10 Recurring Complaints About Doctor Who Right Now

1. The Daleks AGAIN?

Doctor Who The Timeless Child
BBC Studios

The Daleks have returned pretty much every year since 2005, which has led to frequent complaints that we see far too much of them.

Terry Nation's creations are, to some corners of Doctor Who fandom, as Creep is to Radiohead fans. Populist, lacking in innovation, not as complex as some of the show's other creations. But the simple truth is that Daleks sell. More than the Doctor and the TARDIS, it's the Daleks that adorned BBC offices during the wilderness years of the 1990s, and they're arguably the defining cultural success of the show since 1963.

This same argument about the proliferation of the pepper pots has been raging from the cooling of Dalekmania following 1965's The Daleks' Master Plan, to the recent Eve of the Daleks and The Power of the Doctor.

Former producer Barry Letts famously criticised creator Terry Nation for submitting the same story every year. NuWho godfather Russell T Davies' era saw a Master finale and three Dalek finales, the exact same hit rate as Chris Chibnall's New Year episodes. Is this a mark of a winning formula, or an indicator of creative bankruptcy? You decide!

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Contributor

Citizen of the Universe, Film Programmer, Writer, Podcaster, Doctor Who fan and a gentleman to boot. As passionate about Chinese social-realist epics as I am about dumb popcorn movies.