Has anyone else fallen out of love with Doctor Who?

[MattBlack]

It's a sci-fi soap opera, where the same thing happens in slightly different ways, but the Doctor(s) always pull off a miraculous recovery in the last minute. People talk about Star Wars fatigue... I mean, with Dr. Who, where is there left to go?

This is exactly why I called it a day during the Matt Smith era. In Tennant's era alone, you'd had the Doctor save in succession;

• Every person on Earth
• the Earth itself
• all of time
• the entire universe

Then in Smith's era he saved himself from death and started a new Big Bang.

I mean, where do you go after all that? What threat is worse than any of the above? And if the Doctor can fix that, what risk or threat is there really? "Oh some Daleks are around? Yeah, I saved the entire universe from them before when they tried to explode all of reality. They're nothing"

It just got ridiculous. They ramped up the stakes so much that they had nowhere to go, so all they can do now is retcon things. Add onto this Moffat having no ability to write consistently, and the companions suddenly all having to be The Most Important Person In the Universe™ and it just got tedious.

 

[Egon Spengler]

This is exactly why I called it a day during the Matt Smith era. In Tennant's era alone, you'd had the Doctor save in succession;

• Every person on Earth
• the Earth itself
• all of time
• the entire universe

Then in Smith's era he saved himself from death and started a new Big Bang.

I mean, where do you go after all that? What threat is worse than any of the above? And if the Doctor can fix that, what risk or threat is there really? "Oh some Daleks are around? Yeah, I saved the entire universe from them before when they tried to explode all of reality. They're nothing"

It just got ridiculous. They ramped up the stakes so much that they had nowhere to go, so all they can do now is retcon things. Add onto this Moffat having no ability to write consistently, and the companions suddenly all having to be The Most Important Person In the Universe™ and it just got tedious.

I just got sick of there being no real threat. I also got sick of the perpetual "I am the Doctor" speeches. I also got sick of the "I'm amazing! " speeches. I also got sick of the companion boyfriends being doormats. I also got sick of the show revolving more around "special" companions rather than the Doctor. I also got sick of the Doctor being called "You clever boy" every five minutes. The show just turned into a predictable bundle of catch phrases and lame episode endings of "Why didn't I think of this before, I can reroute the blingolblang and pop flip and hit it with my sonic and the day is saved! YAY" UGH.

 

[NakedMoleRat]

Now it’s just a pandering to the show runners political views. “Only idiots carry guns!” etc.

The one that was the most stupid was when Chris Noth played the Trump Wanabee candidate. And the giant spiders were attacking. She scolded him relentlessly for shooting and killing one of them. Talking about how every life is valuable no matter what it is. And then she saves the day by locking them all in a room together, sealing it off, and letting them slowly suffocate!

 

[Vlair]

I really broke when they did the Doctor's Death arc with Matt Smith under Moffat. Where the spacesuited person walks out of the lake and shoots the Doctor at the begging of the season. The rest of the season is a "how do they get around this/who did it" and Moffat made a whole deal about "if you pay attention all the information is there to solve it in the first episode" which if you've seen the season you know isn't true. The ending of that season, and that entire story is so unfulfilling and deus ex machina frustrating that I couldn't really stomach it.

I gave it two more seasons I think from there, because I'm a glutton for punishment, and I liked Matt as the Doctor. I gave up after the first Capaldi season, because while he was actually rather good as the Doctor, the scripts he was getting were just not what I wanted from Doctor who. Moffat has this obsession with writing geniuses, but he clearly can't write smarter people than he is, so his "geniuses" are just magic or nonsense. He did the same thing with Sherlock, and oh my god what was Dracula.

I've been tempted to try it again since Moffat left, but I haven't been able to get up the energy.

 

[Zombie Killer]

I gave up after a couple episodes with Capaldi . Loved it up until then. Loved Tennant and Eccleston. And i think its pathetic if you go to IMDB Eccleston is regulated to the "see full cast" list yet Matt Smith is first in the list. I couldn't take him seriously.

 

[Richard Baker]

Matt Smith got off to a bad intro- chaoticly gulping and spitting random foods does not make a good first impression. He eventually grew into the role and had some great episodes.
I have been rewatching the Tennant era and it is amazing how much better they are over the recent seasons. Story, guest and secondary characters, even lighting and camera work are significantly better

 

[JPH]

sadly, some folks confuse "entertainment" with affirmation of their beliefs; whatever checks their boxes is automatically good.

The free psychiatric analysis *EDIT* for anyone who didn't instantly know Whittaker was going to be BRILLIANT was also a massive turnoff.
They know why they picked her. And hey! I didn't like Sylvester McCoy, either, but at least I watched a few episodes before I came to that conclusion!

If you think she is the "best Doctor, evah!" well, good for you.

...and as the saying goes: Get woke, go broke.

I remember a friend debating the Cloak and Dagger show with someone online who kept saying it was "EXACTLY" like the comic. In the end, that person admitted to never having read the comic but they supported the message...ugh!

