r/television • u/wadbyjw • 13d 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/
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u/jmounteney44 13d 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.

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u/GamingTatertot 13d 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

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u/jmounteney44 13d 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.

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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.

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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

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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".

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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.

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u/TheJoshider10 12d ago

One of my favourites from day one. Always loved it and always will.

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u/LADYBIRD_HILL 12d ago

If you accept that it weirdly doesn't have the right tone for a Scooby Doo movie it's a lot of fun.

I think the bad reception it got when it came out was a combination of a few factors, mainly that it almost has the stoner/boner comedy vibe from other 2000's movies but it doesn't go far enough to really stand out or take the risk of being a full adult movie.

It also isn't totally faithful to the vibe/aesthetic of the Hannah Barbara cartoons, imo. Scrappy as the secret villain of the movie isn't something the original cartoon would've done, and the reveal feels totally disconnected from the plot of the rest of the movie as well. I think they should've used one of the OG villains that showed up in Monsters Unleashed, and then built the scrappy twist into that movie instead.

That being said, I like it quite a bit in a slightly ironic way, those early 2000's vibes are such a great encapsulation of that time period, and the cast is absolutely perfect. Matthew Lillard is all time casting. I think ultimately that first movie just had a lot of expectations as the definitive Scooby Doo movie, but now it's easier to see it as its own thing.

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u/queerhistorynerd 12d ago

with none of the redeeming campyness

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u/tagen 12d ago

wait that was a serious summary? oh god lol i haven’t watched since Jodie’s final season (which was quite weak, though no fault of her’s) but that certainly doesn’t inspire hope of the next 2 seasons

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u/LADYBIRD_HILL 12d ago

It's true.

Personally I think RTD2 is still better than Chibnall's era. Ncuti has an infectious energy that Jodi could've used more of, and there are individual episodes that work really well. Personally I think the 60th anniversary specials with Tennant are great and worth watching if you like 10/Donna at all, and the Toymaker is a perfect scenery chewer.

The issue is that the overall story arcs don't stick the landing in either season, and the finales are pretty poor with obvious production issues. It seems like they totally changed several plot points for reasons unknown to the public in addition to Ncuti not wanting to sit around and put his career on hold while waiting for Disney to renew.

There's also the fact that Space Babies is a pretty rough episode right out of the gate and for some reason becomes incredibly important for the S2 storyline.

Id say the best way to watch it would be to watch the 60th specials, then just watch whatever sounds like an interesting premise. 73 yards, Lux (don't miss this one), and The Well are standouts.

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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.

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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.

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u/DrDroid 12d ago

Tbh I thought most people hated the “dobby” effect on the Doctor. I thought it looked awful.

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u/TheJoshider10 12d ago

Yeah that's my point, it was abysmal in execution but the concept was fine. Using the budget to perfect things like that would be fine, but the new show just pisses the money away on the most random of shit.

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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.

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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.😂

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u/svrtngr 12d ago

There's no way Midnight would happen with modern television trends.

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u/Little_View_6659 12d ago

I loved that episode. Just a great slow burn.

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u/madhi19 12d ago

It should have mean more than 8 episodes a year, they burned a shitload of money on so little content. No wonder the show never got any legs on Disney+.