Doctor Who…the hell cares?
Note 1: Before any potential reader complaints, the title is a riff from the MST3K episode "Overdrawn At The Memory Bank." Besides, if I didn't care, I wouldn't have spent the time writing out over 1800 words below.
Note 2: I'm writing with the assumption that you've a) watched the second season of Doctor Who on Disney, b) followed along with the episodes in some way, c) and/or are familiar with the show's history and background. If you can nod in agreement with at least one of these three options, please read on. Otherwise, you may wish to skip this entry as it's pretty long, but please feel free to come back another time.
Note 3: As of July 3, 2025, there's a follow-up to this post as I finally got around to watching this season's episodes. What?
The second season of Doctor Who has ended on Disney, and its finale landed like a wet fart. Similar to this kind of biological accident, the finale was shocking, uncomfortable, and indicative of further messes to clean up. I’ve been taking some time to process my thoughts, not just about the ending, but about the entire show. There’s been a lot to think about, read over, worry about, and ultimately despair over. The conclusions I’ve come to aren’t exactly what I hoped for, and a lot has to go right for these conclusions to bear fruit. Still, they are what they are, so let's get into it.
As I mentioned above, this post will require some prior knowledge of the goings-on of Doctor Who, both as a show and as a TV production. If you're looking for a recap of the last season's episodes, you'll be much better reading the Jumbled Thoughts of a Fake Geek Boy, who really takes his time to analyze each episode from the Christmas special, "Joy To The World," up to the two-parter finale of "Wish World" and "The Reality War." That being said, once "The Reality War" ended, viewers were left trying to process multiple stories: the Fifteenth Doctor suddenly regenerated into...well, we're not fully sure, but it sure looked like Rose Tyler; both of his companions, Ruby and Belinda, were given short shrift in their departures, with Belinda having a worse fate than Ruby's; the state of conflict with the Pantheon of Gods, along with The Rani, are unresolved, as is the entire idea of "bigeneration;" and finally, the Doctor's granddaughter Susan shows up for a while, then gets utterly ignored. It's a spaghetti mess of unresolved plots that reflects some of the chaos behind the scenes, though even if you weren't aware of the production issues, the finale would still cause you to scratch your head in puzzlement. What just happened, and what went wrong to get us to this point?
The deal with Disney is not the biggest problem facing Doctor Who, but it has framed the problems and shaped much of what followed. When the deal with Doctor Who was signed in the fall of 2021, Disney and streaming sites in general were riding a high that was undoubtedly influenced by the COVID lockdown. Around the time the first Doctor Who/Disney episodes were being filmed, The Walt Disney corporation started to change course, as the Disney+ services were losing subscribers and eating heavily into the company's profits. By the time the first episode under the deal, "The Star Beast," aired in November 2023, Disney had already cut back its streaming services and had let go of employees. In a relatively short time, Disney had transformed from a potential savior of producing Doctor Who to a millstone that weighed the entire show down. Doctor Who got swept up in Disney's attempts to create a streaming service that would outdo Netflix, only for the company to pivot back to a prior CEO to pull itself out of the endless hole that Disney+'s budgets caused.
The BBC and Bad Wolf Productions (the production company started by Russel T. Davies) couldn’t have predicted Disney’s rise and fall when they signed a co-production deal in 2021. I can't fault them or anyone else for not having a crystal ball to predict the future success of streaming. Still, Disney’s misfortunes only worsened some bad assumptions RTD made. The agreement was for 26 episodes, 3 of which were used for the 60th Anniversary Specials with the Fourteenth Doctor's story. Out of the remaining 23 episodes, five were siphoned off for a spinoff featuring UNIT, which all things considered was a bad idea since a) we already had something similar in Torchwood, and b) presuming an audience would be interested in a spinoff is, well, it's a choice, isn't it? This left 18 episodes for the new Fifteenth Doctor, which were then divided into two 8-episode seasons each with a related Christmas special that would tell a separate story. An 8-episode season is not enough time to establish a character, nor is it enough time to create a season-long arc that's now apparently part of Doctor Who storytelling. There's little room for either to develop besides broad, sweeping gestures, and when you're introducing a new character like either companion, or trying to spell out the mystery of Think Tank or the Rani or Sutekh, there's little time to do so. Even the Doctor suffered from such a short run, and he's the title character! Some explanations for the Doctor's brief development were due to Ncuti Gatwa's prior commitments which ran parallel to the production of both seasons of Doctor Who. One fix for Gatwa's spotty availability was the return of "Doctor-lite" episodes that unfortunately counted against the Fifteenth Doctor's exposure to the world. It's hard to make an impression as a Time Lord when you're sidetracked in your own story.
