I've stopped watching Doctor Who. Here's how the BBC can win me back

Telegraph

3 days ago

The Doctor is out. And, after a measly two seasons, it looks as if the Whouniverse – the grand experiment that melded the BBC's Doctor Who with Disney's bank account and was supposed to spawn a dozen wonderful spin-offs – has already run aground. Ncuti Gatwa's 15th Doctor's timey-wimey is now up, but with viewing figures at an all-time low and rumours that Disney are about to step out of the Tardis for good, it may be a good while before the police box rematerialises onto our screens.
And that's despite Billie Piper's surprise appearance on Saturday night, apparently as the 16th Doctor – although even that is unclear, with show-runner Russell T Davies teasing of the former companion's return , 'but quite how and why and who [she is playing] is a story yet to be told'.
However, a rest for Doctor Who could be a good thing. The show needs (another) reset, to come back with fresh blood and fresh ideas, to fundamentally change the Whoniverse in the same way Davies did first time around in 2005.
I am well-qualified to show the BBC and production company Bad Wolf the way forward – because I am not a Doctor Who fan. I will not stick it out through thick and thin, I won't get excited by the mention of mythical baddies who were once half-referenced in an episode from 1968.
I am not, and I have never been, a Whovian. Despite this, I have always enjoyed keeping up with the Doctor's adventures, but the recent two seasons have felt a slog, and my attention has certainly wavered in the past few weeks. Watching the Doctor has become a chore. But here's how he (or she, or they) can win me back…
Give it a rest
It would be a little embarrassing for Disney, the BBC et al to put an end to the grand Whoniverse experiment so soon – you only need to spend five minutes at New Broadcasting House (with its Tardis in the reception area) to see how entwined the BBC's sense-of-self is with the good Doctor. But the show should embrace the theory of sunk-cost fallacy, stop throwing good money after bad, and take the tough decision to call it quits. A bit like Manchester United with their flailing manager Ruben Amorim, they are damned if they do and damned if they don't. Doctor Who has lost all of its momentum. Viewers are jaded. Take a few years out. Reset. Come back with something to get us excited.
Say goodbye to Russell T Davies
No one doubts the talents of Russell T Davies, but there's no hard reset with the show-runner still at the helm. The past two seasons haven't been entirely awful, but the series feels like it is treading water and the RTD magic is all a bit, well, 2005. As a viewer, I'd like Davies to get on with writing some really meaty dramas – we have Tiptoe coming to Channel 4 in the near-future – and step aside for someone willing to tear up everything he built and start from scratch. Bring in an outsider – not someone who if you cut them bleeds Gallifrey, someone willing to embrace the Whovian lore while also disrespecting it. How about actor-writer-director Will Sharpe (Black Pond, Flowers, Landscapers)? He could even cast himself…
Learn from Andor
Tony Gilroy's spin-off, from his own spin-off film Rogue One, breathed such new life into the Star Wars universe that it has effectively killed off all of the other Star Wars spin-off TV shows. Why? Because those other series clung desperately to spectacle, lightsabers and an ingrained knowledge of the lore. Andor gave us people, real flesh-and-blood people who were trying to exist within a universe on the brink of intergalactic civil war. We care deeply about them – and in turn we empathise with them, we imagine ourselves in the same situation. Doctor Who is an adventure, but it is becoming an increasingly hollow one.
Grow up
In 1970, the Daily Sketch famously described Doctor Who as 'the children's own programme that adults adore.' And, yes, Who is a 'children's show', but it is also intended to be a family favourite airing at prime time on a Saturday night. The tone of late has been a little too juvenile. It's unlikely the series is hoovering up millions of kids who are less drawn to mainstream TV drama anyway, while the current incarnation is a turnoff for most adults, who don't need the neon-sign exposition and crayon-drawn morality lessons.
So why not go ahead and actually make something aimed at older viewers? Most Doctor Who fans are grey of beard these days anyway. It needn't be 18-rated, but it should feel grown-up, a little grittier, a little more real, a little less like a cartoon. It should feel intelligent and dignified. This is the streaming age – we've got Netflix, Apple TV+, Prime Video, Now, Paramount+, Disney+. How many adults are going to waste their precious viewing-time on something that currently resembles Scooby Doo?
And the next Doctor is…
It's hardly Gatwa's fault that the show has lost its oomph – he's a performer of almost superhuman charisma – but a hard reset is a hard reset, and it's for the best he's leaving. Forget Billie Piper, the new regime needs to bring in its own man (or woman). Despite some off-screen grumblings about his commitment, Gatwa has certainly given his all on the screen, but his Doctor has lacked depth. Everyone will have a wishlist for the Sixteenth Doctor, but to my mind they need an actor who has presence and gravitas, who can make this two-hearted alien feel extremely human, who can effortlessly hint at a vast inner world. Someone who can show us the burden of being the Doctor, as well as the thrill. May I present – Adeel Akhtar.
Respect the audience's intelligence – and stop lecturing us
The show has been attacked in some quarters for its obsession with having a 'message'. Some of this messaging – its commitment to on-screen diversity, for instance – should be applauded and retained, but in other cases it could be refined. Take the first episode of the current series, which used an alien civil war to explore the issues of coercive control and incels. There's an argument to be had about whether a Saturday-evening entertainment show needs to be tackling such things, but if it should choose to, it needs to respect the viewers' intelligence.
As the episode reached its climax, the Doctor's new companion, Belinda (Varada Sethu), gave the baddie a dressing down for his 'coercive control', before dubbing his home 'planet of the incels'. It had all the subtlety of an Acme anvil. Yet it's the off-screen antics that arguably need even more attention. It's understandable that Davies finds it satisfying to stick two fingers up at bigots, but his pugilistic tone in the press is threatening to turn the show into a culture war monolith – and that's never going to be a ratings win.
Ditch Disney – and embrace the wobbly sets
If Disney doesn't jump, the BBC should give it a push. The money has proved a poisoned chalice. While you can see the big budget on the screen – impressive sets, lovely special effects, smashing costumes – you can also see the corrosive effect it has had on the show's imagination. There's too much universe-spanning spectacle and not enough invention. As former show-runner Steven Moffat said recently on the Virtual Parkinson podcast: 'What Doctor Who does best is it takes all the monstrosity and wonder of outer space and puts it under your bed.' It's time to bring back that era of the wobbly sets and the sort of restricted budgets that can lead the best screenwriters (Davies included) to their best work, having to engage their imaginations to find a way around their limited resources.