Doctor Who: Neil Gaiman Wants to Write an Episode for Jodie Whittaker
Neil Gaiman hopes to return to Doctor Who's universe to write an episode for Jodie Whittaker as [...]
Neil Gaiman hopes to return to Doctor Who's universe to write an episode for Jodie Whittaker as the Thirteenth Doctor. Gaiman has two Doctor Who episodes to his name, "The Doctor's Wife" and "Nightmare in Silver," (both of which can now be found on HBO Max) as well as the short story "Nothing O'Clock." Each of those stories featured Matt Smith's Eleventh Doctor. This year, as part of Doctor Who's coronavirus pandemic lockdown releases, Gaiman wrote a three-minute epilogue story that had Arthur Darvill returning as companion Rory Williams. Speaking to Digital Spy, Gaiman says that restricting his Doctor Who contributions to the Matt Smith era isn't intentional.
"Everything to do with anything about Doctor Who is always about time," Gaiman says. "I love The Doctor. I think Jodie Whittaker is a fabulous Doctor. On the one hand, I'd love to write for her, but on the one hand, I really, really, really wanted to write something for Peter Capaldi, and never got there because I was writing and making Good Omens through the Peter Capaldi years. So, you never know. With luck, I'll write something for Jodie, and if it isn't for Jodie, maybe it'll be the next Doctor down the line."
Gaiman says that he's happy that he got to return to Doctor Who for his contributions to the lockdown programming. "I got [to] indulge my inner-Doctor Who fanboy during lockdown twice now," he says. "First time, we did a tweet-along of 'The Doctor's Wife,' and I wrote a three-minute bit for Arthur Darvill to do, and that was wonderful, called 'Rory's Story.'
"Then, I was asked to do a short story for a lockdown anthology for Children in Need, and I was asked if I would do something with my character The Corsair, who had shown up dead in 'The Doctor's Wife.' I got to write a Corsair story, and it's a sort of glorious, mad piece of fan fiction. It was marvelous getting to write it, and getting to have a Doctor Who in it, and everything."
Gaiman has been hoping to write for Whittaker for years. He said something similar back in 2018.
"If you examine my DNA and you go in deep enough, with a good enough microscope, you're gonna see a TARDIS, with a little light blinking on the top!" Gaiman said. "So the idea of writing for Jodie, or for her successor, whoever she/he/they happen to be, is... yeah, it's Doctor Who! You can't say no."
Doctor Who returns with a holiday special during the 2020 holiday season.
Photo by Gary Miller/FilmMagic
