# R.I.P. Doctor Who, thanks for a fun 20 year ride **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** tv-shows-scripted\ **Created:** [June 18, 2026, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/r-i-p-doctor-who-thanks-for-a-fun-20-year-ride/1031001 "2026-06-18T14:43:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Dr.Winston\_OBoogie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.winston_oboogie/32/2945_2.png) [@Dr.Winston\_OBoogie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Winston_OBoogie)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2026, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/r-i-p-doctor-who-thanks-for-a-fun-20-year-ride/1031001/21 "2026-06-18T19:13:46Z")
No, I’m sure he meant John Hurt - the War Doctor. ---
**Author:** ![Scoobysnax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c4cdca/32.png) [@Scoobysnax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scoobysnax)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2026, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/r-i-p-doctor-who-thanks-for-a-fun-20-year-ride/1031001/22 "2026-06-18T20:29:30Z")
So, you have seen some of the lost episodes? That is cool. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2026, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/r-i-p-doctor-who-thanks-for-a-fun-20-year-ride/1031001/23 "2026-06-18T20:35:17Z")
I gave up a season and a half into the 13th Doctor, but really, I stopped enjoying it after Smith’s second season, and only stuck around after that through inertia. Honestly, the show lost me when they threw Amy and Rory under the bus. Whitaker was fine, but after a while I just couldn’t be bothered. > [@sciurophobic](#): > > That’s what I didn’t like about the Whitaker era; it wasn’t fun. The first episode was literally and figuratively dark and depressing (took place mostly at night and two companions’ loved one was killed). There’s dark and depressing, and there’s dark and awesome. Some of the best NuWho episodes were dark and awesome: _Silence in the Library/the Forest of the Dead, Midnight, Turn Left, Vincent and the Doctor, Human Nature/the Family of Blood_… “Dark” and “Fun” are not opposites. ---
**Author:** ![glee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b5a626/32.png) [@glee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glee)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2026, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/r-i-p-doctor-who-thanks-for-a-fun-20-year-ride/1031001/24 "2026-06-18T21:22:32Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Jon Pertwee. > [@Dr.Winston\_OBoogie](#): > > No, I’m sure he meant John Hurt - the War Doctor. Absolutely - only one episode but superb acting: [The Day of the Doctor - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_of_the_Doctor) The special was [simultaneously broadcast](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulcast "Simulcast") in 94 countries, and was screened in cinemas both domestically and abroad. It achieved the _[Guinness World Record](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guinness_World_Record "Guinness World Record")_ for the largest ever simulcast of a TV drama and won the [Audience Award](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Academy_Television_Audience_Award "British Academy Television Audience Award") at the [2014 British Academy Television Awards](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_British_Academy_Television_Awards "2014 British Academy Television Awards"). ---
**Author:** ![N9IWP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/n9iwp/32/3154_2.png) [@N9IWP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/N9IWP)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2026, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/r-i-p-doctor-who-thanks-for-a-fun-20-year-ride/1031001/25 "2026-06-18T21:37:58Z")
Note that the BBC has to put it out for tender. I actually liked some of the Gatwa episodes, but a lot were meh at best. Such a waste of Carol Ann Ford. I think DrWho is too valuable to give up on entirely, I don’t want a 10+year gap. Brian ---
**Author:** ![Two\_Many\_Cats2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/779978/32.png) [@Two\_Many\_Cats2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_Many_Cats2)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2026, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/r-i-p-doctor-who-thanks-for-a-fun-20-year-ride/1031001/26 "2026-06-18T21:52:49Z")
I never really got into the NuWho. I appreciate the effort they put into the new show, with the new effects and everything, but I always had to have the subtitles on for Christopher Eccleston because of his accent. Worse though, after the first few episodes, they really started focusing on Rose Tyler and her family, her mom and her old boyfriends and saving her father and all that. I was really not interested at all. I hung on into Tennant’s Doctor, and I liked him fine. I didn’t need subtitles for him, but after he and Rose started getting it on, I just got grossed out and left. I would check back in mostly through clip shows on YouTube. One thing I really did not like was how they portrayed the regenerating process. I mean, in the old days, the dying Doctor might glow a little bit, but these last ones had the Doctor going off like a Great White pyrotechnic display, which was just stupid. I mean, okay, you wanna show off your keen special effects, but does he have to set the goddamn place on fire now? ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2026, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/r-i-p-doctor-who-thanks-for-a-fun-20-year-ride/1031001/27 "2026-06-18T22:01:53Z")
