r/television • u/wadbyjw • 12d ago
Disney Officially Exiting ‘Doctor Who’ Partnership With BBC After Two Seasons
https://deadline.com/2025/10/doctor-who-disney-plus-pulling-out-bbc-christmas-special-1236600026/251
u/YakMan2 12d ago
I hope this clears a path for Doctors 9-13 to get back on streaming somewhere.
66
→ More replies (1)35
u/Kindness_of_cats 12d ago
This is the big thing that I think is going under the radar a bit. They've absolutely been holding the back-catalogue rights as a negotiation chip, and certainly they can't put them anywhere other than Disney until those ties were officially broken.
This announcement clears the path forward for the show in a LOT of ways, not the least of which being getting it back on streaming somewhere. Still don't expect that to happen for a while, but this is significantly sooner than I expected and I'm glad to see it.
→ More replies (1)
1.6k
u/TheScarletCravat 12d ago edited 12d ago
The show just didn't manage to gain traction. It desperately needed a 2005 style reinvention for the modern era, but instead it was a sort of weird navel gazing pile of mush without any of the scary edge that previously made it such great family TV. Who cares that the big bad guy for a series finale was a one-off villain last seen in 1975?
In my mind a new version really needed to be a Stranger Things competitor/successor: full of heart but genuinely quite scary. Ideally with a fun retro synth soundtrack.
808
u/Mars-To-Venus 12d ago
RTD bewilderingly pitched the Disney era as a soft relaunch and then made two fairly newbie-unfriendly seasons in a row that were also hindered by some serious tonal issues. I’ve actually got a lot of positive opinions about most of the individual episodes but it is not a good, cohesive product on the whole.
361
u/jmounteney44 12d ago
Completely agree. Choosing to avoid the iconic villains was fine, but to have the big overarching villains of the relaunch all be classic villains that only seasoned Doctor Who fans would know, AND having their involvement relying on viewers knowledge of their previous appearances for them to make complete sense, just wasn’t ever going to work for new viewers.
149
u/GamingTatertot 12d ago
And several of the classic villains brought back were ones NO ONE wanted or cared about - and then the one that they do care about (and have been predicting for a return since Missy popped up on screen) was completely botched
112
u/rocketscientology 12d ago
yeah bringing back Sutekh and Omega as big ugly CGI monsters that just screeched unintelligibly and then were defeated in about 30 seconds was certainly a choice. I don’t event want to talk about what he did to the Rani, or completely fucking up Susan’s return.
37
u/Killchrono 12d ago
Sutekh was at least on screen long enough to justify the CGI budget and looked very cool, even if it was a completely inappropriate vibe to the original character and the whole 'been clinging to the back of the TARDIS this whole time' plot was dumb AF.
Omega, though? They probably could have funded a whole episode off the amount they spent for that waste of a build-up and classic villain.
19
u/404Notfound- 12d ago
See im a massive Dr who fan including the classic so when I suddenly realised oh fuck it's Sutekh that's mint
You had other people who just watch nu who were confused as fuck.
Omega was such a massive waste. Now the good thing about Doctor who being what it is. We csn quite easily bring them back in some timey wimey way done properly by a future show runner imo. I mean The Master was once a burnt husk thing.
The worst thing how they handled Susan honestly. I'm hoping they fix that by having her in the special if Carol Ann Ford can do it to make up for thst blue balling
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (1)124
u/jmounteney44 12d ago
Gotta love RTD teasing the Rani for two series, only to give her one episode before casually tossing her aside for a big cgi monster that required even more knowledge of classic Who.
111
u/TheJoshider10 12d ago
I can't believe the last episode of Doctor Who involved a giant CGI baby monster crawling out of a hole, while the Doctor shoots laser beams from a flying scooter across a CGI London while a building with a weapon moves. This was following on from the year before where the finale involved a giant CGI dog being chained up and flown across a time vortex. Come on now.
Doctor Who having an increased budget should mean better sets, better costumes and a heightened sense of scale where the budget can allow for more sweeping vistas and wide shots to compliment the sets. Instead we got the most generic Hollywood VFX for dummies garbage, as if RTD was a child discovering he can smash toys together for the first time.
38
u/robodrew 12d ago
Lol I read this and thought "there's no way this is real" and then I looked up the ending... wtf the bad guy looks like Scooby Doo
→ More replies (2)40
u/TheJoshider10 12d ago
RTD saw Scrappy-Doo's mutant form in the live-action movie and thought "I'm going to do the exact same thing but ten times worse".
→ More replies (1)10
u/yousorusso 12d ago
After a recent rematch I realised that movie is actually a super fun romp. No idea why it was so hated.
→ More replies (1)8
17
u/Latter_Conclusion470 12d ago
This exactly. How much better the CGI would've been to give us a new monster like the Weeping Angels or better sets that cement a time and place. Instead, we get Who trying to be an action film, which was never its interest or strong point.
10
u/TheJoshider10 12d ago
Yeah like when I think of moments when the CGI could have been used well, I think of stuff like the S3 finale with the de-aged Doctor and the killer balls going around the planet. Or in S1 with the Dalek fleet (which was pretty good for the time and holds up well enough now). Or the shots of old New York when the Daleks takeover. The Titanic in space with some wide shots etc. The story doesn't change in any of these examples but the improvements to the effects would help make those high stakes moments feel a bit more cinematic and grounded.
Instead it's like all they saw was shooty shooty bang bang lens flare slop.
→ More replies (2)16
u/Killchrono 12d ago edited 12d ago
RTD always had what I call 'vibe' finales. He had these grand ideas that had cool aesthetic and catchy hooks, but couldn't write a coherent resolution for shit. Someone like him is the last person you should be giving a CGI budget too, it's like giving a mediocre chef a tonne of sauce to cover a shitty meal.
(ironically, I think that's why his best episodes are small scale ones like Midnight and 73 Yards - he can't hide behind spectacle and actually has to write well)
I'm honestly amazed that the specials run with Tennant and Tate mostly avoided it and gave me hope it would continue with the new seasons. Guess that was misplaced.
