Look, I haven’t been a Doctor Who fan for the longest time, pun intended. I came in during the Matt Smith era by accident, and then rewatched all of NuWho via a very epic Netflix binge, and was there to see the regenerations of The Doctor into Peter Capaldi, Jodie Whittaker, and Ncuti Gatwa. Oh, and the David Tennant revival for the 60th anniversary. Like with any show of its type, there were good episodes and bad episodes, all-time great seasons and ones that you really felt “missed the mark.” Yet, as I made clear in my Doctor Who reviews during the Gatwa era, the show really fell off in its quality.
It’s not just me saying that, either. While Gatwa was a treasure on screen, the episode plots and seasonal arcs, many of which were helmed by legendary showrunner Russell T. Davies, felt repetitive, lame, full of plot holes, and at times, didn’t even show off the companions to The Doctor in meaningful ways. That’s why it was such a shocker when Gatwa left the show after two seasons, and now, no one knows what’ll happen next. That includes former series writer Robert Shearman, who told Doctor Who Magazine, as noted by ComicBook.com, felt that the series is very much in a version of “dead,” stating:
“It’s weird because the show is probably as dead as we’ve ever known it.”
Longtime Whovians know that the show was canceled once before, and the famous/infamous reboot movie starring Paul McGann (which featured the return of Sylvester McCoy to help continue the regeneration timeline) didn’t pan out. Thus, fans had to wait a while for its return via “NuWho” and the Christopher Eccleston version of The Doctor.
The other problem that Shearman noted is that Doctor Who is in a bit of limbo because of the “reveal” that Billie Piper, who played arguably one of the most famous companions ever via Rose Tyler, is now The Doctor, and that confuses things mightily:
“No one’s going to start writing Doctor Who books with a Billie Piper Doctor, because no one knows what that means.”
Davies himself hasn’t been forthcoming with information about what is next for the franchise, and as such, fans will simply have to wait and see what happens next.
Source: ComicBook.com
