10 Reasons RTD's Doctor Who Return Failed
3. He Prioritised “Generating Content” Over Telling Good Stories
No RTD interview has been memed more than the clip from Doctor Who Unleashed where he tells Susan Twist that her character was designed to “generate content”.
It’s become shorthand for the approach his second era took more broadly: trying to create a big social media buzz rather than telling good stories.
In fairness, the Susan Triad storyline did get fans talking. Though having a random woman randomly show up each week isn’t exactly the best way to drum up excitement (and was repeated the very next year with Mrs Flood!).
And redacting Twist’s name from the Wild Blue Yonder cast list, so that fans thought she was Matt Smith or Peter Capaldi, was a bizarre move.
Even less successful was the mystery surrounding Ruby’s birth mum. It’s like RTD wanted to tell an authentic story about adoption, but thought fans wouldn’t care unless he pretended Ruby was some sort of extraterrestrial being.
Ironically, the one character that did manage to go viral was Mr Ring-a-Ding, who was simply a quirky new creation (not some attempt to bait fans or hark back to the show’s past).
The bottom line is, if you tell a good story the viral moments will come. Whereas if you just go for viral moments and they flop, you’re left with nothing.