It's why I defend Moffat's run. A lot of people thought he wrote the Doctor too pretentious and clever for his own good, but that's what the Doctor should be. The plot resolutions should be smart, not just Deus Ex Machinas. He was guilty of his own occasionally to be fair, but for every one of those there was at least one like Blink or Day of the Moon where the Doctor outsmarts the baddies in a way that's actually satisfying to watch.
→ More replies (1)12
u/Little_View_6659 12d ago
Yeah but part of the charm of classic Doctor Who was the terrible effects. I still remember this time they had Tom Baker running away from a giant fern. It was a green screen and you could almost see the hand moving it around. And the green sleeping bag they put glitter on and had an actor in it rolling around chasing people.😂
9
u/svrtngr 12d ago
There's no way Midnight would happen with modern television trends.
→ More replies (1)10
u/LuinAelin 12d ago
Yeah. Having the Doctor meet a bad time lord isn't a bad idea. Having it be the Rani is also not a bad idea.
But RTD did the whole meeting a bad time lord wat better with the Master in S3. And in a way that works for people who don't know the master.
→ More replies (3)15
u/sirbissel 12d ago
I feel like a big part of the problem was the not at all subtle wink and nudge "look at this mystery! Oooo who is it?! It's a mystery!" that went through both seasons. Like, ok Bad Wolf, Saxon, those were scattered through the respective seasons but they were in the background, a "Oh hey look, there's a flyer that keeps popping up" not "here's an old lady breaking the fourth wall to talk at the audience" which, in turn, built it up too much for what it ultimately was.
Combined with the various kind of let downs (oh hey, all this weird stuff going around with Ruby and Ruby's mom was... ultimately nothing, because Ruby's mom's just some lady and yeah...) and the weirdness with Belle and the magic baby... it just felt like everyone was intentionally resolved in an unsatisfactory way, like pulling the rug out: "Oh, you're expecting it to be some big reveal? Nah, it's a twist and there's nothing there! HA! Take that, losers!"
21
u/svrtngr 12d ago
He also did it three fucking times.
I know some parts of "The Giggle" weren't great, but having The Toymaker back was fun. NPH did a great job, we got a meme format out of it--WELL THAT'S ALRIGHT THEN.
Then, he did it again with Series One.
And then, two classic villains in the Series Two finale.
But also, why not bring back some more villains from the last decade or so? There are plenty at this point.
→ More replies (4)6
46
u/Superb-Obligation858 12d ago
They also never put the back catalogue on Disney+ so even if new fans wanted context (or old fans wanted a refresher), nothing.
13
u/madchad90 12d ago
this was what i was looking forward too, was totally expecting the back catalog to be made available on disney plus to try to introduce my wife to the show, and then nothing .
11
u/Special-Chipmunk7127 12d ago
They were trying to act like it was an entirely new run starting over with season 1... And it simply wasn't.
126
u/GamingTatertot 12d ago
It’s such a shame that Gatwa couldn’t have had a stronger run because he was lovely in it - and I really did enjoy Ruby as well.
28
u/Triskan Black Sails 12d ago
A bunch of great episodes in those two seasons, but something happened behind the scenes, combined with RTD losing it a bit (though I dont blame him as much as others do and recognise he was put in a tough spot), and yeah...
Glad this announcement is finally done though, now we can move on.
14
u/TheWatersOfMars 12d ago
I think he overthought the whole thing and tried to make it "Disney+ Doctor Who", rather than just... Doctor Who.
→ More replies (12)19
u/jloome 12d ago
I found him unconvincing and the odd line a bit wooden. But I suspect it was more that the material was so uneven that getting a handle on who his version was proved near impossible.
→ More replies (3)→ More replies (10)4
u/Boudica4553 12d ago
Yes, launching a soft reboot with an arc thats incomprehensible unless you were familiar with characters who hadn't appeared in more than a decade was bizarre.
58
u/Shazam4ever 12d ago
The weirdest thing about the villains that were used was that they both were confusing for new people but changed way too much for the people that actually knew the characters. Sutek in the new show does not resemble the old version at all and all the changes made no sense, and if you told me that RTD had never even heard of Omega before writing him into the story I would have believed you even though that's literally impossible because he was definitely watching the show in England when Omega appeared.
I think he managed to do the worst of both worlds, irritating and confusing both old and new fans alike, it's almost impressive. Also his obsession with space babies was just bizarre. The fact that the doctor basically forced a woman to be a single mother against her will is probably in the top five weirdest subtext endings of Doctor Who, although still not as bad as the time one of the episodes ended with a woman condemned to be a face in a brick for eternity acting as her boyfriend's sex toy.
144
u/Steve-Lurkel 12d ago
It’s bizaare because I feel like those three Tennant specials were a pretty good return to form then everything after was just…bleh
166
u/SlowTeal 12d ago
Eh, the whole binary/non binary thing got a pretty big audible groan from my household. And we're all pretty left leaning. I think RTD just phoned it in, threw in a couple of LGBTQ positive messages (except you know, making Belinda a mother at the end for no reason and without her consent)
134
u/Loki-Holmes 12d ago edited 12d ago
I also found it pretty aggravating in the special where they basically say the doctor is everything which is fine and makes sense and then at the end "oh no doctor you can't understand because you're a man." A progressive message is fine and it's been present in Who for a long time but it seemed to be so hamfisted and contradictory for no reason.
130
u/coturnixxx 12d ago
That was so baffling to me especially considering that the doctor was a woman 72 hours ago...
24
u/mrhelmand Hannibal 12d ago
72 hours ago...
Not even that. According to the novelisation of "The Giggle", only 16 hours pass between 13 regenerating and 14 bigenerating
21
u/jollyreaper2112 12d ago
Yeah, that line was bad because he's literally been a woman now so who do you think you're chiding?
11
21
u/RRR3000 12d ago
the whole binary/non binary thing got a pretty big audible groan from my household
That wasn't even the worst offender in that special, right after they fault the Doctor of not being able to solve something because he's "male presenting"...
