Is it just me, or have other Doctor Who fans also simply finally abandoned the show, badly disappointed and bored by the last couple of series?
I can’t stand the shouty attention-deficit styling, the constant bloody screwdriving, the anodyne “companions” who are like a cheapskate crew on a Radio 2 afternoon show making asinine interjections every two minutes, the over-busy direction and the lack of a decent story arc lasting more than 40 minutes start to finish. You’d think it was a kid’s show for the ADHD generation. It’s really gone to pot lately, and I can’t be bothered anymore.
Anyone else resorting to watching elsewhere when it’s on these days?
I’m afraid we are loving it. JW is really growing into the role, The Master is back!!, there’s another Doctor!!!???, the Timeless Child????
All companions are a bit annoying, that’s partly their job.
We find it an really enjoyable show.
I lost interest during the Capaldi era, and nothing in the last series tempted me back in. This one is pulling out more of the stops it appears, by leaning into the canon. I heard the chatter about last week’s and watched the highlights. There was a clever reuse of (other people’s previous) ideas, but the most revealing aspect is that Jo Martin stamped more authority on her role in five minutes than Whittaker had managed to date. The writing doesn’t help (Chibnall’s ear for dialogue is appalling), and while I’m sure JW is a great actor and means well, sadly I don’t think she’s hit the mark yet.
Then again, she seems popular with younger fans, especially girls, so maybe the show just has a new audience now, and who’s to say they’re not entitled to it for a change. For adults, there are plenty of better series.
“For adults, there are plenty of better series.”
Traitor.
The show belongs to those who watched it from Episode 1, and all the little snotty nosed bastards can sod right off and watch their own bloody channel.
Remember when it was Tom Baker, Sarah-Jane/Leela, a white console room with roundels and you were (well, I was) 7 years old? Once you accept it’s never going to be as good as that again, it’s easier to let go.
Not me, Foxy.
JW makes a great Doctor, and for me it’s unmissable. (Although I listen to The Archers first, and then catch up with Tardis stuff on the iPlayer.)
Nope, out of the Moffatt nightmare at last. Probably the best it’s been for five years or so. And if you ever want to complain about the current crop of companions then just remember Clara Oswald and hold your tongue.
Most importantly remember it’s a kids’ show. I have as much fun as anyone else cheering when Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart or whoever shows up, but there is no justification for skewing the show towards middle aged men at the expense of 8-12 year old kids.
That said, from my middle aged man perspective this series has been much better than what I saw of the last, which struck me as a series of po faced lectures with a bit of drama tacked on. I also don’t think the Scooby Gang of companions works. There are too many of them and not enough for them to do. I haven’t seen tonight’s yet (I’m saving it until after I do the washing up as soon as I have hit send on this) but loved the first couple of this latest run. For me it has its mojo back for the first time since the earlier Matt Smith stories.
Right! Chores done – I’m going in!
Well I thought was pretty great. Alien spaceships, adventure, humour, suspense, double crossing, huge messages about environmental damage, self sacrifice and grabbing life with both hands, and all packaged into a breathless 50 minutes.
It went downhill badly after Patrick Troughton.
Too true, loathed Pertwee in the role. Started watching again when Tom Baker took on the role.
Do the companions in this series now live at home and get picked up when an adventure beckons?
But Peter Cushing was the only Dr Who, wasn’t he? (You mean it’s been on telly too?)
In that he was called ‘Dr Who’ rather than The Doctor in the credits -yes
(But what about The War Machines *snip*)
I’m not enjoying it as much as I have other seasons.
My standout fave was Matt Smith, and there just feels to have a slight fall off in quality since then. Chibnall seems to be going through the motions plot wise, and while I would never say Clara Oswald was the best of companions, there is nothing compelling either individually or collectively about the current set.
And as for last week’s stunt…
No pleasing everybody.
Enjoying it so far.
Since it returned, the series with Chris Eccleston was good, with one or two excellent episodes, David Tennant came in, the shows were excellent and I thought nobody would better him (I’m not including the doctors from the original run, where Tom Baker wins, hands down), but then Matt Smith did. Unfortunately, as good as Smith was, by the end his performance was papering over some very poor stories.
