Not sure how unpopular this is but Chibnall gets the daleks better than RTD and Moffat and his dalek stories are some of the best in nuwho.
this post was submitted on 02 Jun 2025
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ooo i love that thought! i will revisit that, but i do know that the New Year Special with the Daleks is one of my favorite of that run. LOVED Jodie in that scarf!
If we're gonna give everybody from Classic Who bit parts in new Who, the show needs to do a better job of explaining who the hell these people are besides 'oh the Doctor is excited so they're friendly'
i feel like this puts the onus on the viewer, which i don't think is bad necessarily. for oldheads it can be a fun callback. for nuvians it puts them more firmly in the perspective of the new companions, where they aren't privy to the expansive life and history of the Doctor.
The only reason people are sick of the Daleks and the Cybermen is that for the past few years they've been reserved for big finales with 10 different plotlines. Put them into a story that engages with them thematically and they're good, it's just that that's barely happened since the Capaldi era
yeah, you need to use them in a way that's emotionally resonant.
Capaldi was the worst of the new Doctors. I've even watched Whitaker's era twice but I can't stand to watch Capaldi a second time. He is so rude and mean, and that's a characterisation of the Doctor that I can't agree with.
It's a shame, because I liked Clara and I remember the time loop episode (Heaven Sent?) as having a really cool premise but I always give up my rewatched after the first one or two Capaldi episodes
Upvoted for unpopular opinion but I can't agree. Personally Calpaldi is my favourite ever doctor. He does mellow out in later seasons and s10 is honestly my favourite series of nuwho so far.
Yeah for me the whole point of regeneration is that the Doctor gets a new personality every time, not just a new look and one or two personality quirks. As 10 said, it should be like he dies and another fellow walks away. 12 feels properly different to the others but there's JUST enough continuity (eg his continued affection for River) to also make him feel like he's still the Doctor.
let me suggest you try revisiting him again? but if you can't stomach his early, gruff episodes, try jumping to his second series. he does have an overall arc where he mellows and re-embraces empathy and compassion.
Wasn't until a minute after he killed a guy in the first season in the episode where they get shrunk to cure a defective dalek on a battleship that it hit me - the doctor just killed a guy?? Not everyone lives?? That's not the "nice" doctor I knew @.@
But I was morbidly intrigued, and fell in love with the doctor who always seemed on the verge of dropping F bombs. He never did, lmao
The downward slide for New Who started under Matt Smith.
Imma jump on how I didn't like the writing for Matt Smiths era. The lady killer vibes and implied netorare sprinkled throughout the series made me cringe. I honestly tried to speed run his seasons to get to Capaldi's take on the doctor.
Yes, 11 was a little too "I'm the Doctor and all I have to do is announce that and the Daleks shit themselves a little". In fact, I miss the Time Lords. I miss the Doctor having people and rules to answer to. They're making the universe revolve around the Doctor a little too much. The Doctor should feel more like a fugitive staying just ahead of their pursuers.
great thought, and honestly would be extremely refreshing in a nuWho context. i was hoping the return of gallifrey to be impactful but it never really was. hopefully the Rani gives it another go.
I watched his era years after everyone else did. Matt Smith had an amazing first episode with really defined quirky characterization. Then his next few episodes, he's mostly just angry and shouting at everyone, and all of that fun eccentric energy just goes away. During that part of series 5, I was calling him the "Gordon Ramsay" Doctor.
After that, his characterization just felt really inconsistent and all over the place, to the point where he felt like three different characters inelegantly melded into one. It's way harder to get a read on his overall personality than every other Doctor, and I need to rewatch to make sense of his very disparate psyches and emotional responses to things.
By series 6, the show fell victim to a "mystery box" writing style where Moffat seemed to be making it up as he went along. Much like Sherlock, he was also constantly teasing Tumblr theorists to the detriment of the writing..
He also unlearns a lot of the Tenth Doctor's lessons with little to no commentary or repercussions.
I spent his entire era craving the consistent characteristics I saw in The Eleventh Hour and rarely getting that. Exceptions: Amy's Choice, The Lodger, Night Terrors, Closing Time, and his finale were all fantastic Eleventh Doctor episodes, and if he had depicted like that in every episode, he'd be my favorite.
Yes, in retrospective this is probably true. Season 5 was fantastic, 6 still pretty solid, but season 7? Phew. It somewhat showed that Steven could not handle the main show, the 50th anniversary festivities and his other show Sherlock all at once.
I agree. It was a slog for me to finish his run. Capaldi was exciting in the beginning, had some great episodes, but still a bit rough. I think I just personally don’t like Moffat as a show runner.
i don't know about that. just seems like such a negative perspective. the show has ups and downs, like anything.
This wasn't a controversial opinion, but the groupthink has collectively decided it is now.
RTD2 has been, generally, really good. Yeah the last episode kinda sucked, but mostly the ending. Which sounds like they were stuck between a rock and a hard place on that one. Really excited to see what's up with Billie though.
