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Comment by voidUpdate | Hacker News Reader

I'll be honest, I think Dr Who is due for a 1989-style shelving for a while. I've loved watching the show since I was young, but I think the quality has fallen off significantly recently. Capaldi was the last "great doctor" in my opinion. Whittaker is a good actress, I thought she performed well in Broadchurch (ironically also written by Chibnall), but her writing was just awful, and it feels like they've just spent the last couple of seasons nostalgia-baiting the fans, like with the Midnight episode

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I think it just needs fresh blood.

Much like the show in the latter years of its first run it collapsed under the weight of its own canon, and writers/showrunners that enthusiastically embraced that canon and alienated the casual audience.

IMO they should never have brought back the Time Lords. That was the genius stroke of the 2005 reboot. Just make the Doctor an intergalactic oddball, let the adventures run from there. What's weird is that Russell Davies was the one who understood this... then when he came back to the show he shoveled nostalgia on top of nostalgia and sank the thing.

I never even watched the Chibnall era so I'm not fully informed but from reading about the Timeless Child arc it just sounds like a show disappearing up its own arse. It's supposed to be a family show, younger kids don't care about that kind of stuff. Just make it fun.

The Chibnall episodes sucked, but then Russell T. Davies came back as showrunner. If you haven't seen the first three episodes he did, with David Tennant returning as the Doctor, you're missing out!

I liked the regular season that followed too. It had good and bad episodes, just like the last time RTD was showrunner, but the good ones were very good.

(I haven't watched the most recent season yet, but that's less because I'm unexcited and more because I want to save it.)

Chibnall episodes most certainly did not suck, neither did his writing. It was simply s different take on Doctor Who. A good one.

What killed it for good was what came (back) after. Bad decision. Bad precedent set. Bringing the RTD and Tennant gang back was the single most important and devastating mistake ever made on this show.

Hi Chris Chibnall, great to see you on Hacker News. :)

In all seriousness we clearly have very different taste! I just found the Chibnall episodes boring. I wanted to like them!

I think GGP shares my taste though, based on their comment.

It fell apart in the Capaldi era. The "kill the moon" was the "jump the shark" of neu-Who

Capaldi had strong episodes throughout his run, but yes, I personally did dislike some of the storylines. The Zygon stuff felt very weak to me, and I never understood the "The Hybrid" storyline. But heaven sent/hell bent were bangers, and I definitely enjoyed his finale Cybermen episodes.

But yes, the moon suddenly reappearing in between shots, perfectly fine and identical to before, was very silly

Maybe Capaldi ended on a high note. I was done with the show after the moon episode and quit watching. I couldn't keep suspending disbelief after that. It wasn't just one bad episode the whole thing felt tired.

Capaldi was a great actor and it was nice that he got some good scripts (I really liked the one where he was in Doctor Prison, great concept), but his run felt to me like a show running out of ideas.

I didn't watch the Whittaker doctor. Heard it was awful and wasn't surprised. I eventually saw the pilot and it was indeed, awful.

Back when it was airing, I sort of lost interest around Capaldi. I think his episodes were a bit too "mature" for me, when I preferred funny scifi show. But I've come to appreciate a lot of his episodes more. But he did have some really dogshit ones, like the moon episode, The Caretaker (Where a school gets attacked by a dalek knockoff), and Sleep No More, which was so bad that me and my girlfriend spent the whole episode talking about other stuff when having a marathon rewatch. Both of us are big fans of doctor who in general

Implying it hadn't already fell apart in the Matt Smith era, where there was a season finale that made less sense than the end of Neo Genesis Evangelion (I think I'm talking about The Pandorica Opens, but it's honestly all a blur, and was at the time I watched it too). Moffat hyped up future episodes but could rarely deliver, RTD just hit you with a massive sucker punch on the 2nd or 3rd last episode and WOW.

Also implying that the wheels weren't kinda getting loose when 10ant said his final farewell at that (otherwise fairly underrated IMO) episode where the Master was hungry.

All of the big franchises are collapsing under the weight of nostalgia and self-reference. Reboots like Picard are shockingly, almost insensitively, retrospective.

It deserves a "1989-style shelving" much more than it did in 1989 itself. The viewing figures are tumbling off a cliff at a time when the BBC in general needs them more than ever.

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