The biggest disappointment was Capaldi. Unlike the two that preceded him, you could see him acting and it all looked, I don’t know, awkward. And what was it with that guitar? It didn’t help that by now the stories were awful. It was a breath of fresh air when Jodie Whittaker came in, and it was great that some was filmed up here, but like Capaldi, initially you could see her acting and it took a while for her to settle into the role. I’ve always liked her in other things and didn’t actually realise she was from just a few miles away from where we live. After the first few shows, however, the quality of the stories has dropped off and we’re now watching it more out of loyalty, if I’m honest,
I’m also a little fed up with all the episodes with the historical figures. This rarely happened in the original series. But it seems every other week they are meeting famous figures from the past. What’s wrong with just having monsters and strange worlds (that all looked like quarries)?
Completely agree with your first paragraph.
Capaldi had his moments, but the writing became dully predictable and uninspiring.
Can’t say I’ve enjoyed TW* at all; crew members completely redundant, stories rushed and hackneyed, levering in of virtue signalling statements every bloody episode.
If they return to Lee Moor or Snozzle for some proper china clay quarrying action I might pay attention again for a moment, but until then I’m afraid that for us the show has become a convenient slot during which we can watch Countryfile on the green button and still have our dinner at the correct time.
*Token Woman – see virtue signalling
Yeah, a kids show and I haven’t watched since I was one. Actually, a friend of mine works on the show providing subtitles, at least in Canada. I saw him on New Year’s Eve and he had just finished doing them for the Jan 1st episode. Asked me if I was interested in spoilers, I replied in the negative.
One is a bit of a young age to fully appreciate the nuance of the story to be fair, not to mention traumatisering.
I think Jodie Whittaker is doing a pretty good job as Doctor, a couple of annoying tics aside, she can really act. The stories are better this series than last year’s lot, most of which were along the lines of ‘And THIS is why racism/fascism/warmongering etc is wrong, kids’. The need for three companions mystifies me, though. One (or two at a push) would be enough, they’re only there to have space mumbo-jumbo explained to them/us most of the time.
Loved it when it was brought back and throughout Eccleston/Tennant/Smith years. Generally enjoyed through Capaldi’s time, although Moffat was gradually getting lost up his rear end with incomprehensible plots. All in favour of a new show runner and a woman doctor.
BUT. I wasn’t sure JW would be a good choice for the darker moments in the show. Me and the Mrs began watching her first series but lost interest after a handful of episodes; the stories were clunky, JW’s performance was too much of the jolly big sister, and felt it was tilted heavily towards the kids’ audience. We can debate whether that was a good or bad thing but I’m sure it’s lost plenty of people who had been loyal viewers. At the beginning of this series we thought maybe we should give it another try, but haven’t been bothered.
Ah, thank God, another sane Whovian.
Just get the Daleks back. Only reason to watch it.
I love me a bit of mindless extermination and universe domination, although since the writers made them develop self awareness, even they have became a bit weedy.
When Daleks exterminated pesky life forms (of any species) at the drop of a hat and without compunction or any hesitation other than to occasionally scream “EXTERMINATE!” they were shaking-behind-the-sofa brilliant.
Anyone who knows the orginal back story (Skaro – two intelligent races – all-out neutron bomb warfare – exoskeletal monocular survival suits – ugly spindly limbed internal beasties – loss of all empathy – steel walled cities surrounded by jungle and swamp full of ghastly mutated killer creatures – gentle Thals reduced by radiation, persecution and tyranny to a miserable survival level existence) knows that their military grade inhumanity was their USP.
The Daleks’ design is one of those things that always stays modern, in the same way the Fender Stratocaster does. Maybe because unlike other sci-fi robots, they didn’t try to make them look like mechanical people. (I accept that technically they may not be robots but what you said above). They always stood out from the other villains and the cheap scenery which dominated before CGI – the only ones that seemed genuinely scary.