Also Sutekh's redesign totally works. Omega's redesign was pretty stupid though.
I am with the DW fandom since 2012, and since then (possibly earlier) the golden rule has been: The current showrunner is always the worst.
this is spot on. fans, man. XD
for me, i think it's been what i expected: RTD, again. XD with all that comes with that, the good, the bad and the ugly. XD
You know what? I enjoyed the Capaldi era and would've been well happy if he had continued for another 13 episodes. Bill was a great companion too with terrific acting chops.
I like to dream of season 9 with Bill as companion.
Hell yes! LOVE Capaldi! And you're right, Bill WAS great!
Rose Tyler is neither the greatest companion of all time nor a blight upon the land.
Who is your favorite companion? I'm in the "Rose is my favorite" camp, but I could make an exception for Amy Pond.
Wilfred.
He was the most supportive dad, omg 😭
Either Clara or Donna
Clara is my #3, but I'm not a Donna fan. I don't hate Donna, but I'm not a fan and think she's just too annoying and doesn't complement the adventures well. I did like her return in the recent specials, but that was largely because David Tennant was also there.
My husband is on the “Donna is annoying” camp. Which is totally understandable especially since she basically screamed every line during her first appearance. He softened up on her later on cos she’s funny but still thinks she’s mostly annoying
I think Martha is underrated. She’s a doctor, actually brings knowledge/expertise, and still has the human compassion aspect that Rose and Donna rely on. Her only flaw is that she had a crush on the Doctor and he didn’t reciprocate.
Martha is definitely underrated. It also doesn't help that her story is relatively short. Most (primary) companions get 2-3 series, I think she got 1/2 to 1 series, maybe a little more with a cameo (it's been a little while).
Who's #1 and 2?
Number 1 is Rose, number 2 is Amy Pond.
Rory is probably 4. Martha next maybe? Or Bill. Ruby and Belinda were also great, so maybe they're 5 & 6 first? It gets difficult the further down we go.
Yeah, I'm with the Ponds. All of them.
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13 was a good doctor. I liked that they tackled issues like segregation in the US and Partition. I liked The Fam, including The Doctor and Yas being attracted to each other and Graham and Ryan’s relationship.
I didn’t care for Flux or Legend of the Sea Devils, but everything else was fine. I really liked Sacha Dhawan’s Master and The Timeless Children (We need more Fugitive Doctor.) The only part of that I didn’t like was The Master randomly destroying Gallifrey again.
13 was a lot like 6 in that her expanded universe material is way, way better than her TV episodes. Seriously, if you haven't read "Star Tales," it has some of the most amazing Doctor Who stories ever, especially the one with Elvis, which made me weep.
And The Witchfinders has an amazing novelization that really dives into gender roles much deeper than the episode itself, thanks to 13's inner monologue.
And the Doctor Who fanzine "More of the Universe" adds tons of stories that fix Thasmin, and it was endorsed by Jodie herself.
Chibnall is just really bad at writing the character, in my opinion.
I like 13 more than 11 and 12…
13 was a great doctor even, I really wish the scripts had been better for her. Also the color pallet for her seasons seemed intentionally limited which wasn’t fun visually to me. She thought she was great.
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Quite enjoyed the Chibnall era. Okay, it wasn't peak Who, but it doesn't deserve all the hate!
Also, to counterbalance my positivity, I was never that keen on Matt Smith as the Doctor. Never quite landed for me, though granted he had a huge act to follow after Tennant.
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Spoilers for series 15, episode 8, The Reality War
Assuming Ncuti Gatwa is done as The Doctor, I'm bummed he never fought against Daleks, Cybermen, The Master or any other classic villains.
I liked The Rani and exploring Time Lord backstory, although I found the final two episodes VERY confusing, but it didn't quite scratch the itch.
I do appreciate trying something new in general and I was a big fan of many of the individual new stories, but I wanted just a little more classic Doctor Who.
Gone too soon. He was just getting going! :(
Yeah. I feel like Gatwa and Whittaker both had a lackluster first season followed by a good second one and then just dipped at the end of it.
Many question me, but Matt Smith is still my favorite doctor.
I'm glad! Sadly I didn't really start to appreciate him until he was leaving. When he took off the bowtie I was hit a lot harder than I expected. It was almost like a part of me thought he'd always be there, and then, he wasn't. :(
I still maintain that Kill The Moon isn't necessarily a bad episode, it's just not especially deep. It seems like the whole idea was for everyone to take an already bonkers premise and just run as far as they could with it, and IMO it feel like everyone's having a blast with it. If you accept it as just that I think it's fine.
Also I'm sort of glad the Disney deal is probably over, I think Doctor Who functions best when it's a bit scrappy and under-funded. It's a show that lends itself to big ideas and it can pretty much be anything, but I think when it's given a huge budget it tends to get quite over-indulgent and messy.
I do think that working with constraints can spur creativity. I'm sad how much budget just went into CG slop. :/
That said, I do think the viewership on D+ has been good by D standards, so we'll see!
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