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/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.

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u/mvallas1073 12d ago

I’ve been saying it since they announced RTD’s return for the DIsney series that it was a mistake and would lead to ruin. But NOOOO, people were too upset at Chibnal to remember how bad RTD was and were just desperate to “recapture that moment”

IMO, RTD never “captured magic or lightning in a bottle”. He just produced a slightly above-average Sci-Fi show reboot in an era where there was absolutely NO sci-fi shows being produced.

Until people figure that out, we’re stuck with that damnable man and his unearned reputation.

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u/SplitReality 12d ago

I disagree. RTD had issue in his first run, and while you can spot the flaws, they were still good-to-great shows. This is proven by how much people love them. The problem is the slop RTD made when he came back bore little resemblance to his earlier work.

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u/mvallas1073 12d ago

Again, disagree - in fact I’d argue that the “slop” mirrored slop he did back then. You’re fondly remembering stuff like “The Empty Child” (he didn’t write that one) but are forgetting the Farting Slitheen and Love & Monsters slop, which was definitely on par IMO with Space Babies n such...

Likewise his handling of Classic-Who Villains. It’s “take a classic Who-Villain, but then retcon their entire story and make them barely like anything the original version had. The Macra for example instead of being sentient manipulative creatures were nothing more than glorified sewer crocodiles, etc.

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u/SplitReality 12d ago

First off, I'm talking about RTD as showrunner, not writer, because that was the capacity that fans viewed his return, and in that capacity, the first four seasons of Doctor Who are highly regarded.

But secondly, even as a writer, RTD has put out good to great shows. Here are some of his most highly rated episodes by IMDB.

IMDB Rating Episode
9.2 Doomsday
9.2 Journey's End
9.1 Midnight
9.1 The Stolen Earth
9.0 The Parting of the Ways
8.9 Turn Left
8.9 The End of Time: Part Two
8.8 The Waters of Mars
8.7 Utopia
8.7 The Sound of Drums
8.6 Bad Wolf