Two issues for me. Firstly, they’ve moved it further back to being a Kid’s show (which is fine) but it’s gone too far that way now and I’m struggling with it, tbh. I will admit that both Mrs A and myself groaned when the “current theme” came up yesterday. Too predictable.
The other issue is that the writing is just terrible a lot of the time, especially the dialogue. Wooden, too much exposition and, JW and Bradley Walsh apart, it’s making it hard for some of the actors to shine. Some of this may be just a consequence of point one above, of course. Given Chris Chibnall’s pedigree with Broadchurch etc, the man can clearly write.
Having said all that, the episode two weeks ago (two Doctors) was really good so perhaps there’s hope yet.
“the writing is just terrible a lot of the time”
Nail. Head.
Agree entirely. This season the unthinkable happened: my 14yo son, who had been a fan since he was about three, has abandoned the show. And this isn’t a growing up thing either, as he is visibly pained by this and still watches old episodes. His room is still filled with Dr Who bits and bobs. And it isn’t a female doctor thing either, as he was fully on board after the pilot episode.
My opinion, formed from osmosis of occasional snippets rather than active watching, is that the quality of writing has been in a death spiral since the latter half of David Tennant’s tenure. Quality on Who has always been iffy, but a few good stories each season makes it worthwhile.
But the appalling quality of stories over the past five years makes me fundamentally question the content creation process at the BBC. Just think: what we are seeing has been storyboarded, written, edited, approved, rehearsed, recorded, edited again etc etc before it gets near us, and it is awful. The stories seem like the output of HR and marketing graduate interns, all trying to out-clever each other while not actually having anything interesting to say.
To much soap opera, too much smug internal referencing, too many stories on Earth, too much messaging, too much exposition etc. Give me back the Doctor on a wobbly planet rallying the subjugated populace (all eight of them) to rise against their incompetent overlords.
Totally on the money. My TARDIS still has what look like white lego bricks from Land Of The Giants on the wall, and there’s an unsettling otherworldly sucking noise when the perspex thingy goes up and down. Oh, and there’s no bloody Sonic Screwdriver available that opens every lock, breaks every password, pops the lid on a can of beans and does the hard Sudoku for you. This is puerile Time Lording for the benefit of the attention deficient, and it needs to stop.
Your son is where I am.
Whitaker is clearly a good actress, but Chibnall has no ear for Who.
You appear to have mistaken Dr. Who for a programme whose target audience is sophisticates with the TV critic gene. I don’t think it is.
When I was 8 I was convinced that that was EXACTLY what it is, and I remain so.
Have to say I had no real problem with the rest of this season or the previous few, but last week’s one was rather shite.
I don’t watch it, but she’s good looking isn’t she.
A really rarity in 2020.
If anyone has *anything* to say about Jodie Whittaker, they can say it to me first.
Even she cannot make a silk purse from a sow’s ear.
She isn’t given that much to work with. As I say above I like this new series, but The Doctor spends too much of her time looking astonished and explaining the brilliant insight she has just had.
If she has to refer to her companions as “fam” one more time, I may very well scream.
I’m going to give it a bit more of a chance to get into its stride but it’s a bit telling that my kids have let the episodes pile up to watch at some point, rather than insist it is watched immediately ( as in the Matt Smith years ) . Might be an age thing, though.
The thing that gets me about this series is how much the assistants get used to their situation. After episode one, they become almost casual about it all – asking where they are going next. Although the Doctor is a friend to the companions, every now and then I think it is worth reminding the viewers and the companions that the Doctor is a time lord -just as ruthless as the Daleks and has enormous, unfathomable power. The Doctor will allow some situations to unfold that are heartbreakingly unfair and sad in the same way God does i.e. an unexplained master plan.
The assistant is basically us. The person the Doctor explains things to – even if most of the time most of it goes zinging over our heads. Jodie Whitaker is really good at the chaotic, making-it-up-as-we-go-along Doctor but we the viewers need to know at some level that none of it is down to luck and the Doctor actually does control everything.