2 + 2 =

So…an interesting series of coincidences involving Doctor Who, both on our screens and in our ears, has me putting two and two together. Follow along if you like.

1. Russell T. Davies has been making repeated mentions of not sticking with Doctor Who after its third season.
2. Gary Russell has stepped down as the producer of Big Finish’s rather astonishingly successful Doctor Who audio series, which some folks credit with fueling the Doctor’s return to TV, citing exciting new prospects on the horizon.
3. It’s already been revealed that Doctor Who script editor Helen Raynor has written at least one script for the spinoff series Torchwood; one wonders if she isn’t trying to break out as a writer in her own right (no pun intended) and get out of the script editing biz.
4. Doctor Who has three producers; Phil Collinson appears to oversee the production end of things, Julie Gardener seems to be the producer charged with looking after the budget, and Davies is the creative driving force behind the show, writing scripts and rewriting others’ scripts to some extent.
5. It is therefore, perhaps, not hard to speculate that an incoming script editor could spend a year shadowing Davies before stepping up to the creative shepherd producer role when Davies exits.

One wonders, does one not? Davies is a professed admirer of Big Finish’s audios, and has plundered Big Finish’s back catalog for story ideas on at least two occasions (Dalek, which was a very watered-down version of Rob Shearman’s brilliant Jubilee, and “special thanks” were thrown out to Marc Platt, author of the Cybermen origin story Spare Parts, for Rise Of The Cybermen / The Age Of Steel), and Gary Russell has shown the kind of production sense that has brought fairly big-name guest stars to the Doctor Who audios, and a loyal audience that doesn’t simply consist of diehard, buy-everything-with-the-name-on-it fans.
Just a thought there. Maybe I’m reading too much into a series of coincidences.
And maybe I’m looking at the wrong signs too – after the first episode in 2005, Doctor Who was given a two-year renewal plus two hour-long Christmas specials. After one very successful season with David Tennant driving the TARDIS, not a peep about a fourth season. Though maybe we’re waiting to see how the show does without Billie Piper before going there.
Considering how much I’ve enjoyed Big Finish Doctor Who as produced by Gary Russell, though, I kinda hope I’m not too far from the mark with my predictions.