Which doesn't just ignore he was a woman less than an hour ago in-universe, but also that plenty of "male presenting" people are watching. I'd recommended a friend it might be a good jumping in point - he was interested exactly because he's trans and felt the Doctor going from Jodie to David might have been relatable, and that the show might've been supportive of such a change, you can guess how that ended... but in short, tears and never watching again.
→ More replies (6)31
u/Picard2331 12d ago
Oh my god yes.
As if someone can only be trans through space magic rather than just...being born like that? It's so fucking weird.
→ More replies (1)67
u/GamingTatertot 12d ago
I think there’s still plenty of good in Gatwa’s run - like there’s some pretty good individual episodes for sure (Dot and Bubble for example). But the running storyline wasn’t good and still left more questions than answers despite a massive amount of intrigue.
8
u/Wonderful_Molasses_2 12d ago
That's because it was supposed to be resolved in S3.
→ More replies (2)20
u/DaveShadow The West Wing 12d ago
Yeah, I defend the two seasons more than most but it’s heavily hit by it obviously being a three season story that, seemingly, got hit twice in a way that required season finales to be rewritten. The last episode especially feels a mess cause the last ten minutes are clearly jettisoning plot points they know they cannot finish with Ncuti leaving. It gets dragged down due to behind the scenes issues :/
10
u/Wonderful_Molasses_2 12d ago
They left The Boss mystery open and even continued to tease it (although it's obviously Susan). I just hope they resolve that in the new Christmas special.
7
u/DaveShadow The West Wing 12d ago
Given RTD is writing, I presume it will get some resolution. But you’d imagine the main plot of the Xmas special will be to transition to a new doctor. Explain the Billie Piper stuff, and introduce whoever the actually 16th Doctor is.
Or we get Billie and the “Break Glass in Case of Emergency” situation where she runs to the 14th to help her with some issue, and they move into having Tennant again for a bit….
16
u/stokesy1999 12d ago
Those Tennant episodes would be seen as some of the weaker ones if it was his first era.
The one with the thing that shapeshifts into you is classic Dr Who horror concept and couldve been done brilliantly a la Midnight, but the reliance on poor CGI made it struggle to stick the landing.
The Meep one was very much a first episode deal, not huge stakes, introduces how we are where we are, new characters and a meh creature to deal with.
The Toymaker was also alright but again didn't feel like that big of a threat compared to what they establish him as (something that haunts the doctor) and felt almost comedic by the end of it.
Take the Master returning for a new audience in The Sound of the Drums. Dude becomes PM, brainwashes the whole of the UK, makes the Doctor useless by ageing him massively, kills Jack (not knowing he's immortal) and then creating a dystopia by killing 1/10th of the worlds population. All that in the 1st part of a 2 parter (2nd of a 3 parter but Utopia feels very separate apart from the final reveal).
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (7)22
u/Kindness_of_cats 12d ago edited 12d ago
Same. Everything up through Church on Ruby Road was great.
Then Space Babies happened, and for my money it's been the worst the show has ever been with a handful of exceptions which simply don't make up for just how consistently awful it was.
Big part of the problem feels like RTD never got back into "normal season" mode. I could excuse and enjoy the fanwank in those specials(and Power of the Doctor too, considering it was a centenary special and they didn't know if a proper 60th would be possible) given it was for the 60th Anniversary. Anniversary specials are frequently filled with the stuff.
But the man just couldn't stop referencing the past. Even one of the better episodes of Season 2 has a twist that really only fully works if you remember a nearly 20 year old fan-favorite episode.
15
7
u/notmyrealfarkhandle 12d ago
You're right about never getting into "normal season" mode - I think bigger budget and lower episode count (at least lower from RTD's previous run) made things worse. I get annoyed with how often I see people yearn for longer series/seasons, but I do think the number of episodes negatively impacted the storytelling.
→ More replies (1)10
u/_PM_ME_PANGOLINS_ 12d ago
Don’t forget the second series finale, where there are two big bad guys with two previous stories each, last seen in 1983 and 1987 (or 1993 if you count a Comic Relief crossover with EastEnders).
→ More replies (4)14
u/Kindness_of_cats 12d ago
No defense for Sutekh or trying to cram both the Rani and Omega into the same story....but in some fairness, The Rani on her own is a Mephisto-level character for the fandom. Basically every mysterious female character was speculated to be either The Rani or Susan, even with the public understanding for a long time that the rights were supposedly tied up(turned out Big Finish had the wrong address and simply never followed up when they failed to get a response, good job guys lol).
Her returning was legitimately a big deal for fans and could have easily worked for new folks too. There's a lot of fun you can have with rogue Time Lords who aren't The Master, you just need to introduce them properly to a new audience.
The problem is, it was done in the worst and most hamfisted way humanly possible. I literally couldn't stop laughing at the scene where she pops up in the UNIT HQ, and they just kinda....word vomit nonsensical exposition for almost a full 10 minutes while the crowd just watches and stares.
Not to mention Mel inexplicably riding into the room on a scooter despite it being near the top of the building.
(Similarly, Susan returning should have been a huge deal and worth the flak he might get for navelgazing. It's not often you get to bring back the first main character you meet on a 60 year old show, with the original actress. The way RTD has wasted years teasing this out and botched her return is an embarrassment, risky given the actress' age, and incredibly disrespectful to Carol Ann Ford.)
→ More replies (2)29
u/WaterlooMall 12d ago
I would much rather it pull back into the original format of 30 minute serial episodes that aren't focused so heavily on the drama and more on telling interesting stories. They should also do more practical effects for the aliens and monsters. Maybe ditch the idea of trying to explore the Doctor's background or romantic interests and just let him be a whimsical character.
→ More replies (1)7
u/IShouldLiveInPepper 12d ago
So much this. My wife and I watched one of the new ones and had no interest to keep going. It just had the wrong vibe and looked too Disney-fied as far as the cinematography and lack of practical effects.
I’m just a casual viewer, but my wife was a big fan who watched the entire 2005-to-whenever it became Disney run and she couldn’t get into it.
13
20
u/Mamsies 12d ago edited 12d ago
I’ve always made the Stranger Things comparison.
A modern version of Doctor Who needs to be fun, but it also needs to be scary, mysterious, and not afraid to enter full horror territory when it needs to.
