Posted in: BBC, Disney+, TV | Tagged: doctor who

Doctor Who: Let's Clarify That Russell T Davies/Billie Piper Clickbait

Doctor Who showrunner Russell T. Davies has been hit with some Billie Piper-related clickbait-fueled hate that needs to be pushed back on.

You gets tons of hope of support when you're first announced, praised for bringing something new to the show, demonized for trying to bring something new to the show, compared to the previous showrunner (and not in a good way), celebrated when you eventually decide to leave the show, beloved by the fans years later when the fans turn on the current showrunner, honored when you make the decision to return to the show, praised for bringing something familiar to the show, criticized for not bringing anything new to the show, and then beaten up on until you decide to leave again. That's pretty much a rough outline of the life cycle of a showrunner on Doctor Who (give or take a few steps), and it's what Russell T. Davies (RTD) is going through now as fans await word of what the future holds for the long-running show (and if Billie Piper will be the Sixteenth Doctor). But over the past few days, RTD has been getting beaten up on social media over a comment he made in an interview that was so painfully pulled out of its complete context and turned into clickbait that we needed to clarify things.

During an interview with Your Manchester, host Brenda Scandal asks RTD about Piper's appearance at the end of the Season 2 finale and what that could mean moving forward. Specifically, does that mean that Piper is the next Doctor? "No, I have no idea," was RTD's response. Aha! The smoking gun! But if you actually watch the entire segment (beginning at around the 30:09 mark in the video above), you can clearly see that RTD is having some fun while being guarded and a bit cheeky. Objectively, there is no way to take the response at face value, especially when you watch and listen to how the exchange continues. Scandal continues on the topic, going in some interesting directions with the questions to get RTD to commit to something, with RTD even joking at one point that, "That's clever. That's sharp. That's a nice little parry and faint. You should work in PR" before moving on.

Again, take what looks to be literally a minute to check out that section in the video above to see for yourselves. There's no mistaking that the fans have some serious passion for this long-running franchise and have thousands upon thousands of differing opinions on what would "save" the show moving forward. What doesn't help the conversation, though, is feeding into the misinformation cesspool that's out there on social media. No one is saying that RTD hasn't given fans a ton of reasons to both praise and criticize his work, but he deserves better than to have his words spun in a way that lacks credibility and does a disservice to everyone.

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