Doctor Who: Why Series One was incredibly successful (and why Series Eleven wasn’t)

Series One helped to ensure that Doctor Who was brought back with a bang. But what was its greatest strength?

(Image credit: Doctor Who/BBC. Image obtained from: official Doctor Who website.)

When Doctor Who came back in 2005, it was undoubtedly a huge success. But what was the biggest reason for it?

Looking back on Series Eleven, I can’t help but think that it was something of a missed opportunity. It’s not exactly a terrible series. But it’s not a great one, either. And that’s a problem. Because with something as big as the first female Doctor, Chris Chibnall’s first series as showrunner needed to be great.

This reminded me of another key series that needed to be great: Series One. Russell T Davies’s first series as showrunner. The first full series of Doctor Who in sixteen years. Many people were unsure whether it would work. Maybe Doctor Who had had its day already. Perhaps it was something best left as a relic of the past?

Of course, Russell T Davies was able to prove all of those doubters wrong, and we got ourselves an amazing series. This was, of course, naturally helped by an incredibly strong cast. Both Christopher Eccleston and Billie Piper were perfect for their roles, and gave us so many strong performances.

Excellent stories

But a great leading cast was only part of the reason for the show’s success. A great actor is nothing without an equally great script, one that can really challenge them to give us a great performance.

(This is one of the reasons why I believe Graham has been a stronger character than the Thirteenth Doctor for Series Eleven. It’s mainly because Bradley Walsh has been given much stronger material than Jodie Whittaker has.)

Series One had plenty of strong stories. While the Slitheen episodes may not be classics, we were given so many other gems during that iconic series.

Dalek. Father’s Day. The Empty Child. The Parting of the Ways. Every single one of these episodes is still greatly loved, even today. They’re absolute classics, and we’d be lucky to get one story so good in a series. So how did we get so many on the first series?

Dalek was just one episode of many very strong stories from Series One.

(Image credit: Doctor Who/BBC.

Image obtained from: official Doctor Who website.)

A strong writing team

Russell T Davies picked an absolutely brilliant team of writers for his first series. Mark Gatiss. Robert Shearman. Paul Cornell. Steven Moffat.

What did all of these writers have in common? Well, for one thing, they all had an excellent proven track record as great writers.

For example, Shearman had written a number of successful dramas for the stage; Moffat had already had great success with the TV series Press Gang and Coupling, and of course, Russell T Davies himself had created several popular TV series, including Queer as Folk and The Second Coming.

However, there was something else that all of these great writers shared in common. Something that helped to ensure that the first series of Doctor Who in sixteen years would be successful. Namely, that they had all written for Doctor Who before.

Not on television, of course. It would be years before a writer of a Classic Series story would write again for the New Series. (Specifically, Rona Munro, who had written Seventh Doctor story Survival, and Twelfth Doctor story The Eaters of Light, respectively.)

Previous experience

But all of them had written a Doctor Who story for the expanded media. Both Mark Gatiss and Paul Cornell had written several successful Doctor Who novels. Shearman had written several Doctor Who audios for Big Finish, audios that are still highly praised to this day. Steven Moffat had written a very popular short story called Continuity Errors. Even Davies himself had written a popular Seventh Doctor novel, Damaged Goods.

In short, these weren’t people completely new to Doctor Who. Yes, they were all great writers, but just as importantly, they had a core understanding of what made Doctor Who so brilliant to begin with.

With Series Two, new writers were brought on board, some of whom had never written for Doctor Who before. And this had mixed results. For example, Toby Whithouse’s School Reunion was a brilliant episode that respected the past, while also telling a fresh Doctor Who story.

Fear Her, on the other hand, was one of the worst episodes of the new era, and a key part of that was due to a lack of understanding on what really makes a great Doctor Who story on the writer’s part. All this despite the fact that writer Matthew Graham co-created Life on Mars, possibly one of the greatest British TV series ever made outside of Who.

Series Eleven may have given us some good episodes. But was it a great series overall?

(Photo credit: Doctor Who/BBC

Image obtained from: BBC Press)

Series Eleven – why it wasn’t as successful

It’s a shame that, for his first series, Chris Chibnall didn’t try to do the same thing that Davies did on his first. I can see why he went with a brand new team of writers, especially if he wanted to make his mark.

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And we still got some entertaining stories, at least. Kerblam! was a lot of fun; It Takes You Away was an enjoyable little fairy tale, and Rosa was an excellent historical episode. (Interestingly, co-writer Malorie Blackman is, along with Chris Chibnall, one of the only writers to have written for Doctor Who before, with the short Seventh Doctor story The Ripple Effect.)

But with something as major as Series Eleven, we needed more than an enjoyable series. We needed a great one. And I don’t think that we actually got that.

Still, who knows what the future holds? There are still plenty of brilliant Doctor Who writers in other mediums who’ve yet to write for the TV series, after all. (Certainly, the best writers at Big Finish could easily write a great TV story, including John Dorney, Guy Adams and Matt Fitton, to name a few.)

Maybe in Series Twelve, or beyond, some of the best Doctor Who writers of the expanded universe will bring that level of high-quality storytelling to the television screen.

Do you agree that a veteran team of Doctor Who writers helped to ensure a strong first series? Do you think a lack of experience writing for Who at all can be an issue? Give us your views in the comments below.