The Doctor Is Dead

'Doctor Who'

Doctor Who has long been one of my favorite shows, classic or new who. As a huge sci-fi nerd, it’s a show that ticks all boxes. A new person in the role leads the show to have an overhaul. Personalities change and you can have a new take on an old story.

From a writing perspective, it's a fantastic cheat. You can swap out the main character and still have the show continue. While watching old episodes, you can label them as “dated” but that is also a great thing. It brings a sense of nostalgia and while you watch them at the time, they are current for that audience.

When The Master came back played as the magnificent Michelle Gomez, fans of the show started to think the next Doctor would be a woman. And there are plenty of women who could have taken that role and made something special from it.

When it was announced that, Jodie Whittaker would be the Doctor, I was pretty excited. She is a very talented actress and I couldn’t wait.

Peter Capaldi is a tough act to follow. While he is such an amazing actor, it has to be said that the last few seasons were…. well, just not good.

He had the odd episode where his amazing talents shined through and I just wish he was given better material to work with.

After this, I was adamant that no matter who played the Doctor, as long as they were a half-decent actor and given good material to work with, the show could recover.

But then it happened. With a massive opening, the Doctor got a grand opening with Whittaker taking praise for her adaptation of the Time Lord.

The first episode the doctor is always all-over-the-place. But there was something that I really liked and thought would be a defining trait of this Doctor. I thought this Doctor was going to be “A crazy inventor.” Yet this (pretty awesome direction) ended with that episode.

Her performance has been… lackluster to begin with. And towards the end—just insulting to long term fans of the show.

The Doctor is a role model. Not due to gender, but because of the strength that The Doctor shows. Because of the integrity and the passion. The care and compassion.

None of that has been displayed in this new Doctor.

There is no personality to this Doctor. At best, she has poorly copied aspects of those who have come before her. While it might have been intended as a nod to the previous actors, in truth it was just one of many insults to the fans.

The Writing

Oh, where do I start with this?

The writing went down hill with Capaldi. Chris Chibnall is a name all Doctor Who fans should know. And when just relating to the Doctor, it’s a name that they should be very judgmental of.

Through his writing we have seen a show that has lasted for 50 years take a huge nose dive. And this latest season has been the final nail in the coffin.

Chibnall is clearly not a fan of the Doctor, as under his watch we have seen the embodiment of strength, honor, dignity, compassion, and a hint of fury turn toxic.

Braiding a single father for having a breakdown was the single most insulting part of the whole series for me. There was no help given to a man clearly in pain—this is not the actions of a Doctor.

The writing format has shown that for whatever reason, the BBC refused to allow fans of the Doctor to write for the show. The Rosa Parks episode could have been an interesting adventure for this diverse adventurous. But instead what we were given was the message that every white man is a racist. And the main villain for the episode? A space white supremacist from the future… Subtlety, nuance, and skilled writing has left Doctor Who.

Ancient alien assassins showed up in "Demons of the Punjab" and that could have thrown an excellent (and very much needed) sci-fi element to the episode. But no. The episode was not impacted by them at all, not only showing that show-runner (Chibnall) and the writer of the episode, Vinay Patel, have no idea how to write sci-fi, let alone Doctor Who. This episode was a bleak history lesson that left out a lot of relevant history.

And this, sadly, was something that repeated throughout the season.

So let's look at the format.

Chibnall said he wasn’t going to have the old classic villains we all know and love to hate.

This is okay. The Daleks or Cybermen lose their impact being used on such a regular basis. But what did we get instead? A frog, spiders, and a tooth fairy… let that sink in. Because the rest of the season was quite simply pointing out that white men have done some bad things, and that you should always trust a robot.

Saying that the writing has been poor would be giving them too much credit. It makes me wonder if any of the writers or people involved in the creative process had actually seen a single episode of Doctor Who ever before.

This was reinforced by being told why there would be no Christmas special. One reason cited was essentially saying, "We can’t think of any ideas."

Simply put, if you can’t think of a Christmas special episode—you shouldn’t be a writer. It really is that simple.

I am sorry to say, that for me, The Doctor is Dead. And while defenders of the show will say I only hate the new Doctor because I am a white man—I simply say this: watch Doctor Who, written by Russell T Davies and Steven Moffat.