Are you me?

I know it's all very drama-queen, but I would seriously consider my 40+ years of watching DW at an end if Chris Chibnall took over. I think his scripts are utterly utterly dreadful.

I don't know who should take over when Moffat leaves, but I maintain it should be fresh blood from outside the show's current staff. I look at it like this;

1. No-one currently on the staff has stuck out in the same way Moffat did during RTDs era. Before it was even announced, it seemed like everyone expected (and wanted) Moffat to take over when RTD stepped down. It seemed the obvious choice from the start and there is clearly no-one in that same position today.

2. The current main contenders have been working on the show for some time now. Injecting new blood and new ideas would be better for the show than handing it over to people who may have already done their best work for the show - or, at least, be a little set in the ways of the show as it currently is.

3. RTD wasn't an existing writer on Doctor Who when he took over as showrunner (for obvious reasons, of course!) He had to come in and pitch to the BBC. He had to prove that he had a good vision for the show and make the execs believe he could pull it off. It wasn't handed to him on the basis that he'd been working on an existing writing team for some time and was due a promotion.

I think it would do the show a lot of good to have some external talent come along and make a pitch as to why they would be good as the new showrunner. I believe I've said this on here before, but one of the things that brought the Star Trek franchise grinding to a halt was because the same team were essentially running things for something like 15 years. They did great stuff in the heyday of Next Generation, but by the time they got on to Voyager and Enterprise, the cracks were beginning to show. The big exceptions were DS9, after creative control was almost totally handed over to Ira Steven Behr and Enterprise season 4, where creative control was handed to newboy Manny Coto.

I think the same would be true of Who if someone like Mark Gatiss became showrunner. They've been with the show so long and are likely to be ingrained in its current style and direction. They might put their own stamp on it, but possibly not enough to keep it fresh. Someone who's never worked on Who before - but has the credentials to do it - would likely bring in much more new ideas than sticking with the "old guard."

Well, that's my thought on it, anyway!

I would love Chris Chibnall to have a crack at it! I think he would be superb. Plenty of good ideas, going from Broadchurch standards and he wrote a compelling episode called 42. Very underrated, but he would be a good choice.

Yes, Broadchurch was brilliant, but 42 was one of the worst episodes of new Who, by a country mile! Some of his Torchwood stuff was dire as well. It's hard to take in that the same guy wrote something as measured and subtle as Broadchurch.

In which case if Whithouse was ruled out having worked on it before my choice would be Howard Overman

Surprised and dismayed that there seems to be a bit of a common consensus that Gatiss would be the likely next pick. He's about as good a writer as he is an actor, which is to say not very.

Personally I would like Whithouse and Gatiss to be co-showrunners. Not completely against Chibnall, but it wouldn't fill me with optimism...

My thoughts:

Mark Gatiss
Long-term DOCTOR WHO megafan, starting his association with the programme by writing the (pretty good) novel Nightshade in 1992. Known for his work on the TV series THE LEAGUE OF GENTLEMEN, on which he was a writer, actor and co-creator. Has recently co-created and co-showruns SHERLOCK alongside Steven Moffat. He has written six episodes of DOCTOR WHO since 2005, which have had a 'mixed' reception. However, I'd argue his last two stories were actually pretty good.

He has DOCTOR WHO experience and, crucially from a BBC perspective, experience as a showrunner. He is perhaps the most logical choice to take over WHO when Moffat leaves. What is a major strike against him is that he has just signed up to play the recurring role on Tycho Nestoris on HBO's GAME OF THRONES. Whilst not a massive role, it does require him to appear in multiple episodes across Seasons 4-6 (at least), some already filmed. This may preclude him from taking over DOCTOR WHO if Moffat leaves in the next 1-2 years. However, as a small role it could be recast if necessary.

Toby Whithouse
An experienced showrunner, producer and writer, best-known for creating and producing BEING HUMAN for the BBC (which has spawned a very successful American remake). He has also created and run the shows NO ANGELS for Channel 4 and the upcoming THE GAME for the BBC. He has DOCTOR WHO writing experience and seems to be well-regarded by the fans. Another logical choice.

