Whatever your view of the recently curtailed RTD2,
there’s no doubt that the showrunner’s first era was peak Doctor Who. This is
an (occasionally re-edited) overview of that period in the show’s history, originally
penned in 2010 for the paper version of This Way Up. You can see my enthusiasm
and if I’m honest, looking back at this period now, my zeal remains
undiminished. As well as being a fan of the classic series, I feel that the 2005-10 period contains some of the best Doctor Who ever!
Once upon a
time people used to define eras of Doctor
Who by the incumbent Doctor so they would refer to the `Troughton Era` for
example. A bit later, it was the producer who would be given all the credit,
hence the `Hinchliffe Era`. Later still when we knew more about the way the
programme was made; we’d refer perhaps to the Barry Letts / Terrance Dicks Era,
recognising the invaluable creative input of the script editor. Latterly it
reached a point where it seemed you could actually define three distinct Eras
under the aegis of the show’s longest running producer John Nathan Turner. In
fact, it was never even as simple as all of that but one thing we can never be
in doubt about regarding the 2005-10 period of broadcast Doctor Who is that to call it the Russell T Davies Era is totally-
factually- correct.
