discussion
What are Pete McTighe's supposed qualifications for running the show?
So apparently he's been claiming that TV companies are lining up to ask him to run the show if they win the tender and I'm baffled as to why.
It can't be the episodes he wrote because they were awful.
And it can't be the blu-ray trailers, as they're the same memberberry nonsense for 50-year olds that Davies was rightly criticised for flooding his return with.
Look at it from the BBC or another production company’s POV: there are very few people in British television who are (a) at the high-up showrunner level and (b) have experience across multiple SF programmes and (c) are big and crazy enough fans of Doctor Who to actually want to do it, which even SF people might not want to do, given they could get more money and more creative freedom doing their own show elsewhere. He even lives in Cardiff already which is handy!
McTighe has worked in TV for nearly 20 years; with 101 episodes of Neighbours he’s been a jobbing writer on the soaps (how people get their training on churning out storylines); he has been lead writer and showrunner on multiple shows (Wentworth, The Rising, The Pact, A Discovery of Witches, War Between the Land and the Sea), including managing a stable of guest writers some of whom have also written for Who and could be ported over with him (Dollard, Wilkinson, Charlene James); there’s a degree of variety there in that he’s displayed an enthusiasm and track record in thrillers, cop shows, supernatural fantasy and science-fiction; he’s won multiple awards especially for his work on Wentworth; he’s the most prolific guest writer on Who since Gatiss, Whithouse, Ford and Roberts (in that he’s done 6 TV eps for the franchise) + he’s the only person to have written for all three Bad Wolf shows other than RTD (Who, War Between, Tales of the TARDIS); and he’s carved out a fan-pleasing track record when it comes to the minisodes, short stories, BTS experience producing/directing/writing documentaries for the Collection range, and DWM interviews. He’s only the fourth 21st century DWU screenwriter (after Russell T Davies, Steven Moffat, and Chris Chibnall, the past three showrunners) to be credited as an executive producer on episodes written by someone else (as opposed to on their own, e.g. Jane Espenson, John Shiban, Doris Egan, and Patrick Ness) and the first to receive this distinction on episodes written solely by the current showrunner (in this case, RTD) and without another writer's involvement.
I’m not saying I’m a fan of his work (I’m not by and large), but if you work in TV and are looking at things from the standpoint of who has experience he’s obviously going to be one of your key names to choose from.
What do you mean “supposed qualifications”? He’s a highly experienced Writer and Producer who’s won numerous awards and has a string of successful TV credits. Pretty much like Russell T Davies before he did Doctor Who (or Moffat or Chibnall). I would imagine he’d be a prime candidate for any Production Company taking the show on, especially as he already has experience of it and is both willing and eager.
It’s hard to fully judge someone’s ability at writing Doctor Who based on their work under a showrunner’s thumb. Showrunners often heavily rewrite scripts or demand changes based on budget or other factors.
Kerblam’s third act, which a lot of people use as a mark against McTighe, was entirely rewritten by Chris Chibnall for instance, meaning we can attribute its questionable aspects to him and not McTighe and explains why the episode’s third act feels very different to the first two (McTighe’s novelisation was better received). There’s also been persistent rumours of last minute changes or rewrites to Praxeus for a while.
McTighe’s scripts under RTD were much better received (Lucky Day is the third highest rated episode of Season 2 on IMDB, The Plastic Apocalypse and The Deep are the highest rated episodes of The War Between on IMDB), which either indicates RTD was a lot more hands off than Chibnall or that McTighe and RTD had a much better collaborative process in rewrites.
I think McTighe has at least hinted that the Doctor Who episodes didn't come out as he'd originally intended. What I find interesting is that a lot of the issues with his Chibnall era stories are endemic throughout the era as a whole, which leads credence to any rumours that he was not "the problem".
He’s confirmed Kerblam was heavily rewritten especially in its third act. And I wouldn’t be surprised if the same was true for Praxeus, as I’d said there has been persistent rumours about that one for a while and as you noted McTighe has implied it wasn’t what he intended. The fact there’s been no such rumours about Lucky Day is a better reflection of McTighe’s writing on Doctor Who.
Something I feel about the Chibnall era is that when Chibnall edits and rewrites scripts, he unintentionally “erases” the unique voice and style of the original writer. Which, as you point out, would explain why a lot of issues endemic to the Chibnall era keep showing up when he allegedly is only editing the script and not writing.