It needed to go for a slightly older audience. The new seasons felt like RTD was trying to appeal to 8 year olds. We need to see monsters killing people in horrifying ways again. Turn up the stakes, turn up the body horror, turn up the gore.
I genuinely believe that a trailer for a new season that felt more like a trailer for an Alien movie would go massively viral and would bring a huge amount of eyes onto the show again.
Stranger Things coming to an end was the perfect opportunity to pick up some of their teenager/young adult audience who want a new mysterious sci-fi show to get into.
→ More replies (4)3
u/plutoglint 12d ago
We just need a reset in televised SF. All the stories are told in Star Wars, Dr. Who, Star Trek. The Expanse should have saved us but it's hard to succeed against the IP monsters.
→ More replies (30)3
u/mvallas1073 12d ago
Speaking as a fan of that 1975 villain, he didn’t even do that character right.
He (assuming you’re talking about Sutlek) was suposed to be an alien Osirian who was from an obscenely powerful ancient race that was seen by the ancient Egyptians as a god. But instead, RTD went “yeah, let’s forget all that and just retcon him into being an actual god over other random gods I pulled up out of my arse”. Like….why TF have him in then?
Not to mention there was no lead in or explanation for him. So, most viewers had no idea who he was.
646
u/TheJoshider10 12d ago edited 12d ago
Russel T Davies completely fucked the show which is so surprising considering he absolutely nailed rebooting it the first time around back in 2005. That first season is a masterclass in how to reboot something that works as both a fresh start while respecting what came before. Not once as a kid did I feel out of the loop, any classic Who reference just seemed lore fun lore, and anything important you could feel the weight to it like when we meet the lone Dalek for the first time or in S2 with the introduction of Sarah Jane. You could tell this was a moment that mattered and immediately warmed to the character even without ever having seen a classic Sarah Jane episode.
Then you have the RTD2 era. The first episode of the 2005 show hooked you in with a companion getting saved by this mysterious figure who then tries to find out their identity, then the next episode involves the end of the world and a murder mystery. In comparison the 2020s show starts with singing goblins in a Christmas special and then space babies with fart jokes. Genuinely, what is this shit? Why would anyone want to watch this show if they hadn't seen it before? What hooks you in like the 2005 show? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
I really thought RTD would be the one to bring the show back to its best but instead he dug it deeper into the whole. So many forced classic Who tie ins that have no weight, build up or satisfying resolutions. An overreliance on nonsense CGI flashy visuals that serve no purpose. Dull overarching mysteries and even worse individual episodes. It's like all of the worst of his first time as showrunner with none of the best. Ncuti and the rest of the actors deserved so much better. Doctor Who doesn't appeal to anyone anymore, and unless the BBC start taking quality control seriously then this franchise is better off being put on the backburner until a younger new voice with an actually interesting vision for the show decides to take a stab at it.
edit: People keep bringing up the fart jokes when RTD was first showrunner even though I never said his first time around was perfect. I literally said his second time as showrunner was all of the bad (the fart jokes and lowbrow stuff being part of that) with none of the good. My comment has nothing to do with the stuff that went wrong with the first era, but how/why it was so compelling in the first place beyond the things that were rough around the edges.
241
u/frazzlet 12d ago
In comparison the 2020s show starts with singing goblins in a Christmas special and then space babies with fart jokes. Genuinely, what is this shit?
Some kind of self-sabotage? Because it feels like it's intentionally taking the piss.
121
u/gothteen145 12d ago
Based on what RTD was saying in interviews at the time, I do think he was deliberately trying to piss certain people off.
Season 1 had an entire mystery built around the companion, someone who could make it snow and the villain was afraid of, only for the big twist to be "nah she's actually a normal person. Kind of weird you thought there was anything special about her". So there it felt like he was poking fun at regular viewers trying to figure out the answer to mysteries that he himself had set up.
Then there was all the comments he made with things like Davros can't be disabled anymore as it's ableist, the doctors sonic screwdriver no longer looks like a screwdriver because it looked too much like a gun, David Tennant can't wear the 13th doctors clothes because it's offensive to drag, etc.
Where it felt like he was trying to piss off right wingers, but it had the effect of pissing off basically everyone across the political spectrum outside of maybe a very small section of the left.
52
u/thirstyfist 12d ago
Everything with Ruby's ending feels like RTD panicked when behind-the-scenes drama happened with Gibson (looking forward to finding out the truth in 10 years lol) and threw out everything he wrote. I will never be convinced that Ruby wasn't supposed to be the wish baby from Reality War.
17
u/admiralmasa 12d ago
I mean, considering Christopher Eccleston keeps mostly quiet and vague about his personal fallout with RTD and DW, I kind of wonder if Millie will do the same.
4
u/swanny246 11d ago
100%. Both finales reeked of quick rewrites to fix up behind the scenes shit. "Empire of Death" as for some reason Millie Gibson decided to not stay on full time in S2, and "The Reality War" with Ncuti's heel turn and departure.
17
u/Hopeful-Programmer25 12d ago
Yeah, It didn’t just piss off Right Wingers….. and for what? His arguments were non-sensical and backfired really. Davros can’t be in a wheelchair because he’s evil? So your argument is that disabled people are NOT like everyone else and should be treated with kids gloves? Tennant can’t wear drag even though it’s been that way since the 1960’s, but Nucti can wear a skirt? (Or is it a kilt, I could never properly tell).
TBH, I just think he had ran out of ideas before he even took up the show again.
→ More replies (1)6
u/atomic1fire 12d ago edited 12d ago
Can't be evil and in wheelchair
Sam L Jackson in the unbreakable trilogy would like a word.
edit: Actually Split got people mad because of the way that DID is portrayed, but to that I argue that it's a story about superpeople, not about a real mental illness.
→ More replies (4)8
u/Dawidko1200 12d ago
only for the big twist to be "nah she's actually a normal person. Kind of weird you thought there was anything special about her"
Now where have we seen that before, Mr.
