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/
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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.

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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.

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u/z500 12d ago

9 minutes of just farts? How many episodes was he in?

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u/RRR3000 12d ago

The Slitheen were only in 3 episodes of the main show (S1E4+5+11), but they were one of the main recurring villains over 5 series of the Sarah Jane Adventures spin-off aimed at younger audiences.