Doctor Who showrunner Russell T Davies has explained how Christopher Eccleston “singlehandedly” changed the show.
Ahead of Doctor Who’s upcoming Christmas special, Davies appeared on Imagine… Russell T Davies: The Doctor and Me last night (December 18). The behind-the-scenes episode explored the new set at Cardiff’s Bad Wolf Studios and followed the director as the new season was filmed.
In the one-off special, Davies explained how Eccleston changed viewers’ perceptions of the Time Lord. The actor became a fan-favourite when the long-running sci-fi series was first rebooted in 2005.
“I had to keep all the good iconography but dust off all the rubbish. Part of the rubbish was kind of pompousness around the character,” he said.
“He’s a Time Lord, so in people’s minds, he’s become a lord, someone loquacious and pompous and ostentatious and posh. So Chris singlehandedly, in one moment, shook that off.”
Davies went on to describe casting Eccleston’s companion Rose (played by Billie Piper), saying: “You forget, 2005, 2004, people were laughing, going, ‘Oh, ‘you’ve cast that pop star. What’s Billie Piper like?’ Like, thinking she’d be dreadful.
“I can remember all of us on the production having this massive silent smile thinking, ‘You wait. You wait till you see her. It’s phenomenal’.”
Eccleston recently shared that he wouldn’t be returning to the Tardis anytime soon.
While appearing on a panel during the For the Love of Sci-Fi convention, the actor described “the politics” that took place behind-the-scenes (via Metro).
“The BBC were like, ‘We’re gonna keep a big distance from this’, and then as soon as it was a success, they were all up close, going, ‘I was responsible for that’. But they were all at a distance, like, ‘This is a folly, Eccleston’s folly, Piper’s folly, Russell T Davies’ folly’,” he said.