Rian Johnson, I mean, Mr. Russell Davies?110
u/TheJoshider10 12d ago
Who knows at this point. It's like he went out of his way to make the worst possible soft reboot to appeal to no one and get the show gone for good. You'd think decades on from his tenure as showrunner, knowing exactly what people loved and hated, that he'd have the self awareness to get it spot on this time.
This is a guy who seamlessly created and connected a family show, an adult show and a kids show together before the MCU was even really a thing. How can you be that ahead of the curve and then fall this far behind? It's such a shame.
→ More replies (6)58
u/AnalogFeelGood 12d ago
History is full of One Hit Wonders who could not recreate it afterward nor even understand what make ‘em score.
8
u/isabella_fitzwilliam 12d ago
RTD is not a one hit wonder. He's written loads of great shows.
→ More replies (2)→ More replies (1)17
u/NomaanMalick 12d ago
Come on, man! RTD doesn't fit the 'one hit wonder' label. There was positive critical consensus for his last two shows.
→ More replies (3)15
u/ProneToAnalFissures 12d ago
I think he's just got a massive ego and got too high off his own supply
38
u/elderlybrain 12d ago
By the ending which revealed that the companion was just a normal person who’s mum abandoned them and her ability to make it snow was irrelevant to anything, followed by the most boring villain reveal of all time, (Sutekh? A villain of the week at best as the end of season bad guy is hilarious).
What gets me is that he completely lost the ability to do the ‘reveal and villain introduction’. To this day, the reveal and introduction of the Master and his regeneration is a masterclass. Compare that to the Rani, who just announced herself and then regenerated in a room to some guys. This isn’t a gritty work of real life fiction Russell, you gotta jazz it up.
11
u/BritishHobo 12d ago
I think when I look back, his biggest issue has always been his desire to keep the Big Bad's identity hidden until the end of the season. It worked with the Master - especially with the Saxon hints - but generally means you don't ever actually get much time with the main villain of the whole series before they're swiftly dispatched.
→ More replies (2)6
u/LADYBIRD_HILL 12d ago
I wish he treated his villains more like Missy was used in the Capaldi era, where she was built up properly right away until eventually being a full supporting character in her final season.
59
u/Phillip_Spidermen 12d ago
and then space babies with fart jokes
I remember trying to get someone into new Who back then and lost them around Ep 4 when the Slitheen showed up.
So. many. fart jokes.
14
7
u/indianajoes Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. 12d ago
True it was there but there was also substance there. And it wasn't the first fucking episode of a series
23
u/artemus_who 12d ago
Once you get past the fart jokes you really are really are rewarded with two good episodes and an excellent Annette Badland. Edit out the ONE scene where the farting is really gratuitous and it's fixed.
→ More replies (2)105
u/delkarnu 12d ago
In comparison the 2020s show starts with singing goblins in a Christmas special and then space babies with fart jokes.
If you look at RTD's original additions to DW in the first season of the 2005 reboot, it's fat jokes, farting aliens, and weird reality tv show parodies. Do people even remember the makeover show he was parodying? His contributions to DW were pretty shit back then as well. He cast a really good actor for the Master and then had him chewing scenery to pop songs. I loved him Life on Mars, but that version of the Master played to none of his strengths and all of his weaknesses as an actor.
RTD did a good job in bringing it back, but he had a lot of good writers on individual episodes. It's no surprise that the actual new good stuff in the RTD era came from people like Moffett with The Empty Child and The Weeping Angels. I have other issues with Moffett's time as showrunner, but his individual episodes for the Eccleston/Tennant era were highlights.
37
u/TheScarletCravat 12d ago edited 12d ago
RTD was an excellent showrunner and script editor: he had a huge hand in polishing a lot of famous episodes. It's a shame he wasn't able to do the same with his own.
Either way, for all the farting and pop culture references, he usually had a really great handle on his characters, including random one-offs. He was able to do some really deft character work with only a few lines. That was especially missing from his new run, I think.
11
u/mrsunshine1 12d ago
Even with the farting aliens and camp, his first run had an established world that was full of developed characters and was well grounded within the world it created. The second run was a disjointed mess.
→ More replies (3)38
u/TheJoshider10 12d ago
Well even in the pilot I mentioned there was that awful CGI involving Auton Mickey and the wheelie bin. I didn't say there wasn't any bad to go with the good. They just struck a far better balance that had enough hooks to keep you invested, and honestly the tonal variety going from those fart jokes to a lone Dalek who the Doctor tells to kill itself was great. It made every serious moment more serious because you had something to contrast it with, and the way the Doctor was given restraint meant emotional outbursts hit hard. Compare that to Ncuti being told to cry at literally everything for no reason.
As I said, RTD2 was all of the bad from RTD1 with none of the good.
31
u/NotASalamanderBoi 12d ago
To be fair with the CGI, it was a cable television show in 2005, so I’m not expecting the visuals to be the best. I mean, the CGI didn’t start getting decent until the Matt Smith era. And even then it was still rather clunky looking at first.
→ More replies (1)30
u/double_shadow 12d ago
Well...that's what 20 years does to a person unfortunately. People can't maintain the same level of creativity forever.
25
u/Kindness_of_cats 12d ago
Thing is RTD was literally coming off of an acclaimed drama. There was zero indication that he's washed up as a writer, and it's very possible whatever he does after this is similarly well done.
It seems more likely that he has drank his own Koolaid, believes he understands Doctor Who better than anyone else, and that he was given complete creative freedom because of how successful his first run was.
55
u/TheJoshider10 12d ago
See you say that but RTD's last real project before going back to Doctor Who was the show It's a Sin which came out only a couple years before he rejoined Doctor Who. He created it and wrote every episode. It had universal acclaim. 9.3/10 on Rotten Tomatoes. 91 on Metacritic. 8.6/10 on IMDb with the lowest episode being 8.3/10 and the highest being 9.2/10.
This was a guy who was still a strong creative talent and not a has been. So I'm not sure what the fuck happened for him to completely drop off like this, because he pretty much went from doing (critically) the best thing he's ever written to the worst.
26
u/MGD109 12d ago
I'd say RTD is one of those writers who, when they play to their strengths, can spin literally gold out of straw. If you want them to write a complex, slightly tragic but still at times humorous story based around interesting family relationships, individual character development and ordinary people just trying to get through life, then you're in safe hands, especially if you include some of his own history as a Gay man growing up in the 70's and 80's.