Having short seasons also hurt Doctor Who when it came to plot development, which was a mess of RTD's own making. An ostensible reason for having Disney co-produce the show would be to introduce Doctor Who to a larger audience, but instead of effectively soft-rebooting the show, RTD decided to plunge heavily into the show's lore to a point of confusing both old and new fans alike. Callbacks to the old show were in some ways akin to what was seen in the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, or even with the expanded Star Wars universe, but there was little context as to what these callbacks meant. Given the brevity of the seasons, there wasn't a lot of time to establish the meaning of the antagonists beyond brief dialogue, and if we were lucky, a flashback to an older episode. With such flimsy explanations, it was hard to muster any sort of feeling of danger generated by these antagonists. Both the demise of Sutekh and Omega were portrayed in such a perfunctory manner, it was hard to even see what was dangerous about them in the first place.
Another problem with relying on lore was with the lore itself. Doctor Who is notorious for having convoluted histories, some of which came about as a way to deepen the mystery of just who the Doctor really is--witness the Cartmel Masterplan from the Seventh Doctor era, which somewhat came into being with the "Timeless Child" backstory from the Thirteenth Doctor. I don't have time or the energy to get into that particular plot line (or the Chris Chibnall era in general, though I will say in hindsight, his first season as show runner looks slightly better in comparison to the mess that followed him), but I will acknowledge it's difficult to know what to draw from when diving into Doctor Who history. In RTD's case, he allegedly has a five-year plan for the show, and he wrote the episodes accordingly...even though his Disney contract only guaranteed him two years with them as a co-producer. If I were to point to an own-goal, this writing error would be the biggest one. Even if the original ending for "The Reality War" were to have aired, we'd still have questions about Susan's appearances, or the fate of the Rani (as only one of the bi-generated Time Ladies died). As it is, there are now more existential questions1 around the show that go beyond the abandoned story line.
So what happens now? The show is in a precarious state, with only the spinoff of The War Between The Land And The Sea left to air. My cynical prediction is that Disney, eager to end its contract, will dump all five episodes at once on a summer weekend just to fulfill its obligations (and coincidentally, July 4 this year is on a Friday, so keep your eyes open). Once the contract is officially over, we may hear more rumors about the show's future. Doctor Who has become an expensive show to produce, which partially explains the long lead time between filming and airing. The BBC has made it clear they want a co-production partner, even for a show they consider to be one of their essential programs. Teaming up with another streaming platform is likely not an option, as the Disney experience has proven to be a disappointment. If they find a partner, it will likely be with another state-operated broadcasting company. Would I enjoy seeing a co-production of Doctor Who with the CBC from Canada, or Australia's ABC? Sure, as I think there'd be enough cross-cultural exchange to make the show an option in the other country. Would it happen? I can't say. Or, would the BBC swallow its pride and talk with a public broadcaster in an EU country? In either case, such negotiations would take a lot of time to work its way out, and if the BBC were to team up with a public broadcaster, I imagine there'd be public input from the potential partner to consider.
Even if the BBC were to find a new production partner, there's still the actual TV show to consider. In front of the camera, the Fifteenth Doctor suddenly regenerated into...well, maybe Rose Tyler, or maybe a face of the TARDIS, or maybe the actual Sixteenth Doctor. Behind the camera, there's still RTD as the show runner, and if the show were to continue, I would favor having RTD split off the Script Editor part of the show runner as a separate position again. RTD can remain as the show's Producer, but let someone else handle the writing. There's potential for conflict, as I would imagine RTD's ego would be bruised by a diminished role, but it may even set up the person who takes over from him in a few years (providing the show lasts that long, of course). As for whomever the next Doctor is, I'd get that squared away as soon as possible, and also make sure this new Doctor and companion(s) have the room to explain their stories in longer seasons. The minimum should be a 10-episode season, 11 if you count a Christmas special. Don't worry about a spinoff, just concentrate on the main story. Sometimes it's okay to keep the stakes lower, so instead of a "war on reality," maybe it's okay to make sure a little Welsh village gets saved, or a cosmic cat gets rescued from a space tree or something small like that.
Finally, if the show does continue--and I go back and forth with my thoughts and emotions here, sometimes optimistic, other times pessimistic--it may be good for RTD to watch the really old shows again and read up on the teams of people on both sides of the camera who made them. He believes he understands the show’s history, both as a TV program and a cultural institution in the UK. Even if true, he should use the show’s uncertain future to reflect on its past, what made it work, and why it resonated with audiences. It wasn’t just one person’s vision; it was a team of writers, producers, designers, actors, musicians, and more. By tapping into this collaborative spirit, RTD can find inspiration for improvements and give the show a fighting chance to continue. I am realistic about the show's fate, and it's likely it may not make it much further, but my hope is that RTD can come clean, admit that the development during the Disney years was a bit too much to handle, and focus on the story of one odd guy in a police box who somehow makes those who travel with him better versions of themselves.
Earlier drafts of this already long article had long discussions of the role of social media during the Disney years, along with RTD's somewhat ham-fisted approach to incorporating cultural and social hot-button issues into the show. Unfortunately, I don't really have the scope to do these topics justice, but if the show continues onward, they'll surely be discussed at length by folks better versed in them.↩