Doctor Who’s showrunner and EP discuss a female Doctor and vision for the series’ future

Doctor Who showrunner Chris Chibnall and executive producer Matt Strevens share their thoughts on building a new and exciting era of the show.

The new season of classic sci-fi series Doctor Who is shaking things up in a big way: A new showrunner, a bevy of new writers and the series’ first ever female Doctor in Jodie Whittaker.

In short: It’s pretty much never been a more exciting time to be a Whovian.

Head writer Chris Chibnall and executive producer Matt Strevens sat down with press at New York Comic Con to discuss season 11, the debut of a female Doctor, and their vision for what Doctor Who can be in 2018.

Chibnall repeatedly acknowledged the importance, and emotional resonance, of Whittaker’s casting as the first female Doctor, calling it a “privilege” and “humbling” to be part of such a groundbreaking event. (Whittaker herself also spoke about similar themes and emotions during her time with the press at NYCC.) He also points out that it’ll be just as exciting for him when something like this — such a huge “first” now — will just be seen as the way things are.

“It’s great that it’s a moment,” he said. “It’ll be great when it’s not a moment, and it’ll be great when it’s just ordinary. I hope you’ll see when you see the episode, she’s just the Doctor. She’s just a brilliant performer.”

One of the biggest changes in season 11, besides the Time Lady thing, is the fact that the Doctor will now be running around the universe with not one, not two, but three different companions. After multiple seasons focused on a one-on-one Doctor/Companion relationship, the addition of so many new perspectives not only offers new storytelling opportunities but reflects the more modern sensibilities of the audience. Yet, in doing so, it still simultaneously harkens back to the series’ past. (The very first season of Doctor Who, with William Hartnell, featured the Doctor traveling alongside his granddaughter Susan, as well as teachers Ian and Barbara.)

Picture Shows: Ryan Sinclair (TOSIN COLE), The Doctor (JODIE WHITTAKER), Graham O’Brien (BRADLEY WALSH), Yasmin Khan (MANDIP GILL). Photo: Sophie Mutevelian/BBC America

“What we’ve done is that our characters are very real world characters,” Chibnall explained. “It was really important to us that they felt like the audience watching, that you could relate to them and that they’re reality and the magical element is the Doctor.”

“This magical alien comes in and shows them that they have wonderful gifts… that they can make a difference and the Doctor relies on them,” he elaborated. “She doesn’t just play them lip service and get them to validate her view. She often uses them to help her out of problems, and I think that’s what’s great about it. Although the Doctor is the eponymous character, it’s actually about the companions and it’s about them [the audience] viewing.”

“We are the companions,” Strevens agreed. “With Chris’ brilliant creation of Yas, Ryan and Graham, we get three wonderful, very different perspectives and very different people going on a different journey and needing different things from their journey with the Doctor. So I think it’s allowed a lot of emotional exploration within the show.”

After multiple Steven Moffat-penned seasons which stressed the alien, almost magical nature of several companions — Clara, the Impossible Girl, for example — having a Team TARDIS filled with everyday people feels like a pretty big (but probably necessary) change. Rose Tyler, the first companion of the modern era of Doctor Who in 2005, was a working-class shopgirl, after all.

Picture Shows: Yasmin Khan (MANDIP GILL), Graham O’Brien (BRADLEY WALSH), Ryan Sinclair (TOSIN COLE). Photo: Coco Van Oppens/BBC America

In fact, Chibnall seems quite dedicated to making his version of Doctor Who as diverse as possible, featuring characters that all sorts of members of the audience can connect to.

“What we want to do is be making a version of Doctor Who that is accessible to everyone, is inclusive, that everybody feels like they’ve got a character that feels like them, that they can relate to,” Chibnall said.

“The relationships that grow between those people — and who don’t necessarily all know each other at the start — those relationships grow and change and shift and the relationships with the Doctor change… So it gives you more choices and more surprises and more fun over those 10 episodes.”

The showrunner’s decision to tell standalone stories this season was also largely driven by his desire to bring in as many new or lapsed viewers as possible to the Whovian fold.

“It felt very important to me that, like always with a new Doctor, you’ve got that opportunity for people to come on board [to the show],” Chibnall said at NYCC. “So what we wanted to do was a series of standalone episodes that if you come in at episode one, you don’t need any prior knowledge; if you come in episode nine, you don’t need any prior knowledge. If you’ve got prior knowledge, it’s going to be more rewarding [for you].”

“Any new Doctor’s first year is hopefully a long recruiting video for the series,” he added.

Chibnall also has a very firm vision about what Doctor Who — and a female Doctor specifically — means in 2018. When asked about the Doctor’s decades-long tendency to abstain from violence, he waxed rather rhapsodic about the importance of Thirteen’s pacifist tendencies, and that relevance to our modern world.

“Pacifism is a really important part of Doctor Who,” he explained. “The stories are [resolved] not through throwing punches, not through fights but solved through thought and wit and intelligence and teamwork… those values [are] really, really important to us in this version of the show.”

“Anybody who is making the show before us is making the show for the time they were in,” he explained. “We’re making it for the time we’re in. That’s why a pacifist Doctor is very important. That’s why I think teamwork … and this Doctor leading from the front … that feels really important, essential to our version of a show.”

And given everything going on in the world at the moment — from violence to harassment to the silencing of female voices — that sounds exactly like the Doctor we need, too.

Doctor Who‘s eleventh season airs Sundays at 8 p.m. on BBC America. Keep an eye on Culturess for more coverage of the new season!