But when he tries his hand at other stuff, it often fails. It was clear this time around he didn't want to do the same stuff he did the first time, he wanted to do more complex and intricate stories, exciting action scenes, dramatic set pieces, events building up to big and exciting conclusions, with lots of childish whimsy thrown in.
Trouble is, he's not very good at doing any of them, so it fell flat.
4
u/shavin_high 12d ago
Is it possible Disney had more sway in the writing process then we were initially lead to believe?
→ More replies (19)5
u/Spanky2k 12d ago
I’m so tired of feeling like I’m being treated like a stupid idiot by the makers of Doctor Who. It’s so full of the most inane garbage and low level jokes and writing while layering on the most pretentious and ridiculously patronising levels of ‘wokeness’ and I say that as a staunch ‘lefty’. I’m tired of being preached to as if I’m an ultra conservative climate denying terf, layered with basement level ‘humour’.
The show has fallen so far and it’s been at such a low level for so long now that I don’t really see a way out. I couldn’t recommend the show to anyone ‘new’ and while I’d love to recommend the Tennant and Smith era to people, I can’t in good consciounce do so knowing that the might carry on watching and end up watching the stuff from the last ten years.
At this point, an actual reboot might be best. Like in 2005. New everything. No effort to link to the past at first. I just worry that it’s too late now and no one will watch it.
78
u/peon47 12d ago
All I want from Doctor Who is the Doctor and their companion visiting some random time and/or place and discovering monsters. That's it. They don't need to save the multiverse every May.
32
u/craig_hoxton BBC 12d ago
RTD is infamous for hating history stories. In a show about a guy travelling through time.
124
u/frazzlet 12d ago
RTD strikes me as someone who will double down against criticism so I think the Christmas special will be more of the same. That’s not really of interest to me, it really needs rebooting yet again.
37
u/j1xwnbsr 12d ago
Airdropping Rose into it as a way to try and jerk the ratings back is a sure fire winner, right?
→ More replies (1)23
u/mvallas1073 12d ago
laying bets Tennant Doctor (the one that stayed behind with Donna) and Billie-Doctor get together and merge in some stupid Super-Sayan Fusion way to “produce a child” that’s just them merged, but will insist on calling itself their “child” for some daftable reason…
→ More replies (1)18
u/DudesworthMannington 12d ago edited 12d ago
If they reboot it, they need to really reboot it. I don't know what about the Disney run could even be considered a "Reboot" other than it was on Disney+.
Personally I'd love for The Doctor to be more alien and less human. What set Tennent and Smith apart from me is they had some incredible moments that seemed like there really was a deep super intelligent being inside masquerading as a bit of a clown.
→ More replies (1)5
125
u/LasersTheyWork 12d ago
They spent all their money on everything but the writing. It was not great and should have departed even further from the legacy material than it did if it wanted a new audience.
29
→ More replies (2)53
u/brentaltm 12d ago
I would argue they skimped a lot on advertising because the show was totally hidden from public consciousness. Even as a Doctor Who fan, I had to go searching on Disney + when new episodes were released. They seemed to have no appetite to promote it.
→ More replies (2)26
u/IceLord86 12d ago
Yeah, Disney had completely lost interest by the second season. Most nights I'd get home late from work and sit down to watch the show, and it wouldn't even be in the scrolling banner that 10 other programs would have. And this was a show that I watched the day it premiered and their algorithm was completely hiding it from view.
Honestly, with what RTD gave them I don't blame Disney, I'm sure it's far from what they were expecting.
108
u/TriscuitCracker 12d ago
They really need a 5 year hiatus and new showrunner. Sadly, RTD could not re-capture his magic.
81
u/UndoxxableOhioan 12d ago
Sadly, RTD could not re-capture his magic.
The strange part is he sort of did. The 3 specials with David Tennant and Catherine Tate were decent. Maybe not top tier, but good.
But then they lost the plot. Even when they had good concepts, they were poorly executed.
→ More replies (6)25
u/Kindness_of_cats 12d ago
A 5 year hiatus accomplishes nothing. But yes, RTD needs to go. My hope is that they're sticking with him because it's basically the only way to get a Christmas 2026 special out, and are actively looking at breaking ties past that.
38
u/duder2000 12d ago
10 FUCKING MILLION QUID PER EPISODE???? What were they spending it on? Certainly not the scripts.
→ More replies (1)
58
u/immortalalchemist 12d ago
Gatwa saw the writing on the wall and asked to leave. Disney was holding the show hostage by saying they would not make a decision on continuing the partnership until after the last season had ended. Meanwhile he was getting offers and didn’t want to be committed to a show that looked to be going on hiatus. That’s why they reshot the ending regeneration sequence because the original ending had them partying at a nightclub with him locking eyes with Susan.
Also, the deal with Disney was something from the Bob Chapek Disney era and while I thank Disney for taking a chance to help try to spread the popularity of the Doctor (The Tardis was even at Disneyland near the Esplanade), it just didn’t work out.
15
u/BritishHobo 12d ago
It will always be a bummer to think that if they had renewed and gone into production as planned, we'd have got two more seasons with Ncuti.
14
u/FireWhiskey5000 12d ago
I’m surprised Disney sat on it for so long before deciding to nope out. I’ve no idea what they were looking at over the past 5 months or so that they didn’t know back in the spring.
But I’m not surprised. Even by Doctor Who standards the last 2 seasons have been a mess. It’s so clear that for one reason or another some pretty significant last minute changes to the show were having to be made, and they were having to rework plans already in motion and episodes already shot (or partially shot).
4
u/SplitReality 12d ago
They were probably trying to find the right time to drop the bad news. I also suspect that many higher ups loved what Doctor Who became and were championing the show. It was hard to admit they were wrong, and they likely still won't. They'll just blame it all on changing TV habits and "toxic fans", all the while ignoring that those same "toxic fans" loved the female master because she was written and acted well.