> [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](#): > > Yes yes, but the new era from 2005 til now is really _such_ a different show. Yes it’s a continuation but the times I’ve tried to watch classic episodes they just feel **so** different and cheesy that I couldn’t get through even one. The first incarnation of the show genuinely was a kid’s show. After 2005, they were very concerned with appealing to adults, too. And they did—but adults may be less patient than are kids with the ‘raising the stakes every week’ agenda. After being told that TIME ITSELF IS AT RISK (etc.) too many times, some of us got into eye-rolling mode and couldn’t get out. ---
**Author:** ![c\_carol](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e79b87/32.png) [@c\_carol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/c_carol)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2026, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/r-i-p-doctor-who-thanks-for-a-fun-20-year-ride/1031001/28 "2026-06-18T22:39:31Z")
> [@MrAtoz](#): > > So I suppose it’s time for another Wilderness Years. Yeah, that’s fair. The show kind of deserved it in '89, and it kind of deserves it now. > [@MrAtoz](#): > > Will it come back? Should it come back? Yes, and yes. No telling how long it will take, or what new shape it will regenerate into, but … > [@MrAtoz](#): > > No TV show lasts forever, after all Except this one. There will _never_ be a last episode of Doctor Who. ---
**Author:** ![Cryptoterestrial](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Cryptoterestrial](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cryptoterestrial)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2026, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/r-i-p-doctor-who-thanks-for-a-fun-20-year-ride/1031001/29 "2026-06-18T22:46:59Z")
> [@c\_carol](#): > > Yeah, that’s fair. The show kind of deserved it in '89, and it kind of deserves it now very much disagree! the show had gotten great again in 1989 but few people watched. in 2025 it had gotten bad (as far as I can tell) and also fewer people watched. the low point of the show, the BBC _still_ haven’t released Audience Appreciation figures for the last two or three sessions. they’d never done it before. ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2026, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/r-i-p-doctor-who-thanks-for-a-fun-20-year-ride/1031001/30 "2026-06-19T01:54:46Z")
…I’ve probably watched every single episode of Doctor Who since Jon Pertwee’s first episode. And I loved most of Ncuti’s run. I preferred Whittaker’s Doctor and companions to Tennant’s. I think the show has managed to endure all of these years not because it always did the same thing but because every era is different. I think both Chibnall and RTD 2 get an undeserved rap. I think that Chibnall’s experiments with an “American-style” writers’ room were the right way to go; it just didn’t work out for a number of reasons. With RTD 2, he either took over the show at the time or it would have entered another hiatus, different from what we are facing now. And with RTD 2 we got three of my favourite Doctor Who things ever. Wild Blue Yonder is not only a Doctor Who classic but also harks back to classic sci-fi. I think Dot and Bubble was smart writing and great social commentary that hits on multiple levels. I think the move to more “fantastic” storytelling was a potentially exciting one. I loved the quirkiness of the goblin song and just wished the show leaned more into that. And I think 73 Yards is probably my favourite episode of Doctor Who of all time. It’s really hard to explain _why_ that’s the case. It just hits me on another level. So I don’t agree that the "show has gotten worse. " It’s always been a mix of “This is the greatest thing I’ve ever seen” and “What the hell? That was the worst thing \*ever.” I think Ncuti’s run was a mix of some of the finest episodes of Who ever made, some genuinely good and great stuff, and some all-time _stinkers_. Just like most eras. But there were much bigger issues going on behind the scenes, and much of it didn’t really have anything to do with Doctor Who at all. The executives at Disney that originally green-lit the deal are not the same executives that are running the show now. Among many other things, we are now living in the “war on woke”. The entertainment industry went really _weird_ in the last few years, primarily during and after covid, the rise of AI, fallout after the writers’ strike, and a general rightward shift in terms of world governments and society in general. And TV shows like Willow got “stealth-cancelled” and became impossible to legally watch. Batgirl was well into post-production before getting nuked. There was a purge of Black and women executives and “DEI” schemes. At the start of Doctor Who’s relationship with Disney, RTD was singing their praises and how good of a collaborator they were, and by the end they still haven’t broadcast _The War Between the Land and the Sea_. I think The Reality War was one of the worst Doctor Who episodes I’ve ever seen, IMHO. However, I think it’s clear that this was never intended to be how it was supposed to end. There was a screenshot of Ncuti’s Doctor and Belinda dancing in what looks like a nightclub, which was how it was originally supposed to end. But Disney held off on renewing; Ncuti rightly made the call to leave the show for the sake of his career, and the production decided to set up a shocking cliffhanger in the misguided belief that it could possibly tip Disney’s hand. I think the ending was terrible. They should have just left it as it was. However, I don’t blame them for trying. I suspect that behind the scenes things were even more desperate than what they ever actually said. People tend to forget that these things are made by people. That production companies like Bad Wolf Productions give many people jobs, and when people scramble to try and keep a show on the air, it isn’t just to “satisfy their ego” but because so many other people are dependent on them for their livelihood. The reality is the entertainment industry, just like the tech industry and many others right now is undergoing a retraction. Thousands of skilled, experienced, brilliant people can’t get work, and on the flipside, the executives continue to feather their own nests. Both Chibnall and RTD stepped in when it looked like the show wasn’t going to have a future. And while neither reached what I considered the peak of the show (that will always be for me Eleven and the Ponds) I just really hate how much of the fandom have turned against them. If it weren’t for my lack of faith in both the entertainment industry right now and the BBC in general, I’d probably argue that the show going out to tender is probably a good thing for the show. It _does_ need new blood. But whatever happens, I’ve been watching this show for almost all of my life. It would take a lot (and I do have limits) for me to give up on the show now. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2026, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/r-i-p-doctor-who-thanks-for-a-fun-20-year-ride/1031001/31 "2026-06-19T02:28:54Z")
There were some great episodes in Ncuti’s run. It was the arc that sucked the most. Whitaker was wasted with writing that just seemed to forget who The Doctor is, what the essential core is that maintains still being The Doctor even as other aspects of personality and appearance change. And yeah writing themselves into a corner with no plan. They also tried to play the game of giving long long time fans stuff that only they would appreciate while also desperately and clumsily trying to give younger newer viewers what they thought would attract them. The result was by the end an incoherent mess that was not effective for either let alone both. I’d have watched more if they made more and will whenever it comes back. But a new creative team will have its work cut out for it without just a James Bond style reboot, maybe a whole universe reboot for reasons with picking up The Doctor at the very beginning all over again! ---
**Author:** ![ParallelLines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/parallellines/32/3575_2.png) [@ParallelLines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParallelLines)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2026, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/r-i-p-doctor-who-thanks-for-a-fun-20-year-ride/1031001/32 "2026-06-19T03:11:32Z")
I don’t really know how to respond, other than to wish it luck in finding itself, AND it’s audience again. I watched a good bit of Classic, starting with Baker who was my step-father’s favorite, but it was very inconsistently available in the 80s when I first started. A bit more of the classics throughout that decade, but that was mostly at Cons and the like. I remember watching the controversial TV movie in college, and liking it as well, but that didn’t end up going anywhere on the screen, though I’ve heard the books and audio plays are well done. I was very into NuWho, and Eccleston is actually one of my favorites - he did a very good job of playing someone _running_, desperately from himself and his own past, and I wish he’d stayed for another season though Tennet is excellent as well. I started falling off with the Smith era though, it didn’t work as well for me, and I disliked the Melody Pond bits, and really disliked Clara. And probably because of the latter, I stopped watching after the first season of Caupaldi, though I actually liked the bit of the heel-turn - reminding me of the early Doctors. It didn’t help that it got very hard to find it to watch without trading subscriptions or other, less acceptable work arounds, and I was an early cord cutter. So I’ve missed the last couple of doctors completely, and most of my Whoovian friends also fell off around the same time I did. I’ll probably, eventually, spend the money to watch it all - again, it was part of my childhood, and one of the actual good, involved memories of my step-father (who is a in poor health, and not the best of persons especially since MAGA). But I’m all for letting something lie fallow, and one of the things I kept hearing from the friends that kept watching longer than I did was that NuWho was _trying to hard_. It felt an obligation to keep going, even if the stories and characters weren’t quite there, or if it lacked direction. That it lost a lot of the fun and the joy in it’s own ridiculousness and wonder of the strangeness of it all. That’s not to say I disliked the serious episodes, they worked _great_ especially as a contrast. But it was the wonder and scale of the universe that I personally found amazing and always bringing me back. ---
**Author:** ![GargoyleWB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gargoylewb/32/199_2.png) [@GargoyleWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GargoyleWB)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2026, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/r-i-p-doctor-who-thanks-for-a-fun-20-year-ride/1031001/33 "2026-06-19T15:54:53Z")
I disagree vehemently with the “take a break” and “give it time off” crowds. That isn’t a solution to poor writing and direction, it just sweeps it under the rug. The show simply needs better creative and production control and stewardship. There has been, in parallel with new-Who, consistently great audio/radio shows in-universe, and I’ve often screamed to myself at the show’s producers to just look to the audio shows for the content and tone to right the ship. Treating the shows as a commodity chip to bounce around ownership, short seasons, long delays, and sporadic specials, is a death spiral of doom for viewership and fandom. Oh, and bring back Romana! ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2026, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/r-i-p-doctor-who-thanks-for-a-fun-20-year-ride/1031001/34 "2026-06-19T18:18:16Z")
The property is too valuable to stay fallow for long. I predict they will spend a year or so and attempt to find the right show runner and outline the way forward and then it will be back. Christmas 2027. ---
