Guest Feature: Why Doctor Who Is No Longer the Show That I Fell in Love With

Feature article by guest contributor Cameron Smith

Let it be known that the time of death was 9th December 2023, at approximately 7:13pm. We believe the patient had been suffering from ill health for several years. The precise cause of death was determined to be a blast of concentrated electrical energy to the heart.

Jokes aside, I am indeed writing this article with a broken heart. Yes, a show called “Doctor Who” still exists and has at least two more series on the horizon. However, I fear that it is no longer the show I fell in love with as a child. Before I continue, I would like to emphasise that I am expressing my personal opinions here. I’m sure many people will disagree with me and will continue to enjoy watching the show. However, I think this may be the end of the road for me.

When Doctor Who returned in 2005, I was hooked immediately. I loved the show for its imagination, for its ability to explore anywhere in time and space, for its ability to perpetually reinvent itself, and for the fact that anything could happen. Yet, in an ironic and cruel twist of fate, these aspects are the very things that have ruined the show for me.

Breaking the Rules

Although many wonderful and crazy new things could happen in Doctor Who, it still had its foundations:

• Rule #1: the Doctor was a Time Lord from another planet.
• Rule #2: the Doctor didn’t want to spend his whole life on one planet, so he stole a TARDIS and ran off to explore the universe.
• Rule #3: Time Lords could live for hundreds or thousands of years, and could regenerate up to 12 times.
• Rule #4: on rare occasions, time travel allowed him to meet his past and future selves, but such events needed to be avoided to protect the fabric of time and space.
• Rule #5: although the show could dabble in other genres, it was ultimately a science fiction show. Aside from these basic rules, anything could happen.

Unfortunately, some writers have taken advantage of these relaxed rules to do whatever they want. The 1996 TV movie tried to establish that the Doctor was actually half-Time Lord and half-human. Chris Chibnall tried to establish that the Doctor was actually a being of unknown origin, and could regenerate an infinite number of times. Upset by the demystification of the Doctor’s origins and changes to established canon, many fans decried these changes.

When Russell T Davies revived Doctor Who, he created the Time War as a plot device to simplify the show’s backstory for a new generation of viewers. It created mystery and intrigue around the Doctor. Best of all, it added to the canon without actually changing it. It didn’t break any of the rules. However, Davies has now gone and broken Rules #4 and #5.

The Limited Potential of Bi-Generation

Davies has once again added to Doctor Who canon with the advent of bi-generation. Establishing it as something that was previously only a myth to the Time Lords, this doesn’t change established lore in any way. A few years ago, I may have actually enjoyed this idea and would have been interested to see its storytelling possibilities. In the present, I am far less optimistic.

A single series about two Doctors sharing a TARDIS and working together would’ve been interesting. Perhaps they would split up at one point, and we follow their separate adventures before they reunite at the conclusion of the story. Indeed, this very thing could still happen in the future. However, it feels more like this has been done not to enhance Doctor Who (the show), but to establish the Whoniverse (a brand).

There are several other problems with bi-generation. Rather than discuss these problems in this article, I would like to direct you to a recent article by Will Ainsworth. Ainsworth explores these problems in greater detail and explains how it lowers the stakes within the show. I agree with all the points he raised and I encourage you to read his article. Speaking of stakes, this seems to be another problem that Davies has.

Davies’ Problem with Stakes

One of my criticisms of Davies’ original run was his constant need to up the stakes. In Series 1, Earth was at stake in the year 100,000. In Series 2, it was Earth in the present. In Series 3, the universe was at stake. In Series 4, all of reality (including parallel universes) was at stake. In The End of Time, all of time was at stake… how is that different from all of reality? Davies’ need to constantly up the stakes was tiring and quickly reached its limit. He made it very easy to stop caring about the stakes, and he’s back at it again.

In Series 13, in a storyline written by Chris Chibnall, the Flux destroyed the entire universe except for Earth and Atropos. However, Chibnall later ignored this by showing other planets in “The Power of the Doctor.” Davies doubled down on this by establishing that the Flux only destroyed half of the universe.

Davies teased that the Toymaker was the Doctor’s most powerful enemy yet. However, the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Doctors were able to defeat the Toymaker simply by playing ball. Jinkx Monsoon’s character in Series 14 is now also being called the Doctor’s “most powerful enemy” yet. Since the character is thought to be featured in a musical episode, I guess that the Doctor will defeat them simply by playing an instrument really badly. The words “most powerful enemy” mean nothing.

Intentionally Rejecting Long-Time Fans/The Shift to Fantasy

The final point I have to wonder is whether Davies is intentionally trying to get rid of long-time Whovians. First, there’s his response to the Timeless Child retcon. Instead of fixing it, or simply ignoring it, it’s been referenced in every single episode that Davies has written since he returned (so far). It feels like he’s trying to ram it down our throats and alienate the fans who didn’t like this retcon.

Second, Davies has said that his new era of Doctor Who will lean heavily into fantasy. Doctor Who TV’s own Clint Hassell critiqued the heavy use of fantasy in “The Giggle” and “The Church on Ruby Road,” and I agree with his critique. As I mentioned earlier, Doctor Who is a science fiction show. Dabbling in other genres is part of Doctor Who’s identity, and personally I quite like some of the fantasy-themed episodes in the past (“The Unquiet Dead,” “Tooth and Claw,” “Amy’s Choice,” and “The God Complex,” to be specific). However, Doctor Who is ultimately a science fiction show. That’s one of the things that I like about it, and I like that the fantasy-themed episodes are rare and shake things up a little. But I don’t think fantasy should be the key theme of Doctor Who.

Third, returning to Clint Hassell’s review of “The Giggle,” the retirement of the Fourteenth Doctor really does feel like a getting-off point. Giving the Fourteenth Doctor his own TARDIS even feels like he’s encouraging us to create our own headcanon for what we would like to happen next. It feels like Davies is saying, “Old fans, get off here, because what’s coming next is going to be completely different.”

Conclusion

Rule #5 has been broken: Doctor Who’s core theme is no longer science fiction. Rule #4 has been broken: two Doctors can now interact with each other at any time without issue. Rule #3 has been broken: the Doctor can regenerate an infinite number of times. Lastly, Rule #1 has been utterly demolished: the Doctor isn’t even half-Time Lord anymore, he’s something completely different. The foundations are gone, and it doesn’t feel like the same show anymore.

Chris Chibnall destroyed my love for Doctor Who. After Series 12, I stopped watching the show until it was announced that Russell T Davies would be taking over. At that point, I chose to watch Series 13 and the 2022 specials simply so that I was caught up. But now that Davies is back, it feels like he’s pushing me away: “You’re an old fan, get lost!”

It deeply saddens me to part ways with something that has been an important part of my life. I keep coming back to it with the hope that it will return to form. However, at this point in time, it’s clear that the return-to-form that I’m hoping for is not coming any time soon. I can say with confidence that I’m not excited about the next series. I may watch it when the full run of episodes is up on Disney+, but it certainly won’t be urgent. I’m also confident that this new version of Doctor Who will have plenty of fans, both new and old. There will be people who enjoy this new version of Doctor Who, but I don’t think I’ll be one of them. It’s just not the show that I loved… not anymore.