Posted in: BBC, Opinion, TV, TV | Tagged: doctor who, grant morrison

Doctor Who: Grant Morrison Offers Ncuti Gatwa/Billie Piper Solution

Writer Grant Morrison has checked in to let us know how they would handle that Doctor Who cliffhanger with Ncuti Gatwa and Billie Piper.

With no Christmas Special this year, Russell T. Davies and Bad Wolf out the door, and the show being put out to tender, it's safe to say that we're going to have a bit of a wait on our hands when it comes to new Doctor Who hitting our screens. That means we're going to have a whole lot of time for a whole lot of people to weigh in with their "amazing" ideas on how to save the series, usually in-between finger-pointing over who's to blame for the sky falling. Spoiler? In general, the stuff they grew up with was great, and everything after that sucks. Got it? Great! With that in mind, writer Grant Morrison is offering their thoughts on how they would fix the Ncuti Gatwa/Billie Piper cliffhanger

In the latest edition of their Substack ("20/6 DOOMSDAY VOMIT CLOCK"), Morrison covers a lot of ground on a wide range of topics – and that includes the current situation with the long-running series. "I've thought about approaching the BBC again about 'Doctor Who' but they've never taken me seriously before, so I'm not convinced they'll start. It's probably worth a try," Morrison notes at one point, going on to share how they would approach the Gatwa/Piper "regeneration" cliffhanger.

As far as being saddled with a lot of dangling threads goes, 'they' could just reveal that Gatwa's Doctor was an unstable bi-regeneration who tried to make the most of his brief mayfly existence but just sort of flickered along, barely there. When he glitched out, he reached for a familiar face and got Billie Piper off the telly. She then tracks down David Tennant's Doctor, going mad with his earthbound ordinary life round at Donna's. He can't stop attracting terrifying, vengeful enemies from space so he's on the run when they meet – and fuse back together with a lovely Rose and the Doctor scene to wrap the whole RTD era in a neat bow, while the Doctor's understanding family cheer them on – then it all goes wrong – and new-new-Who picks up from there with nary a backward glance.

We're getting the impression that Morrison wasn't a big fan of Gatwa's two-season run. At first, we thought we might be reading a little too much into it. Especially when we got to the part where Morrison writes, "Anyhow, I believe nostalgia will be kind to RTD and Ncuti Gatwa." Still, their overall take on Jodie Whittaker's run had some serious passive-aggressive vibes to it – but we're still keeping the doors to our brains wide open. "I reckon even Gatwa's Barbie Doctor will surely inspire some great audio adventures or novels. The shallow weirdness, the meanness beneath that practised smile and upbeat breathless activity, the promising companions flickering by like shadows on his wall, will come to seem gothic, decadent and bizarre. A Milligan/McCarthy Doctor!" Morrison added about Gatwa's run, not exactly overflowing with subtlety. "They'll all be redeemed and reconsidered as emblematic of their eras some day."

In that regard, we definitely agree. We're still scratching our heads over how Colin Baker's and Sylvester McCoy's respective runs got to be "redeemed" from being the messes they actually were. Because if we're going to retcon runs out of the real timeline, then I would be more than happy to have Peter Davison's real regeneration jump to Paul McGann/Christopher Eccleston. We could call Baker's and McCoy's runs, "The Public Access TV Years."

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