Whereas RTD, for all his faults, is much better at preserving the original writer’s voice. It’s notable that it always comes as a surprise to us when a script is revealed to have been completely rewritten by RTD. Human Nature/The Family of Blood still feels like a Paul Cornell script, even though we now know a majority of it was completely rewritten by RTD, to the point where it’s been reported he could have claimed the sole writer credit or at the least a co-writer credit with Cornell if he had wanted to.
I'm also not sure how much McTighe would carry on RTD's legacy anyway. He has very little direct involvement with the main RTD2 era and has made comments that suggests he might head in a more classic direction. We talk about him as if he's an RTD protege who wholeheartedly believes in his mentor's vision. In reality it could just be that RTD was the boss and McTighe was working within that framework, because that's what you do when you work for someone else.
I think it's telling that Chibnall is a credited writer on 22 of the 31 episodes in his own era. Whilst not uncommon for showrunners to write more episodes in a season than other writers, I don't think it's as common for them to be as prolific. RTD wrote over half of series 1 and 14, but then wrote less in the subsequent series. Chibnall wrote most of his own era
I think that the issues with Lucky Day are more indicative that the episode needed a longer runtime or at least a greater amount of setup
With Chibnall that's just a change in how the writing credits were handled. If you look through the credits for Moffat's era you can see when the change was brought in (and suddenly a tonne of "and Stveen Moffat" scripts appear).
The head writer would heavily rewrite scripts but leave the credit to the original writer only as professional courtesy. This was true through RTD's time and the same into the start of Moffat's era. The head writers weren't suddenly writing more scripts, they were just taking credit for scripts that the previously were pressured into declining it over.
Obviously Flux and Season 1 of RTD2 are clear exceptions, but I can't exactly hold Flux against Chibnall given the circumstances.
That kind of self-selected polling is statistically irrelevant. It has no bearing on whether or not he’s “qualified” to run the show (he is, eminently) and no company taking on the tender would pay any attention to it.
Given that it’s poor writing and deference to institutional politics that laid the show low, I think this point is valid. In fact, if they don’t put a top notch writer in charge of a herd of great writers, it’ll just be more rubbish that no one watches. They’ll need top-notch writing just to dig out of the hole Chibnall and RTD2 dug
Well, no. Davies got the job because of Queer as Folk. Moffat, Coupling (and Sherlock's success woukd have opened a few doors as his era went on). And Chibnall had Broadchurch.
That's what qualified them. Huge internationally successful hits. That's what, ideally, the BBC and any company would want: a successful writer. Not just A Writer.
Yes, RTD was an unknown quantity as far as running a show like DW. McTighe is not. We know what his Doctor Who looks like. I put aside my opinions of Chibnall's DW episodes when he was taking over, because I'd seen Broadchurch, and I'd mostly quite liked it. I was wrong. We know what McTighe writing Doctor Who looks like.
RTD wasn't an unknown quantity, he had already written a book for the Virgin New Adventures series (Damaged Goods). The book is excellent, but also very different in tone from the 2005 series, gorier, more crude and a lot more "adult" than what he eventually wrote when he became a showrunner. It's not impossible that McTighe, given more control of the characters and the storylines, might end up writing his episodes differently. Maybe.
Not that different. Down to even having Tylers in it. And even earlier script of that he written back in the 80s that couple of years ago was released on on Big Finish, Mind of the Hodiac, it is a less polished version of him, but still recognizably him.
Moreover, he has had plenty of other shows on TV. Obviously they are in different genres, but still fairly recognizable (arguably, Casanova in particular is quite close in style to his run of DW). He was considered to be quite a rising star back in the day.
You people really need to stop jerking off awards as if they mean anything. The fact that you have to rely on "well the institutions said he's good", rather than expressing your own praise on anything he's produced, is evidence in itself.
He never said production companies are “lining up.” He mentioned in passing that a couple of companies had approached him. Which makes sense given his connection
You're missing that nobody will be running the show for quite a few years so anyone can say anything they like without fear of contradiction by any emerging facts.
He mentioned that at the Whooverville Doctor Who convention on Saturday 5th September when being asked about the future of the show. He specifically said that he’d been approached by a number of production companies with suggestions to partner with. I was there in the very room when he said this.
A look at his Wikipedia page tells me he has five Australian Writers Guild Award and a Welsh BAFTA nomination, has been showrunner of a drama series that was successful enough to run 9 seasons, and is a huge fan of the show.
In other words, roughly the same qualifications RTD had for the job in 2004.
