One of the next episodes of Doctor Who with Ncuti Gatwa will feature the Beatles… without their music. But this is not an obstacle for Russell T. Davies, the showrunner.
Fans of the series know it: travel in time and space in Doctor Who very often take us into the historical past of the Earth. This is how the Doctor was able to meet Vincent Van Gogh, Marie-Antoinette, Shakespeare, Agatha Christie, among others. The new season 1 of the series with Ncuti Gatwa, which arrives in May 2024 on Disney+, will be no exception.
From now on, the titles of the 8 episodes of this season are known:
- Space Babies (written by Russell T Davies, directed by Julie Anne Robinson)
- The Devil’s Chord (written by Russell T Davies, directed by Ben Chessell)
- Boom (written by Steven Moffat – yes! –, directed by Julie Anne Robinson)
- 73 Yards (written by Russell T Davies, directed by Dylan Holmes Williams)
- Dot and Bubble (written by Russell T Davies, directed by Dylan Holmes Williams)
- Snape (written by Kate Herron and Briony Redman, directed by Ben Chessell)
- The Legend of Ruby Sunday (written by Russell T Davies, directed by Jamie Donoughue)
- Empire of Death (written by Russell T Davies, directed by Jamie Donoughue)
In this list, part of the scenario of The Devil’s Chord is already known: the Beatles will be present. But you won’t hear Beatles music there at any time. A problem that the showrunner quickly turned in his favor, from a storyline point of view.
Beatles music costs too much even for the BBC
The BBC faced the same obstacle as all other productions of the genre: the rights to integrate the Beatles’ music into a series are too expensive to acquire. You have to do without it. “ I knew instantly that we could never play Beatles songs on screen because the copyright is too expensive », Explains Russell T. Davies in an interview for Empire.
“It became the whole scenario”
But, as a good showrunner Doctor Who where everything is possible even if it twists our brains, he then had an idea: “ So I asked myself, ‘How do you do an episode about the Beatles without Beatles music?’ And that became the whole scenario. » Clearly, the very principle of legal rights around music will serve as a structure for this adventure.
Another motivation was added, behind this episode: the intergenerational transmission of the same cultural base, in the field of music. “ There’s this young director, Sam Arbor, who I mentored for a while, and when I told him I was coming back to Doctor Who, this 21-year-old said to me, ‘Oh my god, yes. I had a TARDIS, I would go back in time to see the Beatles record their first album. And I thought, for a 21-year-old to say that, there must be something to dig into that idea. »
It is therefore very easy to understand that Russell T. Davies managed to transform a legal problem into a potentially brilliant story idea. But we don’t know more – fortunately for the surprise – about how this second episode will unfold, and how we will be able to meet the Beatles without hearing their songs. The first two episodes will be broadcast at once, on May 11, 2024, so verdict very soon.
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