Gareth Roberts
Another experienced writer and DOCTOR WHO fan, cutting his teeth with the New Adventures novel The Highest Science (which was nearly remade for the modern series until being replaced by Planet of the Dead) and contributing multiple scripts and novels in the franchise. He doesn't have showrunning experience per se, though he played a major role in the writing of the first season of THE SARAH JANE ADVENTURES. He has also been a script editor for multiple soap operas, including EMMERDALE, BROOKSIDE and CORONATION STREET. Would probably be a good choice, but the BBC might prefer someone with more production experience.

Neil Cross
Another experienced showrunner, having created the massive international hit LUTHER starring Idris Elba. He has strong international writing experience and is a collaborator of Guillermo Del Toro, having worked on his aborted At the Mountains of Madness project and done rewrites on Pacific Rim before writing Del Toro's next script, Midnight Delivery. He also wrote the well-received horror movie Mama, as well as several novels (one of which was longlisted for the Booker Prize).

Cross might be a stretch: he lives in New Zealand and prefers to travel in bursts to work on projects. He may not want to physically move to the UK for several years to work as a WHO showrunner full-time. He also has a very good and booming Hollywood scripting career, which likely pays a hell of a lot more.

Still, under Cross's stewardship we could very well get a Guillermo Del Toro-directed episode starring Idris Elba (maybe as the next Doctor?), which I'd be quite happy with.

Howard Overman
The creator and showrunner of the very well-received MISFITS, and the co-creator and co-executive producer on ATLANTIS. He has showrunner experience but hasn't worked on DOCTOR WHO before. He's the most logical choice if the BBC decide they want some fresh blood.


As for a mental, will-never-happen-but-hey-what-the-hell choice:

J. Michael Straczynski
The creator and showrunner of BABYLON 5, the showrunner of JEREMIAH and the scriptwriter of numerous films (including the very good Changeling, starring Angelina Jolie), animated series (HE-MAN! GHOSTBUSTERS!) and comics (everything from a well-received run on SPIDER-MAN to the recent BEFORE WATCHMEN project). Notably, a big fan of classic WHO, which he cited (alongside THE PRISONER and BLAKE's 7) as a major influence on BABYLON 5's story arc structure.

It won't happen, of course. He's American and lives in LA, though has said over the years he wants to retire to the UK. He hasn't written for WHO before either and hasn't indicated he wants to. Still, he'd also be a good choice because of his writing speed (he can write a 44-minute TV episode in two days) and also his production management skills which helped prevent both his previous TV shows from going over-budget or over time, ever. More importantly, he has just committed to producing (and apparently show-running) SENSE8, a new Netflix TV series created by the Wachowskis.

(note: Joss Whedon, though also a DOCTOR WHO fan, is under exclusive contract to Disney for the next four years or so, so is out of even the most optimistic running)

As opposed to Gattiss and Whithouse? None of them are consistently good or even average. I'd love to see you justify that comment with a massively long post comparing the scripts of all three gentlemen, demonstrating consistently and coherently, and without any recourse to taste, just why Chibnall is awful compared to those other two. I don't think you could. They're all much of a muchness, truth be told, all doing the same Doctor Who by numbers presented to them in the RTD / Moffat manual.

You can't just say 'I liked this and this episode', so he's best. You don't know what process the script went through. A typical script will run the gamut from being close to first draft to near enough a wholesale ghost rewrite by Moffat / RTD. There are classic episodes like the latter: Human Nature / Family of Blood had a LOT of RTD in it; 'Amy's Choice' is more or less a Moffat script. And you don't really know which episodes were the former (close to first draft), so that gives no clues. Plus there will have been good writers saddled with pitches that were poor or ill-suited to their style that they had to make the best of (compare Neil Gaiman working with his own idea with 'The Doctor's Wife' to working with Moffat's pitch ('Make the Cybermen scary again') in Nightmare in Silver. There's a huge difference in the quality of the episodes). And everybody has to acquiesce to the tone and style required by RTD / Moffat. Again, you can't assume all the writers were working to their strengths and you can't assume a good script was all their work.

Truth is, you won't really see how good someone is using solely their stories, their concepts, their sensibility, their scripts until it happens.

I don't think Mark Gattis would do it, Neither would Chris Chibnall.

Both much too busy on their own very successful projects.

Keep the suggestions coming.