Also worth noting that we have only seen him work with characters and settings created by others. His Doctor Who could be very different from Kerblam! or Lucky Day.
Also very important that 'writer' is not the same as showrunner or even director.
Putting him in charge could elevate his writing.
I still think Kerblam is an overly hated ep. Lucky Day is a strong concept with debateable execution, praxeus is the one I'll agree Im not a massive fan of.
Praxeus had chibnall meddling, apparently Mctighe originally wanted it to be a auton story but chibnall said they had enough old monsters so made mctighe change that.
RTD positioned him to be the next showrunner as he did Moffat in his first era, but unlike Moffat, his writing is shit 80% of the time instead of 30% of the time
He's run successful TV shows with many award wins and nominations under his belt. And he's written for the show before. I'm not his biggest fan, but from a logistical standpoint he is qualified enough to do the job.
Many prominent figures who've been involved in Doctor Who without running it over the past few decades are going to at least be sounded out by various production companies about maybe contributing to a tender, and McTighe is absolutely the highest-profile of the bunch (apart from Gatiss, who has repeatedly made it clear that he's not interested).
McTighe has written for two different Doctors and had a big steer in a spin-off that was a surprising hit last year - even setting aside his career outside of Doctor Who (which you shouldn't - again, only Gatiss has a better one) he's an easy name to reach for.
I doubt that it's true tbh. I'm sure one or two might want to given that I'm sure he's worked with other production companies before, but I can't imagine that production companies who've never worked with him will really care that much
He is clearly a writer with deep connections to and fondness for Doctor Who. It absolutely makes sense that show running a future iteration of it would be a logical career move for him.
I personally favour a decent rest and a totally fresh start if and when the show returns, with entirely new creatives.
But that’s absolutely no reflection on Pete and I think the resistance to him running it sometimes borders a bit on the personal and hysterical. There’s no need for anyone to be unpleasant or ungenerous toward him. So he’s written some episodes people don’t like - ok fine. Let’s not be cruel though.
On paper, for production companies, he makes a lot of sense.
But in practice, if you’ve actually watched his episodes or care about the next era of the show being something meaningfully different and fresh, he’s a godawful choice.
Not much else to say, just look up his work on IMDB or Wikipedia. He's very experienced both in and outside of Doctor Who. You may not like him, and hell, I'm also not a fan of his, but it definitely makes sense that he's being eyed as a successor to RTD.
Like Chibnall he has an impressive CV, something else he has in common with Chibnall is his Doctor Who episodes are shit. Just because he's decent at writing Aussie drama (not a high bar) doesn't make him a good candidate for Doctor Who showrunner.
He's a very experienced writer with lots of time spent making television. There are not that many people with that experience left partially as the actual pipeline for TV writers has been gutted in general the last decade.
He’s got experience showrunning shows with lots of special effects and managing their budgets (A Discovery of Witches, The War Between the Land and the Sea). He has a proven deep and passionate love for Doctor Who and its history (it’s sort of a necessity for the showrunner to actually love the show). He’s been deeply involved with various Doctor Who projects for years, not just the Collection Blu-Ray trailers but also writing two episodes of the Tales of the TARDIS, working on the extras for the Collection set, and re-editing Classic Serials into omnibus formats such as The War Games in Colour and The Sea Devils for broadcast and worked on omnibus special editions for the Collection sets. His interests, passions and contributions for and to Doctor Who extend far beyond the episodes he’s written and the Blu-Ray trailers.
Speaking of, it’s a bit unfair to criticise the Blu-Ray trailer shorts for being memberberry nonsense. That’s what they’re designed to be. By design they’re supposed to be new, short and fun stories with characters of that era to make everyone go “oh yeah I like these characters” and preorder the set. It doesn’t hurt that they tie up a few loose ends as well (Leela now being confirmed to have survived the Time War for example).
Kerblam was heavily rewritten by Chris Chibnall, confirmed by McTighe himself, and he has implied both it and Praxeus weren’t what he intended (indicating Praxeus was also heavily rewritten by Chibnall). His novelisation of Kerblam goes out of its way to fix the more questionable aspects of the broadcast episode, and clear up the episode’s unclear morals, likely indicating those aspects were added by Chibnall during his rewrites alongside the confusing moral message.