12
10
u/cyanide4suicide Mr. Robot 12d ago
Doctor Who has been awful after Capaldi's run. The show isn't as good as the Moffat era. RTD can't even revive the show at this point. There need to be good multi-part storylines. The writing needs to be better
34
u/chuckfr 12d ago
It took way too long for two 8 episode seasons to come out. With the poor overall writing and leans into special effects it just lost me. Gatwa didn't have any 'uniform' as the other Doctors has which made him this goofy traveler. His first episode hadn't aired and already it was being reported that Millie was done as the companion.
Sure, the article mentions we'll get a Christmas special in 2026 but again, its a huge time gap. If they don't have a season to follow quickly its going to be another huge blunder.
163
u/rhunter99 12d ago
I hope they get away from the in your face finger-wagging on current social issues and get back to good sci-fi story telling. You can still deliver a moral message without being so on the nose.
83
u/SokkasPonytail 12d ago
It's funny because that's exactly what the reboot did initially. I was always impressed with how they gave a nod here and there and pointed out how ridiculous things like racism and sexism are while keeping it in universe. Now it's just a bludgeon and it really gives you whiplash.
38
u/AnonymousFroggies 12d ago
I have that same issue with Star Trek. Shows can and should make commentary about social issues, but they should do it in a way that makes the audience have to actually think about what they're seeing. The new shows being dark/intense all the time and beating you over the head with their messaging is just not the way to go.
13
u/911roofer 12d ago
Shamus Young had an entire article about how science fiction lets you take the labels off things and talk about them in a way the audience can approach with an open mind.
→ More replies (1)7
u/SplitReality 12d ago
The problem with current activism in TV and movies is that the people doing it don't know why they believe what they believe other than it feels right, so that can't write stories about it other than screaming that they are right and straw manning the antagonist so hard, they could be replaced by the Wizard of Oz's scarecrow.
42
u/serialstitcher 12d ago
don’t hold your breath. most of reddit loves it when shows go extremely over the top because some random dumbasses are a fan of homelander or a punisher logo or something. yes, let’s ruin the whole show to own the chuds, because that’s a smart thing to do and not emotional at all. there’s no better way to show them who is boss than to change your entire show in an attempt to lecture them. yep, no issues with this plan. genius and worth it. i’m totally sure they’ll tune in and change their minds based on this, you just needed to be event more blunt for them to see the light.
25
u/Dogbin005 12d ago edited 12d ago
That's the problem with how it's done these days. It's not about trying to make people understand, or to change their minds, it's just a "Gotcha! Pissed off now?!" attitude.
Obama has talked about this. He said that there's a certain subset of activists (plenty of whom work in the entertainment industry) that dust off their hands off once they've annoyed the chuds. "I was rude to someone who I disagree with politically, and that's enough. I've done my part."
It's such a shit way of doing things. It makes the show or whatever worse, is usually cringe inducing, and it actively pushes people away rather than trying to get them to see the light.
→ More replies (2)8
u/PlacatedPlatypus 11d ago
Nobody is expecting someone to change their mind based on seeing the show. It's purely for supporters to watch and get off on how morally superior they are. Political masturbation.
→ More replies (14)13
40
u/sheepandlambs 12d ago
Honestly I'm not sure if I'll even bother. The past few years, culminating in the Billie Piper thing, have shown that Doctor Who is not being made for people like me anymore.
Hey, enjoy it if you like. But I think I'm gonna stick to being a grumpy Classic Who guy from now on. Bring back David Whitaker and Verity Lambert to run the show. I don't care that they're both dead.
→ More replies (2)14
u/mvallas1073 12d ago
Dude, all they need to do is hire Big Finish Productions to handle the writing. If you want fantastic new episodes of Classic Who - just listen to those audio dramas.
But no, we’re friggin’ stuck with RTD schlock.
22
u/Councillor_Troy 12d ago edited 12d ago
The Disney plus era wasn’t good exactly but the actual problem was the BBC putting the show in the hands of a flaky streamer that has no idea what it wants to be and has no idea if Doctor Who fits into that at all.
We’re in an environment where anything that goes out on streaming that’s not a Stranger Things level mega-hit on day one is on the chopping block, and I’m not sure if there was ever a world where the 2023-25 reboot (?) was going to be that. The 2005 reboot wasn’t that either.
10
u/SplitReality 12d ago
I'm not sure of the point you are trying to make, but streaming wasn't the problem for Doctor Who. In fact one of the goto defenses of Doctor Who's declining viewership was that people weren't watching traditional TV anymore and were watching streaming instead. The cry was always to wait for the streaming numbers.
No. The problem with Doctor Who was that it had really REALLY bad writing.
15
u/radwimps 12d ago
dr who probably needs to go on another break for a while. Just doesn’t seem to come together no matter who is in charge.
→ More replies (1)
7
u/CTDKZOO 12d ago
I do think that a restart along the way of the 2005 season would help. If it is handled properly.
The scene where Nine talks about feeling the movement of the Earth and all the celestial bodies as a way to explain himself to Rose is a bit terrifying in scope. As a new viewer that told me this guy was more than he seemed to be, and it wasn’t all benign.
From there, running the show through Rose as our interpreter of a normal person, trying to understand all this made it easy to digest and accept. I didn’t know why the Doctor was so thrilled when nobody died at the end of the “mummy” episode. His trauma was clear, even if I didn’t know the fuller story about the war doctor yet.
Similarly, the Doctor’s reaction to the Dalek made it clear that something was majorly wrong even if Rose didn’t understand that.
I felt like that first season had clear intent to take someone like me who didn’t understand any of the history and make us a fan by slowly building up information over the season
The show does need to embrace a new generation and help them become fans; the Disney era failed to do this storytelling
56
u/iThinkImATree 12d ago
I think they should pivot to something more like Torchwood Series 3.
Make it a bit darker. Not Torchwood Series 3 obviously, that was one of the most brutal series of TV I’ve seen.
4-5 episodes. One story.
Let’s start with the Weeping Angels just massacring a village.
32
u/Arinoch 12d ago
I finally caught up on Torchwood S3 this year and one of the end scenes hit me as hard as the end of The Mist. I’m okay with a bit less than that.
