i stopped watching Doctor Who. but, from today, i'm returning to it. here's why.

I grew up with Doctor Who. I was almost raised by the excitement of every Saturday's episode and the connection it brought me to my Dad and Brother. I surrounded myself almost entirely by it, constantly re-watching my favourite episodes and critiquing when I believed that the writers forgot about certain plot lines (which, yes, for my age was pretty cocky - but I was almost never wrong). I even play a little game with my friends where they can pull up a ten second clip from any episode up until around the end of Matt Smith's run and I can tell them exactly what season and the name of the episode it's from. From my favourite episodes, I can recite the entire script of the episode because I've watched it so many times. This is minorly to flex my Doctor Who knowledge (I'm pretty proud of it, as a sci-fi enthusiast), but mostly to express exactly how obsessed I am with this show.

But from the most recent seasons, I know nothing. I have a vague memory of Season 11 (Season 11 of the rebooted Doctor Who - not including seasons before Christopher Eccleston), but from that point, nothing: until now.

Let me start with why I no longer know about what my favourite show is doing in recent years before I get into why I'm trying again.

It's well known among enthusiasts that Doctor Who has taken a bit of a fall from grace - if we didn't know of our allyship through social media, we could definitely tell when the whole show fell from a prime Saturday night showing to the far less popular Sunday night (and shifted from dominating the hour of 19:00 to beginning at 19:30, which doesn't seem like much, but pushes the end of the show to 20:30, which passes into the witching hour of evening into night - it's the unspoken rule of television that beginning half-way through the hour doesn't bode well for live viewers. I have unnecessarily strong opinions about this). But, why? Why did it fall off? What changed?

And it's always down to the writing.

I'm going to list down a couple of major points in which I felt Doctor Who falling off throughout my many years of watching, from the very end of Matt Smith's reign to the beginning of Jodie Whittaker's. Because, in my opinion, the beginning of the end did in fact begin as early as Matt Smith, right in the prime of Doctor Who.

It truly fell apart a bit with Trenzalore, in The Time of the Doctor (Peter Capaldi's introduction to the show), and the abrupt end of the Doctor's regeneration cycle. But let me rewind a little, to go over the previous episode, The Day of the Doctors. I was so incredibly hyped for this episode, because who doesn't think David Tennant was one of the best doctors?

(he's my favourite.)

But what I, and at least every person that I knew at the time that watched this episode, believed, was that being the last Time Lord was a defining factor of The Doctor's characterisation. It's what gave a reason for his tortured soul, a reason for doing all this, his comeuppance for this awful war that took away everything he loved. Not to mention, in The Doctor's Daughter, the tenth doctor admits that he had a family on Gallifrey, but that they were 'all gone now.' Additional emotional damage. And this episode decided to save Gallifrey, apparently without thought for consequences. It wasn't particularly effective, either, because they're still stuck in a pocket of time and unable to ever move on from the moment they were about to perish (though, The Doctor doesn't seem very concerned about his family in this traumatising point in time for them, considering they're supposed to be there and he doesn't mention them once. But beside the point.). This reaps all the consequences stripping part of The Doctor's identity whilst being unable to actually include any of the other Time Lords in any effective plot lines - well, except for this next point, which this was clearly set up specifically for.

We discovered early in the original series that Time Lords can only regenerate twelve times, making for thirteen incarnations. And the Eleventh Doctor pulls from his ass that actually, there's a War Doctor that he refused to count this entire time and the regeneration energy the Tenth Doctor used in his first episode used the additional incarnation. Lo and behold, The Doctor is about to perish in this episode. And suddenly, Clara and the other Time Lords go - 'actually, you know what? Have another regeneration cycle. Go off!' The previous episode was almost glaringly obviously set up with this episode's concept in mind. It is such a massive plot point to rush that the only possibility I can consider is that Matt Smith must've decided he wanted to leave his position real quick, because otherwise it must all be down to bad writing. I mean, it has to be, partly - even if he had to leave lickedy-split, this wasn't a particularly brilliant plot to write, knowing the time limitations. The concept was brilliant, but badly executed. It would've been recovered with good characterisation of Peter Capaldi's Doctor, but alas - it could've done better.

