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The Doctor Who screenwriter Russell T Davies has said he has no time for “online warriors” who claim the show is too woke.
Speaking to BBC Radio 2, the Welsh writer – who was also behind the hit series Queer As Folk and It’s a Sin – said: “What you might call diversity, I just call an open door.”
The sci-fi series returned to the BBC last week with Ncuti Gatwa again playing the Doctor and Varada Sethu joining him as his companion. It marks the first time the two leads have both been played by minority ethnic actors.
Jodie Whittaker became the first female Doctor in 2017 under the previous head writer, Chris Chibnall, and Gatwa became the first black actor to play the TV lead of Time Lord in 2023.
“Someone always brings up matters of diversity,” Davies said on the Radio 2 programme Doctor Who: 20 Secrets from 20 Years. “And there are online warriors accusing us of diversity and wokeness and involving messages and issues.
“And I have no time for this. I don’t have a second to bear [it]. Because what you might call diversity, I just call an open door.”
When asked whether he wrote the show’s diverse themes consciously, he said: “I don’t even know if it’s conscious. That’s life, and I think it’s the only way to write.”
He said it would be harder to write scripts with “a narrow window” of references. “Why limit yourself? Why breathe in the exhaust fumes? Why be toxic?” he said. “Come over here where the life and light and air and sound is.”
Sethu, who plays the Doctor’s new companion Belinda Chandra, addressed comments about the show’s perceived “wokeness” in an interview with the Radio Times.
“I just think we’re doing the right thing if we’re getting comments like that,” she said. “Woke just means inclusive, progressive, and that you care about people. And as far as I know, the core of Doctor Who is kindness, love and doing the right thing.”
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Gatwa told the Radio Times that the two actors taking the lead roles indicated “progress, in terms of how we reflect the societies that we live in”.
Rumours have surrounded the show for several weeks, with unconfirmed reports suggesting that Gatwa may leave and the BBC may axe Doctor Who. The BBC has said only that any decision on a new series would be made after the current one ends.