Having watched Dr. Who since Pertwee, I question anyone who hasn't seen older episodes but maintains it kept the same "spirit" or, "the new ones are better!" I've seen some old Troughton episodes as well, they were fun. They will never run out of stories, but anything as grand a the Universe falling into chaos in Logopolis to Sharez Jek and his robot army hoarding spectrox, they can do anything, as long as it is done well.

And I get that Dr. Who has a new Doctor, and each one has their quirks, but Capaldi spent too much time acting like a fifth grader who, after eating rum cake, was told it was rum cake, so he starts acting like what he *thinks* is drunk. Oh cool, a guitar and shades, but then falls flat. Whittaker came across like someone trying harder to convince herself more than anyone else.

Supergirl on the CW started off fun as well, but it became a support group for a select mob.

Every week a group of friends EDIT and I get together to watch shows, and now you can't swing a dead cat without racism or some other tired cliche' getting overdone to avoid an actual plot EDIT in a new show. It isn't original, it is lazy.

EDIT-- this was quoting Naked MoleRat's last post in agreement

 

[Zombie Killer]

I think Matts baby face just didnt work for me. Up until then all Doctors we're mature men and his baby face kinda took the Doctor out of it. He was more like an intern.....

 

[Richard Baker]

Colin Baker is the only Doctor I dislike with his always angry, condescending attitude.
Jodi seems to be trying to channel David Tennant with her take on the character, biggest drawback (aside from the stories) was having so many companions that they have little to do.

 

[Strikerkc]

I think my take on Doctor Who these days is that if it's available to watch on a streaming service I have, I'll end up watching it. If I have to get a new service, or buy individual episodes, that's not happening.

 

[masterjedi322]

I think my take on Doctor Who these days is that if it's available to watch on a streaming service I have, I'll end up watching it. If I have to get a new service, or buy individual episodes, that's not happening.

I was making my way through the Tennant seasons on Netflix (USA) when it got pulled. Looks like it’s on HBO Max now...

Although I understand it’s on Netflix in the UK...

Sean

 

[Solo4114]

I haven't watched since the final Capaldi season.

For me, the biggest issues are/were as follows:

1. Moffat was a horrible show runner. I have a hard time deciding whether he or Jon Nathan-Turner was worse for the show. The individual episodes are...you know....fine....I guess....but the season arcs were garbage. He never, ever managed them well. To this day, I honestly cannot remember what the hell happened in any of the seasons, with maybe one or two exceptions, and that's simply because they weren't memorable. They were all emotional punch without any real substance behind it.

2. Where my real decline in interest began was with the second Clara season. It started off really interesting and grounded and I appreciated how Clara seemed torn between her life with the Doctor and her life with Danny. I appreciated how that all wound up costing her. And when she walked away at the end of the season, that would have been a terrific and fitting send-off for her. Plus, I loved Faye Marsay in the Christmas Episode she was in, and I think she would've made a great companion. And then they brought back Clara for a pointless season. I had a really hard time watching that one and giving a crap. Capaldi was better than he had been, but Clara was insufferable. There were some great episodes but they were always undercut because I guess Moffat was sweet on Jenna Coleman or whatever.

3. The Moffat era was also really sloppy and felt lazy and kind of condescending about the whole thing. Like "This is all just a lot of bollocks, yeah? So we're just gonna do whatever." Sonic sunglasses, the Doctor's "shabby chic" look, all of it was just....no thanks, man.

4. The looooooong breaks between seasons made it difficult to keep my interest. And the fact that my cable provider bundled BBC America in a package I didn't want and the Jody season wasn't available on any other service left me just kind of like "Oh well. Guess I'll just go watch old Who."


To be clear, I love the show as a whole and I think it could still come back and be better than ever (they've done it before). But they really need to take stock of what's gone wrong over the last, oh, decade or so, and figure out how to improve it or there's really just no point.

--EDIT--

I also completely forgot I wrote on this thread previously, but hey, apparently my views are pretty consistent!

 

[Richard Baker]

Scary thing is that I do not think they believe anything is wrong with the current show.

This is sort of like how CBS is bring slammed by the fans about they mess tbey made of Star Trek and Disney dropping the ball on their last Star Wars Trilogy. There is a tendency to blame the fans for being close minded for not embracing a poor product...

 

[NakedMoleRat]

Well said.

 

[Cephus]

Scary thing is that I do not think they believe anything is wrong with the current show.

This is sort of like how CBS is bring slammed by the fans about they mess tbey made of Star Trek and Disney dropping the ball on their last Star Wars Trilogy. There is a tendency to blame the fans for being close minded for not embracing a poor product...

This is what happens when you start with an agenda and not the customer in mind. It's why I watch very little these days. It's all agenda-driven, not plot-driven.

 

[AJTaliesen]

I tend to think that agendas are more of a symptom, rather than the cause. The cause is one that has plagued studios from the beginning: The temptation to create backwards.

There was a really great commercial years ago about a board room discussing movie creation. I forget the details, but I remember they talked about the actor, and the poster, and all the things they wanted it to be, then someone asks "What about a story?" and another answers "We'll bang that out over the weekend."

