What would you like to see next for Dr Who?

[clearspira]

Ncuti Gatwa has seemingly quit the show. If he hasn't, the rumours are that the BBC is considering a hiatus due to low ratings.

If you ask a hundred people why this show sucks now you'll get a hundred answers, but I think only the hard-core fans can sit there and say that the writing has not sucked for a long time.

So similar to the Star Trek question, if you were given the chance to reinvent Who, what would you do?

1) The Timeless Child will be retconned immediately. Hartnell is Doctor number one. Maybe it already had, I dunno, i haven't watched a whole season for a long time.

2) Bring it back to what it used to be - a smart man saving the world from aliens. No more politics. Sick of politics. Too much politics about. I want to see a man, wearing a bow tie, a stick of celery, a scarf and an umbrella shaped like a question mark fighting pepper pots.

3) The show was always at its best as a family show with an edge of horror.

[m4a2000]

All I know of Doctor Who is from Chuck and Linkara. That said as someone who has no 'skin in the game' I wonder if it is time for another movie. A real movie, not a made for TV one. Make it a jumping on point for new viewers. I know people complain a lot about Star Trek, Star Wars, and in comics that they can be hard to get into due to the lore and DECADES of history, but all of these have clear jump on points. ... Some better and some worse than others... Wasn't the last real good jump on point for Doctor Who in 2003 when the show started back up?

By the way, and yes this is a completely American way of viewing things, but calling seasons 'series' confused me for a long time when it comes to shows like Doctor Who and Red Dwarf.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

"No more politics" I'm afraid is a pretty tall order for a show that has been dealing with politics more or less since it's inception. Remember the Happiness Patrol or the Sun Makers? Or how the Daleks themselves are allegorically about militarism to the point of being a quivering little ball of rage in a tank?

What I'd like to see is another companion who isn't a contemporary human. I've had enough of Everyman-style companions for a while. You know what would be really cool? A Rutan companion. They can have it be a proper alien, but Rutan shapeshifting would allow them to save on the budget they would otherwise need for a more alien companion.

That said, I'd probably settle for somebody from Earth's past, or a future human space colonist. Just like, not every companion has to be Joe Blow from contemporary Earth Prime, and that's something that's kind of dominated the New Who era.

[stryke]

That Moffat is not at all involved in anyway.

I quite liked the three specials that RTD did, especially the one with the Toymaker, and I was down for the new series with the new Doctor. Then my life took a turn and I just wasn't in the mood.

Did watch the christmas special as I was with my family and it was on, and that basically killed all enthusiasm for watching more Who for awhile thank yet again to Moffat being Moffat.

I'd also like to see them messing with the companion dynamics. Older guy Doctor and modern young lady, please no, not again, but I also don't want them to do what they did with Jodie Whittaker where it felt like they didn't trust the audience to handle a lady Doctor and so overstuffed the Tardis.

My idea is to have a contempory lady, so we've got our point of view character, and person who needs stuff explained, and then have the Doctor having been travelling with a lady alien for awhile so we're effectively joining the Doctor having missed half a season of stories giving them some history and we're jumping into their dynamic in media res. Have some moral conflicts where the Doctor and lady alien have different approaches where both of them have a point where sometimes the contempory is swayed one way, and sometimes the other.

[Nobody700]

"No more politics" I'm afraid is a pretty tall order for a show that has been dealing with politics more or less since it's inception. Remember the Happiness Patrol or the Sun Makers? Or how the Daleks themselves are allegorically about militarism to the point of being a quivering little ball of rage in a tank?

What I'd like to see is another companion who isn't a contemporary human. I've had enough of Everyman-style companions for a while. You know what would be really cool? A Rutan companion. They can have it be a proper alien, but Rutan shapeshifting would allow them to save on the budget they would otherwise need for a more alien companion.

That said, I'd probably settle for somebody from Earth's past, or a future human space colonist. Just like, not every companion has to be Joe Blow from contemporary Earth Prime, and that's something that's kind of dominated the New Who era.

Funnily my idea for a female doctor also had 3 human companions, but my gimmick was they were people 100 years apart, assassinated by the same bullet fired by a time gun the doctor saved, and she figures out who tried to assassinate them via a time gun, and they work with her. The idea of a companion from like, 2020, 1920, and 2120 added some spice and difference.

[ProfessorDetective]

2) Bring it back to what it used to be - a smart man saving the world from aliens. No more politics. Sick of politics. Too much politics about. I want to see a man, wearing a bow tie, a stick of celery, a scarf and an umbrella shaped like a question mark fighting pepper pots.

This... but SHE'S Indian or Chinese because screw that "no more politics" junk. This show is inherently political, it's best known villains are freaking cyborg space Nazis!

Sorry, that got my dander up.

Anyway, I don't have D+, so I haven't actually seen anything from the Neo-RTD Era, yet. So, I don't really know what needs alteration.

My baseline IS basically yours: genius adventurer fights evil where/when they meet it, dragging their new friends along for the ride. The show has rarely given up on that, so I'm rarely disappointed with the show.

I DO want a story set in Ireland, filmed on location, because that STILL hasn't happened, yet. I don't know, I just find that odd.

[clearspira]

I feel as if I need to clarify myself somewhat. My fault. Saying "no more politics" in our hyper politicised world was a mistake.

What is politics in how it relates to a creative work? That is what we have to define here. And after much thought my opinion is actually rather simple: The INTENTION makes something political, not the act.

I do not think that fighting the Nazis or an allegory of the Nazis was political until about 15 years ago when suddenly there were people who seemed to really love the Nazis again, Holocaust denial became vogue, and we started to vote for Nazis. Before that, Nazi was shorthand for "evil" and 99% of us accepted that.

The Rosa Parks episode i do not think was too political either because the Doctor has met real people before. It was actually quite well done.

On the other hand, making the Doctor a woman, making him black and gay, having him wear a skirt, having him dancing and kiss men, having a drag queen villain, having the Doctor be corrected on his pronouns. These acts were political. And we know this because they have admitted it. Ncuti Gatwa told anyone who had a problem with the show to "go and touch grass". RTD's intention was to show up the people that he disagreed with in the same way that many voted for Trump to "own the libs". It's the exact same crap.

Or to put it another way, these things do not exist to tell a good story, they do not exist to create a good product. They exist solely because the writer has decided to cast their personal opinions upon us. They have put themselves before us.

I am NOT saying that these things cannot exist. My favourite all time Dr Who companion is Jack Harkness. I love an out and proud bisexual character. But dial it back to "being a natural part of the story" and not "let's deliberately own half of our audience so that no one watches."

And btw, one more thing to add to my original list now that i am thinking about Gatwa. I hate these sexualised Doctors. The Classic series Doctor came off a lot like Sherlock Holmes in that he really showed no interest in men or women. He was about the adventure. But the new series changed all of that and I do not like it.

[sayla0079]

Having him wear a skirt.

I have a question about the "skirt" issue. Did you say the same thing when Jamie from classic who wore one?

[sayla0079]

Also while I agree the "Touch grass" comment could have been done better I am not surprised they said it considering some of the really toxic so called fans.

[sayla0079]

Anyway going back to the question
1. No More Doctor Companion romances they have been done to death
2. Get companions from more then one place then present Earth. I would do what classic did and it make it a wide variety. For people not familiar with classic the Doctor traveled with people from all over. Modern day, past, and future and other worlds, heck two (technically three) companions were his own people.
3. Fix the Master's characterization. He is supposed to be this cold and calculating person that you never know what he will do next while sometimes being hammy. Not some psychotic attention whore for lack of a better term.