Daily Inspiration Quote by Sarah Sutton

On its face, Sutton is offering a polite, behind-the-scenes truism about television. Underneath, she is quietly describing the power structure of a long-running franchise: the “star” isn’t just first on the call sheet, they’re the emotional thermostat. “Like any long-running series” is doing softening work here, normalizing what could otherwise sound like a pointed observation about hierarchy. It’s the kind of industry candor that stays friendly by pretending it’s generic.

The specificity is in the implication. Doctor Who is famously elastic - new eras, new Doctors, new tones - but Sutton’s point suggests that elasticity isn’t only in scripts and showrunners. It’s in daily behavior. A lead performer’s temperament can become policy: whether people feel safe to take risks, whether the set runs on nerves or curiosity, whether humor is a relief valve or a weapon. That’s what “set the general tone” signals: morale, pace, even the kind of creative experimentation that a show like Who needs to survive.

Her second sentence is deceptively loaded. “Could be a lot of fun” reads like nostalgia, but “could” also acknowledges variability. Fun is conditional. It depends on leadership and the social microclimate of production - an especially meaningful point for Sutton, who worked during the early 1980s as the show navigated changing expectations, tighter budgets, and an audience that treated the Doctor as more than a character. Sutton’s restraint is the tell: she’s praising good eras while tactfully admitting that not all of them were.