Think of creation following two main paths: 1) We have a story, it's great, and we would like to produce it. and 2) We have an product, let's create a story.

In the second option, the story ends up being enslaved to the "things" the team wants in it. Rather than allowing the story to flow in a natural way, it gets bent around the things. Example: if one character is played by a more famous actor, that character will likely have more impact on the story, even if it doesn't make sense for that to be the case. The story itself can feel like a cobbled together excuse to get from one 'thing' to another that the team wanted on the checklist. For me this is epitomized in the Disney Star Wars trilogy. At times, the story itself feels like little more than a thin excuse to get from one "wouldn't it be cool if..." to another.

Rather than forming a story THEN creating a show, it feels like people create a list of "cool" things or desires, then try to create a story that allows the things to all happen.

 

[cboath]

It's like popular music the last 20 years or so. It's not talent that's the driving factor, it's looks/appearance.

You're supposed to find actors to fit the part, not create parts for the actor.

On Who, i think Solo nails a large part of it. Agenda's aside, sticking on a shelf for randomly absurd extra long periods of time helps nothing. It only serves to drive people away. They're saying now they can do the next season this fall (film it), but it likely doesn't air til '22? Please. It's not going to take 12-16 months of post. If anything, you'd think the BBC would rush it on the air in the current situation as there's nothing else on the shelf for them to put out in the interim. But, 12, 16, 24 month breaks just make more and more people say screw it. There's a difference between needing the time and just being a jerk. They cross the jerk line a good ways back. The longer and more inexplicable your breaks the more people fade away. Attention spans these days are as short as they've ever been and going 2 years or more between seasons might as well be cancellation.

 

[ForbiddenOnion]

Doctor Who, and Star Trek for that matter, have both gotten so far away from the ideas and stories that first caught fan's attention. Doctor Who isn't just poorly written now, it has become the antithesis of what it used to be. The Doctor's character as written by Chibnall now feels like a weird approximation of someone's idea of Doctor Who. The plots revolving around things like the Doctor HELPING a giant opressive corporation? Seriously? And the weird racist undertones between her and The Master are just too hard to ignore.

Jodie is a phenomenal actress and it saddens me to see her tenure being hallmarked by the worst writing the show has seen since it's return.

 

[Richard Baker]

I tend to think that agendas are more of a symptom, rather than the cause. The cause is one that has plagued studios from the beginning: The temptation to create backwards.

There was a really great commercial years ago about a board room discussing movie creation. I forget the details, but I remember they talked about the actor, and the poster, and all the things they wanted it to be, then someone asks "What about a story?" and another answers "We'll bang that out over the weekend."

Think of creation following two main paths: 1) We have a story, it's great, and we would like to produce it. and 2) We have an product, let's create a story.

In the second option, the story ends up being enslaved to the "things" the team wants in it. Rather than allowing the story to flow in a natural way, it gets bent around the things. Example: if one character is played by a more famous actor, that character will likely have more impact on the story, even if it doesn't make sense for that to be the case. The story itself can feel like a cobbled together excuse to get from one 'thing' to another that the team wanted on the checklist. For me this is epitomized in the Disney Star Wars trilogy. At times, the story itself feels like little more than a thin excuse to get from one "wouldn't it be cool if..." to another.

Rather than forming a story THEN creating a show, it feels like people create a list of "cool" things or desires, then try to create a story that allows the things to all happen.

I forget which of the Tom Cruise MI films it was, but the suits wanted an underwater vault break in scene. They even designed and built the set for it but had no idea how it was supposed to fit into the story or even what the reason for doing this scene was. All of that was thrown together on the fly as they were filming the movie.

 

[Solo4114]

I can't speak to "agenda" issues, having not seen the recent series, but in general I don't have a problem with those. What I have a problem with is mostly structural.

So, for example, you have the breakneck pace of episodes where Stuff Happens!!! With Excited Voices!!! And it's all thrilling while you're watching, and then it's done and you have no idea what the hell happened in the episode. None of that allows time for the story to breathe, or for the characters to really demonstrate who they are, which means the characters become caricatures, very one-note. That makes it a lot harder to connect with them, which makes it a lot harder to give a damn about them or what happens to them, so the Stuff Happening ends up only being made important by fast camera-work, and intense music, and, of course, the Excited Voices.

All of that means that what you have is merely the simulation of an exciting, engaging story, and not the real thing. Rather than do the heavy lifting that good writing does, the show goes for the cheap and easy approach that merely apes mechanically the processes that generate real emotion in the audience.

In other words, it's the sci-fi adventure-story equivalent of a horror movie jump scare where a cat leaps out of a cupboard combined with an orchestra hit (or just the strings, maybe).

Now, admittedly, the characters from old school Who are a bit pantomime themselves, and in many cases, were pretty poorly written (Adric, Teela, the 5th Doctor's other companions, etc.). But in the 2005 and on era, the characters felt pretty well fleshed out and interesting, at least during RDM's tenure. Moffat...man, I dunno. His writing just got more and more sloppy as he became showrunner, and the stories and characters both degraded in quality.

None of that had to do with whatever agenda was in place.