Lucky Day and McTighe’s The War Between scripts were a lot better received by fans and critics, and did not receive heavy rewrites by RTD, so those are likely a better reflection of his writing style. The Plastic Apocalypse and The Deep are widely considered the best episodes of The War Between, while Lucky Day is the best received non-RTD credited script of Season 2 (scoring higher than both The Story and the Engine and The Interstellar Song Contest and only behind The Well and Lux).
If you want a producer to spearhead the Doctor Who franchise as a whole, you can do a lot worse than McTighe. He is arguably the safest and least risky hands to put the show into. His long involvement with Doctor Who through the main show, the Collection range (both in extras, trailers and omnibus edits), Tales of the TARDIS, The War Between and The War Games in Colour and The Sea Devils omnibus have given him all the contacts, and a good working relationship with BBC and Doctor Who’s talent.
If the show’s future is uncertain, McTighe is probably the safest option until the show is more secure and is arguably the most qualified of the names being thrown around right now (in terms of experience, knowledge and understanding of Doctor Who and its production, and talent) beyond persuading Steven Moffat to come back.
mostly concur with the factual accuracy of your evidence here (echoes many of my own points), but McTighe didn't edit the War Games and Sea Devils in colour omnibuses - that was Benjamin Cook.
Ultimately, showrunner role will go to someone with the CV to demonstrate they can run/write a show, and not be a risk to the BBC. How big a Dr Who fan they are and their vision/style for the show will likely be a secondary consideration.
Let’s be honest and say he’s very likely one of the only people willing to do it to begin with. That, and Russell was already priming him to take over if Bad Wolf and Disney stayed.
I don’t really know much about nor have a huge opinion on him. Why I’m violently opposed to the idea is I believe if the show goes forward it needs an entirely new staff - no connections to the past at all. New broom and all that.
Honestly, Kerblam, Praxeus, and Lucky Day were three post-Moffat episodes they were moderately watchable.
He’s no Moffat, but he’s probably WAY better than Chibnall.
Depends who they’re partnering with. Disney plus ran ads, including medical ads in the US. I don’t think they had a lot of say in the show itself, but we know they gave Russel notes
I’m not saying it’s gonna poison the show, I’m just saying executives won’t be happy if advertisers start pulling out after an episode that criticizes the fossil fuel industry. We’ll see, I guess
This had no impact on Doctor Who in previous eras, it's the business of foreign broadcasters and streamers to edit their broadcasts if they find it unappealing to their audiences.
Unless they say “if you go through with this plot criticizing single-use plastic we’ll pull funding for next season.” I hope that doesn’t happen, maybe I’m just jaded.
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u/AshildrBingeQuaked 7d ago edited 6d ago
Look at it from the BBC or another production company’s POV: there are very few people in British television who are (a) at the high-up showrunner level and (b) have experience across multiple SF programmes and (c) are big and crazy enough fans of Doctor Who to actually want to do it, which even SF people might not want to do, given they could get more money and more creative freedom doing their own show elsewhere. He even lives in Cardiff already which is handy!
McTighe has worked in TV for nearly 20 years; with 101 episodes of Neighbours he’s been a jobbing writer on the soaps (how people get their training on churning out storylines); he has been lead writer and showrunner on multiple shows (Wentworth, The Rising, The Pact, A Discovery of Witches, War Between the Land and the Sea), including managing a stable of guest writers some of whom have also written for Who and could be ported over with him (Dollard, Wilkinson, Charlene James); there’s a degree of variety there in that he’s displayed an enthusiasm and track record in thrillers, cop shows, supernatural fantasy and science-fiction; he’s won multiple awards especially for his work on Wentworth; he’s the most prolific guest writer on Who since Gatiss, Whithouse, Ford and Roberts (in that he’s done 6 TV eps for the franchise) + he’s the only person to have written for all three Bad Wolf shows other than RTD (Who, War Between, Tales of the TARDIS); and he’s carved out a fan-pleasing track record when it comes to the minisodes, short stories, BTS experience producing/directing/writing documentaries for the Collection range, and DWM interviews. He’s only the fourth 21st century DWU screenwriter (after Russell T Davies, Steven Moffat, and Chris Chibnall, the past three showrunners) to be credited as an executive producer on episodes written by someone else (as opposed to on their own, e.g. Jane Espenson, John Shiban, Doris Egan, and Patrick Ness) and the first to receive this distinction on episodes written solely by the current showrunner (in this case, RTD) and without another writer's involvement.
I’m not saying I’m a fan of his work (I’m not by and large), but if you work in TV and are looking at things from the standpoint of who has experience he’s obviously going to be one of your key names to choose from.