Toby Whithouse has revealed that he would’ve loved to be the showrunner on Doctor Who, but apparently wasn’t approached for the job.

Toby has written a number of episodes, including School Reunion, A Town Called Mercy, and Under the Lake/ Before the Flood. He even appeared in Peter Capaldi’s final episode, Twice Upon A Time.

Whithouse said:

“I’d love to have done it. I really would – it’s such a perfect show.

“I’m so thrilled to have been a contributor on it. Whenever I would do an episode, I’d tell my kids and they would always ask ‘can you make it scary?’ because they genuinely loved that. It’s a very kind of safe introduction to being scared, that fearful adrenaline.

“It’s very lovely that there was a portion of the fandom that were having those conversations about the idea of me as showrunner. I can absolutely say those conversations were never happening at the BBC!

“I don’t really think I was ever in contention, but I’d really love to have done it. It always made me laugh when somewhere like the Daily Mail wrote ‘Doctor Who is too scary, it’s frightening.’ Children loved it being scary – that’s why they watched it!”

This comes as something of a surprise to at least this DWC writer: having been showrunner on Being Human, Whithouse feels a perfect fit for Doctor Who, and it seemed like Chris Chibnall took on the job somewhat begrudgingly, with certain conditions including a set number of series spread over a few years and the loss of the Christmas specials. (I know Thirteenth Doctor fans will disagree with that, but hey, that’s how I felt about the past few years.)

Nonetheless, Chibnall obviously loves Doctor Who and was committed to it; it just feels weird that Toby wasn’t even approached. And again, speaking personally, Whithouse is a favourite of mine — The God Complex is especially beautiful, but I loved all his episodes, so would’ve loved to see where he took the series.

Still, with Russell T Davies back in charge, you have to wonder if Toby will be back for another story…