72 Hour rewrite: Doctor Who - Space Babies
Hello, hello.
Hello, Stonehenge!
Etcetera.
I love Doctor Who. Always have. Always will. It’s my ride-or-die. My life would be a miserable place without that madman with a box. It’s the reason I’m a writer today. I was a child that spent a lot of time writing ‘first chapters’, and giving up before taking it any further. Then, in 2010, David Tennant and Russell T. Davies both left the show, and in my grief I wrote a TV pilot to bring them both back. Sad, I know, but I was 13.
Anyway, you’re not here to read about me and why I love Doctor Who. Just know that I do.
Recently, I rewatched ‘Space Babies’, and read the script (available to download here and in the BBC Writer’s library). What I found was a script that seemed to have been written on commission, rather than out of love for the show. The word “because” and derivatives of it appear 18 times… That’s more than just character speech patterns, that script editing on a tight timescale, if at all. It’s exposition on a scale that would drive even the dullest audience to distraction.
The pacing was all squiffy as well, like each 10 page section had been written weeks apart with only loose notes to remember what came before, or after, depending on the chronology.
Obviously, this episode had to do A LOT. There were probably big House of Mouse shaped demands that had to be squeezed in to support this episode being the launch of a series for fans AND a soft launch of the franchise for Disney audiences. But GOD it’s ham-fisted. A bit of creative oversight and another set of eyes could have really made this episode something special.
Now, I’m NOT saying that what I’ve written is better. I’m not that stupid. Some of my dialogue is downright BAD, and the style of directions is a poor merging of my own style and Russell’s. The point of this was to highlight a different approach to the same story. As I only gave myself 72 hours to write it, the surface of this script is basically identical to the one available on BBC Writer’s. The difference comes in structuring, dialogue, and exposition tweaks. I’ve tried to put a bit more meat on the bones of Ruby’s character, shifted around some of the lore exposition, and tried to use more visual cues than audio throughout.
But enough of me wittering on. If you’d like to read my version of “Space Babies”, you can do so here!
