5:34PM, Aug 27, 2009
These are emotional times ahead in Doctor Who-land as the team behind the success of the series' comeback prepare to hand the reigns to a new generation.
We caught up with 10th Doctor David Tennant and show creator Russell T Davies to reminisce about the past four years.
Russell, how did you decide what to keep and what to get rid of when you brought the show back?
Russell: It's funny because, as a long-term fan of the show, it was like I was a 40-year-old focus group, working on what worked and what didn't. I never liked the Time Lords. I always thought they were slightly boring and bumped the program down, so, the decision to get rid of them was just immediate.
How did you make the decision to go with two such very different portrayals of the character?
Russell: It comes from choosing two different actors. I always think there's a very essential Doctor-ness behind whatever he's saying and doing. I think, if the 9th Doctor did seem harder in places, it's because he was recovering from a war. And, if the 10th Doctor seems lighter, that's because his human companions are making his life different.
How did you balance the changing aspects of the show to reflect the new Doctor?
Russell: It's such an unusual show because it's different every week. You can do a comedy episode. You can do a dark, psychological episode. You can have romps. You can have love stories. Because it's always changing, you don't need to worry too much about the change. We all just hang on for the ride, really.
David: That's not on our watch now, in terms of how they do it after us.
What made David the right replacement for Christopher Eccleston?
Russell: David and I had already worked together when we did Casanova for the BBC. And so he was already there, in a way. It wasn't set up in advance but, when you work with or find a great actor, you just cling to them - they're just so limitless and inspiring.
David, because you were such a fan, did you know what you were going to do with the role?
David: I responded to what was in the script. I tried not to sit down and work out a list of self-conscious quirks because I think it can become cloyingly quirky, in the wrong way. I think idiosyncrasies are better born than imposed, so I just responded to what Russell had written. We just bumbled through it, really.
What was it like to see the amazing fan reaction at Comic-Con?
David: It was great fun. It was such an extraordinary experience. I wanted to crowd dive, but they were all sitting down. It was a bit disappointing for me. I figured that was probably the only opportunity in my life that I was going to get to do that. I should have done it.
Russell: It was amazing. We keep getting told back home that it's completely unknown in America so we were slightly amazed, in a good way, that we had that response.
How important was it to get the role of the Doctor's assistant right?
Russell: That's been a vital part of the format. You've got a man who's 906 years old, and he's an alien, and he's a Time Lord. He's wonderfully human, but he has that huge other dimension of being practically immortal and hugely wise, which is dangerous. The human person just brings him down to Earth, literally.
In the old days of the series, the companion wasn't quite so well-developed, but that wasn't the purpose then. Now, in bringing it back, to have the female lead attract people, not just Billie Piper, but of Catherine Tate status to the series, you've got to write it well, otherwise you're not going to get them. One of the joys of the whole show was to work with people like that.
As a fan, who was your favorite Doctor Who star while you were growing up?
Russell: I was a Tom Baker man, really. That was the most extraordinary combination of an actor and a part coming together, in just absolute television magic. I loved that very much.
David: Tom Baker and Peter Davison were the two that I grew up with. I think there is something about it, like a chick hatching from an egg. Who you first see is who you imprint on.
Read our Doctor Who Interview: Part 2, in which we find out what's in store for November's special, The Waters Of Mars, and get a few hints about David's two-part swan song, The End Of Time, which will air over Christmas.
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