What Happened to Doctor Who?
Man, what a mess.
I have been a fan of the Doctor for may years.
Where I lived growing up, we were about 5 hours in a car away from Denver. The problem for a kid in the 80s was there were mountains in the way of the TV signal.
So some days you could watch channel 6, PBS, and see his adventures! The episodes in those days were shorted, and they all connected together in that little series.
So Monday you watch an episode, yay!
But Tuesday, the signal was bad, maybe rain. Or was it no rain? either way, Tuesday meant you didn’t get to see what happened next.
And I was a boy, hard to focus. No Doctor meant I went outside and forgot enirely. My wife lived in a big city and had a nerd father. So she saw a lot more Doctor than I did.
We met, we got married, we looked at the Apple TV one night and suggested watching some old Doctor episodes. Nostalgia fun! We watched the reboot again and again, waiting for the next one.
The Amy & Rory story line! Wow, TV greatness.
Then Matt Smith regenerated into Peter Capaldi, and something strange happened. Was it that Clara stuck around too long? Was it a different group of writers who just never got the groove right?
We wanted to like Capaldi’s Doctor. He looked the part, cool retro-first-Doctor-outfit, the works! Ok the sunglass sonic screwdriver was a miss, but the whole “am I a good man” story line drug on a bit. But we stayed with it. Oh and Clara finally left. Liked the actress, but the character needed to go a long time before.
Peter regenerated into Jodie Whittaker, which we thought was an interesting new direction for the show. The world was too full of old white men running things even then, so it could have been brilliant. We liked her performance in Broadchurch, even thought the storyline was yuck. Not going to rewatch that again.
But here is where the preaching started, and I don’t think it’s stopped since. We couldn’t tell you, because we stopped watching.
Stopped watching a show we have enjoyed since childhood.
Sad, really.
The reason? We felt preached at.
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I know, ending a sentence with at.
Twice.
We really lost interest during Jodie’s Doctor to be fair. We kept watching, then would turn to each other after it was done and ask, “What the hell was that?”
Preachy Preachy Preachy.
The Critical Drinker calls it “The Message” with an ominous voice. I don’t have a fun Scottish accent, so I will just write it and link to his profile.
We drifted away, and didn’t finish the Jodie episodes. At one point we asked each other, “Did we ever finish that season of Doctor Who?”
The answer was no, but neither of us cared enough to suggest it on tele night.
Then came Ncuti Gatwa as the Doctor. Ok he looked fun, maybe we will give it another go and watch the opener. Plus, Catherine Tate and David Tenant!
End of that episode: “Ok that was weird.”
New season! Let’s give it a try.
Perhaps 4 episodes in, my wife turned to me after and asked, “So, are we done?” Yes, sadly.
The Doctor had booger cries. Several. Close up shots, boogers. Story lines that made me ask, “How can it be confusing and preachy at the same time?”
I looked it up, the showrunner who resurrected Doctor Who from the grave was the same guy they brought back for… this??
Mr. Critical Drinker referenced above said in a video they cancelled the Christmas special already. He also said Ncuti’s Doctor regenerated into… Rose Tyler.
Huh?
He also said it’s evident the show is going on hiatus to people on the other side of the pond.
For those of us who stopped watching years ago, we won’t really notice.
Until one day we wonder, “What ever happened to Doctor Who?”
