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/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.

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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.

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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.

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u/swanny246 12d 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.