10 Recurring Complaints About Doctor Who Right Now
Not the 'Not the Daleks AGAIN' complaint!
For a show that, on paper at least, has limited potential, the criticisms of Doctor Who are often incredibly repetitive.
Many of the complaints in 2021 are eerily similar to those in 1963, 1976, 1985 ad infinitum. What's different now is that these complaints are no longer resigned to scathing reviews or letters in Doctor Who Weekly, unofficial fanzines and The Radio Times.
In an age of social media, fans can vent their frustrations publicly whilst the episodes are airing, then complain afterwards that they couldn't follow the plot. There are common threads that emerge, and this is by no means an exhaustive list. It does serve to remind us that we've been here time and time again and no one complains more about Doctor Who than Doctor Who fans.
To quote Dan in Eve of the Daleks, "Anyone else got a proper deja vu?"
10. There's Not Enough Of It
Chris Chibnall's fabled five-year plan for Doctor Who amounted to three series - one reduced due to COVID - and a handful of specials. During the Steven Moffat era, we had mid-series breaks and 18-month gaps. Episode numbers were reduced from 13 to 12 to 10 to 6. But honestly, none of this should've been a surprise.
Doctor Who isn't like any other show. The only standing set is the TARDIS console room, with two or three regulars. Everything else begins from scratch with each new episode.
If big prestige dramas have to work around actor availability, budgets, and locations, then of course Doctor Who needs to do the same. It's not like the 1960s: you can't churn the show out once a week for a whole year while matching the quality of other genre shows like Star Trek and Stranger Things.
One of the benefits of Flux's six-part structure was a core cast of actors and locations, and this may be the answer for the future, allowing for those dazzling production values to continue. With RTD promising that there'll be no more gap years, it'll be interesting to see how the show adapts going forward.
Anyway, Big Finish releases about six different Doctor Who stories a month, so there's plenty of content!