**Author:** ![c\_carol](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e79b87/32.png) [@c\_carol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/c_carol)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2026, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/r-i-p-doctor-who-thanks-for-a-fun-20-year-ride/1031001/35 "2026-06-19T21:27:17Z")
> [@GargoyleWB](#): > > I disagree vehemently with the “take a break” and “give it time off” crowds. That isn’t a solution to poor writing and direction, it just sweeps it under the rug. The show simply needs better creative and production control and stewardship. It’s not that a break will automatically improve things, it’s just that there doesn’t seem to be anyone who’s qualified and willing and available to take over right now. If there was, they’d already be doing it. I’d rather have the show wait a few years until the right person comes along, if that’s what it takes. > [@GargoyleWB](#): > > Oh, and bring back Romana! Give Romana a spinoff show! ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2026, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/r-i-p-doctor-who-thanks-for-a-fun-20-year-ride/1031001/36 "2026-06-19T22:48:36Z")
The original team with Russell T Davies, Jane Tranter, and Julie Gardner came back to resuscitate Doctor Who. They had Disney’s money. David Tennant even returned for 3 episodes. Many of the series’ fans just weren’t impressed. The ratings were terrible. I can’t imagine any Producer that can do better than RTD and his team. Link [How the BBC destroyed Doctor Who](https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/tv/articles/bbc-destroyed-doctor-183802823.html) > [@](#): > > It wasn’t supposed to be like this. When, in September 2021, the BBC announced that showrunner Russell T Davies would be returning to _Doctor Who_, the show he so spectacularly revived in 2005, there was an air of celebration. The era of Chris Chibnall, the writer who had been in charge before, had been well-meaning, but naff, with Jodie Whittaker wasted as the first female Doctor. But no matter: RTD was here to set things right for the 60th anniversary. The man with the Midas sonic screwdriver was back. > > Alongside Davies, the dream team from the series’ stellar 2005 relaunch returned – Jane Tranter, former BBC head of drama, and Julie Gardner, executive producer, in the form of their new production company Bad Wolf, along with producer Phil Collinson. They had even, somehow, contrived a way for David Tennant – arguably the most beloved Doctor of the whole reboot – to come back for a special run of three episodes. The icing on the cake? The series would now be a glitzy co-production with Disney+, part of a wider stable of yet-to-be-produced spin-offs known as “The Whoniverse”. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2026, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/r-i-p-doctor-who-thanks-for-a-fun-20-year-ride/1031001/37 "2026-06-19T22:54:50Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > I can’t imagine any Producer that can do better than RTD and his team. Christopher Eccelston disagrees. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2026, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/r-i-p-doctor-who-thanks-for-a-fun-20-year-ride/1031001/38 "2026-06-19T23:10:46Z")
> [@MrAtoz](#): > > Yeah, that was another thing I didn’t like in those years. I want to look forward to the next episode thinking “What exciting new adventure awaits them this time?”, rather than “What’s the next horrible thing that will happen to these poor people?” I’m not sure what part of having an alien pull you out of time and bounce you around through a series of interstellar wars and industrial disasters sounds “fun”. > [@MrAtoz](#): > > I also didn’t care for the treatment of the Doctor as this godlike being that every planet in the universe knew and feared. He was better in the old days when he was just this guy wandering through time and space, fixing things when he could and fighting evil when he found it. I would agree with this as well. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2026, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/r-i-p-doctor-who-thanks-for-a-fun-20-year-ride/1031001/39 "2026-06-19T23:16:25Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > > [@aceplace57](#): > > > > I can’t imagine any Producer that can do better than RTD and his team. > > Christopher Eccelston disagrees. Sure, but he’s an outlier it seems. I’m sympathetic towards him, but either they cleaned up their act, or there was some sort of incompatibility going on here. (Or, yes, Eccleston had expectations others lacked.) * * * As for the OP, I’m not the biggest fan of “cancelled” but I can see that being used. The current studio no longer is making it, and the proposed special was canceled. But I definitely don’t like RIP, as that’s definitely implying it’s gone for good. It’s just being put out to tender, to try and find a new studio because the old one wasn’t working out. It will be a while, but I don’t think something this iconic disappears forever. Oh, and I find myself sympathetic both to a lot of the stuff said here, and what Banquet Bear says. ---
**Author:** ![Cryptoterestrial](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Cryptoterestrial](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cryptoterestrial)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2026, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/r-i-p-doctor-who-thanks-for-a-fun-20-year-ride/1031001/40 "2026-06-20T00:02:53Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > David Tennant even returned for 3 episodes. bad choice on RTD’s part, also, bad choice of the BBC to bring back RTD back, and not rest the series instead. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/r-i-p-doctor-who-thanks-for-a-fun-20-year-ride/1031001.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/r-i-p-doctor-who-thanks-for-a-fun-20-year-ride/1031001.md?page=3)