Here is my pitch for kickstarting the new era of Doctor Who
I know i know, done to death but I have an idea of how to reintroduce doctor who for a new era. Let's mix an Unearthly Child and Season 10's The Pilot
Forget everything from the past. Time skip. Our audience insert character is a graduate student who starts to develop a crush on his PI, an eccentric mysterious woman with quirky fashion sense and an all star at history (not Billie Piper).
Its one sided but our boy is smitten. We dont see much of her except through his point of view. She's always going off in the middle of lectures or one on one appointments for inexplicable reasons.
Until one day, our audience insert is in the library going over his data for his graduate thesis. He notices his data doesn't always add up. Slight changes in history appears when he swears it wasnt there before.
He goes to his PI and she's aware and is "looking into it."
Our guy is skeptical. It just doesn't make any sense. He wants to take a load off and goes to an <insert important contemporaneous to new series release date> event (he is a massive history nerd and wants to go to events he identifies as a potential historic moment) and he notices something strange. A potato man is seen trying to alter historical event. He follows him, gets made, and almost is killed but there goes his PI smashing the potato man with a hammer. She says "Sontarons, always perverting the course of human history."
She takes him out for drinks afterwards (not because she likes him, but because he saw something he shouldn't) and tries to debrief him. He admits he likes her. She rebuffed him, for now (I can go either way if they develop a Rose/Doctor relationship) and says "what if I can help you with your thesis and you can be sure that the data won't change?"
He says of course. She asks if he can give her a lift home. He obliges. She directs him way out of town to an old telephone police box. She says that's her. Hes confused. She turns to him and states: "you can either leave and continue with your life or you can follow me. If you follow me, the world -- no, the universe, all of time of space will never be the same. You might die, you might lose your mind. Are you sure?"
He hesitates and goes "well, I really want to do finish my thesis."
"Well, come along...what is your last name again?"
She leads him into the TARDIS. Cue reaction. Cue the "bigger on the inside" bit She reveals herself.
"You may know me as Doctor Smith. Smith is the false bit. Call me Doctor, wanderer of the fourth dimension. I'm countless years old, one might say im timeless. I'm an alien. This is the TARDIS; Time and Relative Dimensions in Space, coined by my granddaughter. If you are looking for primary sources, they are all outside of that door. Want to fix history from Sontaran meddling, learn first hand what you are writing about?
After some light q&a, he agrees. "Well let's go then, all of time and space."
Series will go like this: dude and Doctor has to stop in every once and awhile back to the university. Our audience insert has got a semblance of a social life and even a romantic interest. Doctor still has to deal with random stuff (we can sprinkle in some references from New and Classic Who regarding what shes been doing when shes not travelling with companion) as they try to get to the bottom of the Sontaran plot. However, it may be that the Sontarans are being tricked into doing the bidding of the big bad who may be wanting to change history to achieve a goal. The Doctor and companion have some work to do.
Companion will be mostly the star of the show. The Doctor is a borderline Co-star as we start to uncover new mysteries. I'd imagine once companion get his thesis written we can shift to the Doctor's point of view and go on from there. There are a ton of ways we can take this, from being employed by UNIT again to teach or an arc where she finally leaves the university to travel uninhibited once more. Its a nod to all starting points thus far rolled into one.
TL;DR: POV from companion for most of the series as a graduate student trying to be a doctor himself. Doctor is his PI on earth trying to investigate a possible Sontaran plot trying to change history. Shenanigans ensue. Slow drip New and Classic Who continuity as we go. After initial companion leaves, we shift to Doctor's point of view.
What do you guys think, good idea?