Why There Won’t Be a Doctor Who/Sherlock Crossover

Katie Gribble is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

Doctor Who and Sherlock will never have an official crossover episode says show runner and writer for both series Steven Moffat, but why?

For many fans, the opportunity to have a canon Doctor Who/Sherlock episode would certainly be a dream come true and there is a lot of support and enthusiasm for the idea.If we take into consideration the popularity of the WHOLOCK – Sherlock meets The Doctor! video posted on YouTube by the rather amazing John Smith. Fans praised it and it continues to garner a great deal of attention from fans around the world, clocking up over 4.5 million views in the two years since its release. So if it’s popularity, at least on announcement and broadcast, is guaranteed, why will this never happen?

In an interview in Metro, Steven Moffat explains how both shows, focussing more specifically on Doctor Who, have their own ideas to explore. With series 8 focussing on rather large and serious concepts, from the Doctor’s personal sense of morality to what happens when we die, Moffat explains how Doctor Who has its own central issues to investigate before adding another hugely successful and complex show to the mix.

One of the things I find interesting about [The Doctor] is what he’s really like compared to what everybody thinks he is. He has this great aspiration to be this man known as the Doctor who does the right thing and is never cruel and never cowardly — but we watch the show…It’s all the frailties that make him interesting. People view him either as a great hero or a great avenger or a mighty warrior, and we know he isn’t. He’s a man who’s got a time machine, and he wants to go everywhere and see everything; he just wants to have fun… He’s just somebody whose compassion is so boundless that when he encounters cruelty or tyranny, he can’t help but fight it. But he’s always a passer-by, and he always becomes the last man standing. But that’s not his agenda, he’s not in his head a hero.

There is so much to be explored in the Doctor Who universe just focussing on the central character and I think that has a much wider scope than constricting the story for the purpose of a one off special with another show whose style is so vastly different. The great thing about Doctor Who is that it can look into anything and go anywhere with the characters meeting who they want. But another great thing about that freedom is that you don’t have to. The Doctor may be all about gallivanting around the universe, but he’s also about having tea with the Queen and watching history just happen in front of him.

Whereas with Sherlock, the introduction of the Doctor and all that he brings with him into the show would totally dominate because as Moffat says, it would completely change the parameters in which Sherlock operates.

The problem with crossing over “Doctor Who” is the impact you have on the other show. [With Sherlock]…where’s Sherlock at the end of that? He’s just learned there is intelligent life in the universe, and time travel is possible — he must now factor this into any deduction he makes in the future. Did Sherlock live through those Dalek invasions? Why doesn’t he consider the possibility that the murderer might have had a TARDIS?

Indeed, if Sherlock had been a part of the same universe, don’t you think Sherlock would have noticed the significant number of alien invasions and then not done anything about it?

Sadly for fans of both shows, it appears that they will be remaining separate, at least for the foreseeable future. For now at least, our imaginations can run wild!

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