Doctor Who: 10 Writers We Want To See Return

The first of our three one-and-done writers on this list, Catherine Tregenna cut her teeth on the first series of Torchwood in 2006 before writing Series 9’s The Woman Who Lived nine years later.

While Tregenna’s Torchwood and Doctor Who work is pretty subdued and small-scale (and let’s not talk about the fire-breathing lion monster), she absolutely excels at character pieces. In fact, her first Torchwood episode Out Of Time sums it up perfectly: “There’s no enemy to fight, no puzzle to solve”. And both Out Of Time and Captain Jack Harkness stand out amongst the first series as not leaning on gore and sex (well, that much) to prop themselves up as adult drama.

And while her Torchwood episodes are the ones that do quite a bit of emotional heavy lifting, The Woman Who Lived manages to keep things pretty light when it’s not focusing on Ashildr’s past. Though a comedian guest starring as a man doing an impromptu stand-up routine can have that effect.

It seems you can’t have Doctor Who without a monster these days, but some of the best episodes are the ones that focus on character, something which plays right into Tregenna’s very capable hands. And now that Chris Chibnall (Torchwood’s showrunner) is about to get hold of the keys to the Tardis, another Tregenna script polished by him could end up being a very solid episode.