.
11:12 It's appeared in the modern run so many times now
11:14 that any suggestion it wouldn't work on modern telly
11:17 loses all credibility.
11:18 Let's hope they finally take the plunge
11:20 and put Shooty's Doctor in this design classic.
11:23 And that concludes our list.
11:25 If you think we missed any, then do let us know in the comments below.
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11:34 While I've got you, I'd just like to say a massive thank you
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11:47 I've been Ellie with WhoCulture,
11:49 and in the words of River Song herself,
11:51 goodbye, sweeties.