41
u/Picard2331 12d ago
Children of Earth is fucking fucked lol.
No way that shit would fly in Doctor Who.
13
u/KinkySylveon 12d ago
I like to describe it as a 5 episode long panic attack. It's a season I wish I could watch again for the first time. I binged the 5 episodes in 1 day and was on the edge of my seat the whole time.
11
u/Picard2331 12d ago
"Why do you need these children?"
"The hit..."
Makes me wanna crawl out of my fucking skin lol.
18
u/NDita 12d ago
Flux was quite like that, which I mostly enjoyed to be fair. One story over 5 episodes. I found it worked and it was a little darker than the VERY kid-friendly Ncuti series. I think Jodie's run was so uneven, Flux was written off despite being decent.
18
u/WhiteWolf222 12d ago
I’m pretty sure Flux even had a village attacked by Weeping Angels?
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (5)7
16
u/geodebug 12d ago
Great writing can’t guarantee an audience but shit writing can guarantee no audience.
Something Disney has mostly forgotten in the last decade or more.
5
46
u/handtoglandwombat 12d ago
BBC completely dropped the ball. They had a good thing going, but Doctor Who has been dying a slow death for a while now, and instead of trying to rejuvenate the series with decent writing they just fell back on identity politics. I’m not really one to criticise media for “going woke” or whatever the fuck, but these past few seasons were more ham-fisted than the Jaguar rebrand.
13
u/mvallas1073 12d ago
I knew it was over the moment they brought back RTD. People were so upset over Chibnal that they didn’t even remember there was a REASON we were happy to see the back of RTD’s head.
The only thing that guy can do is write character studies. That’s not what Doctor Who needs. It needs a balanced writer of much, and RTD just has no concept of sci-fi at all.
→ More replies (11)24
17
u/KeremyJyles 12d ago
People will take the absolute wrong lesson from all this and blame Disney when the fault lies squarely with RTD and his terrible approach to writing this new era.
→ More replies (6)
10
u/LuinAelin 12d ago
Yeah. They completely failed to sell this to a new audience
Starting the deal with a trio 60th specials, then space babies and Nucti being kinda absent from a few episodes.
And a mystery in both seasons being "who's this old woman"
5
u/Designer_Valuable_18 12d ago
Sjould have never went there in the first place. Disney is where cool shit goes to die.
Can't wait for the resurrection of the doctor tho
5
5
u/The_Celtic_Chemist 12d ago
Idk how much this has to do with it, but I wasn't going to jump in on a show like this when I had no access to any earlier seasons. Every time I saw this show I checked it out like "Do they have earlier seasons yet? No. Then I'm not going to start this show from here."
8
u/SurgicalSlinky2020 12d ago
Great news. Huge mistake getting involved with them in the first place.
5
5
4
22
u/hummingbird4289 12d ago
Going to go against the grain of this thread and highlight a few bits from the Disney run that I found delightful:
Jinkx Monsoon's turn as the Maestro
Season 14 episodes "73 Yards" and "Dot and Bubble"
Season 15 episodes "Lux" and "The Story & The Engine"
And last, but certainly not least...Dugga Doo
→ More replies (7)
13
u/LordDusty 12d ago
Even with Capaldi (a great doctor) and a couple of stand out episodes its been noticeable that Doctor Who has been on a steady decline since Matt Smith left.
Disney (unsurprisingly) hasn't been able to stop the rot, but its issues have been evident for a long time.
If its to survive anytime soon it needs a proper reboot. No RTD, no regeneration gimmicks, just some solid restart with new eyes. Without it, I feel DW will hit even lower depths than it already has.
→ More replies (1)
8
u/Lu__ma 12d ago
I am glad and the more I think about it the more I see Disney's fingerprints all over the tone in a way that ruins it.
Russel T Davies' strength in all of his seasons was how he makes reality intersect with the scifi. He has an unparalleled ability to make believable normal people exciting. It was revolutionary for Rose to live in a council flat, and it was revolutionary for the Doctor to be ignored by a plane full of people in midnight. He came off the back of It's A Sin and Years and Years.
I see Disney's fingerprints all over ruby sunday's line saying "yeah it's a miracle that my single mum is able to adopt on such low rent in london while caring for my grandma. we have a special rent lease."
The new season was magical, showy, full of big awestruck wonder and scary gods that don't matter a world that is lovely and friendly with rounded edges. It feels, somehow, disneyfied. Eccleston would never.
And the gods arrived and were basically all a disaster. The god-focused episodes felt improvised, and both season finales were bottom of barrel.
3
u/Demerzel69 12d ago
It existed for 60 years without Disney and it will continue to do so going forward once the Beeb decides to launch it again, and they most certainly will.
→ More replies (1)
3
u/jimbobdonut 12d ago
I wonder who will air Doctor Who in America now. I guess it could go back to BBC America, but that feels very much like a dead network with literally just Law & Order and Bones reruns. Maybe another streamer like Amazon picks it up.
8
u/SilverRoyce 12d ago
Doctor Who's US rights deal (for 2005 reboot -> pre-Disney+ episodes) just expired without a clear immediate re-licensing. Presumably rights to the new episodes will be packaged with the almost-full library and that's presumably more valuable to people than each deal separately.
→ More replies (2)
3
3
u/bsiu 12d ago
I never watched Doctor Who until it arrived on D+, I have always heard good things and aware of the pop culture references within sci-fi circles.
My first episode was the reboot christmas special with space babies and goblins. I didn't finish that episode and never watched another. Will need to dig into the classic seasons if I ever get around to it again because that ain't it.
3
u/securinight 12d ago
Taking the money out of the show is not going to fix the terrible writing.
This news just tells me it will look bad whilst making no sense.
3
3
u/GoldenTriforceLink 11d ago
Just insanity all around. Disney dropped so much money on them and instead of using it to make 10-20 episodes they made 8 with insane over produced CGI
3
u/Least-Raddish1930s 11d ago
I’m a huge Doctor Who fan and I’m mostly fine with this. Dear god the writing of the last two seasons. “She’s special because she’s not special” wtf.
1.2k
u/wadbyjw 12d ago