I'd say the Twelfth Doctor was partially redeemable, but there's a reason that, despite finishing his reign, you rarely see anyone mention him as their favourite Doctor. He was a Doctor that required different plot lines to develop into something the audience would like, but he isn't given the full lengths of that potential. Twelve is different in that he is not enthralled by humans and the wonder of the universe, and comes across as indifferent or cold or worn-down. This was obviously something audiences didn't originally agree with, because a lot of the draw into The Doctor's character was an appreciation for the little things that people in the audience, who have just spent their weeks at work or living normal lives that are pretty difficult to brighten up into something incredible, weren't able to do themselves. Part of the Donna storyline was to appreciate the importance of individual humans and their lives, no matter how 'average' they are. It was a major factor in the characterisation of previous Doctors, and how all their companions needed to be incredible was the opportunity to do so, which was presented through The Doctor and the ability to explore all of time and space. The Twelfth Doctor didn't share that enthusiasm so much, and he was redeemed partially through a bit of breaking down of his character's tough exterior. But this crucial aspect was also removed by the mythical being that is Clara Oswald. She was a brilliant character - too brilliant. Everything she did was perfect - she fell into The Doctor's sights in an impossible situation and most of the actions that followed did not fall into place because of her determination - it was because she was Clara. She further removed this bubble of escapism for the audience and pushed the show into something untouchable - a scenario normal people couldn't really be in. It was just an unfortunate combination at a time when the show needed to retain one of its most beloved aspects to show that the situation of Gallifrey and previous Doctor's end didn't shake up the foundations of what the audience loved. I genuinely believe that this storyline would've been a million times more effective in future seasons. But this, on its own, wasn't a breaking point. It was merely a criticism of writing and the direction they took it. It wasn't necessarily bad writing.

Until it was.

I hate to pick apart particular people, but I am not a fan of Chris Chibnall. He wasn't a good choice for Doctor Who at all, as we would soon find out. The first female doctor was truly tainted, not by bad plot choices, but by straight-up bad writing and characterisation. Suddenly, the show stopped being so wonderful and uniquely framed to highlight the wonders of everyday life, and now delved way too hard into history lessons and strained dialogue. Jodie Whittaker is a brilliant actress who I was genuinely excited to see play the Thirteenth Doctor since I'd seen her play her character in Broadchurch so well. Her performance was moving and genuine. And somehow, her characterisation was almost animated in her run. Choruses of 'fam's and cringey phrases that are quite unsuited to any Doctor (and particularly her with the unfamiliar was she was saying them), and are written like it comes from the mouth of an older generation who would like to think they know the trends and sayings of younger generations. The Doctor stopped coming off as knowing or attention-grabbing and began coming off as cringey and directionless, except the rare moments she wasn't. This wasn't the style of Doctor that Jodie Whittaker should've played. Or maybe it is, except the forced dialogue brought her character so far down that it seems impossible to imagine a similar character without the parody that makes any serious scene feel unnatural.

And so, with the acceptance of lost potential, I lost interest in watching my favourite show fall further down the mouse-hole.

Until I heard that there was going to be a new Doctor. And Russel T Davies, who wrote all my favourite episodes, was returning for another run. Excellent! One last Chris Chibnall episode to go until the hopeful redemption of Doctor Who.

Not to absolutely bash Chris Chibnall though - he had some excellent creative concepts, sure, especially in last night's episode (the regeneration of the Thirteenth Doctor). He was just unable to effectively execute any of his ideas. The concept that The Master would want to actually be The Doctor sounds plausible, but not without adequate build-up and reason, which it lacked. Not to mention the glaring plot issue where The Master forcefully regenerates The Doctor and himself, leading to him taking over her body and her being shot off into the mental stratosphere. What I don't get: why did he swap their bodies? There was no point. He had the same appearance as before, the only reason you knew it had worked is because he came out of the wrong box and he happened to be wearing the Thirteenth Doctor's clothes. And then he just kept collecting clothes from each of The Doctor's regenerations to pass himself off as The Doctor. He did absolutely nothing by swapping their bodies except 'killing' The Doctor, which he explicitly stated wasn't the reason for his doing that. He didn't get anything from being in The Doctor's body instead of his as he didn't gain any of her memories and didn't gain her physical body and so, therefore, couldn't fool anyone into thinking he was anything but The Master, anyway. Then there was the abrupt return of previous companions, which again, would've been good, had it been executed properly. Which it wasn't, otherwise we would've felt something like this coming. It's bad writing to just throw in old faces just to appeal to the nostalgia of an audience.

Except the end. It's been hinted for a while that there would be a throwback, and this one is almost sure to bring back the nostalgic fans of the prime run that lost interest, like me. At the very end of the episode, the show shrugs off the recent past and any old companions in a loving way, if I do say so myself, and BAM. The Thirteen Doctor regenerates! And who does she regenerate into - the Tenth Doctor? I don't know what Russell T Davis is going to do with this plot, but now that him and David Tennant (the power combo of Doctor Who's prime) have returned to our screens, what else can we do except light a fire of hope throughout the entire fanbase?

It's nice to say that I'm actually excited about what's to come because now I'm excited about it again, and I'm sure others are saying the same (or, at least, my Dad and Brother are, because they're the only people I have managed to speak to since the episode). But, I hope they're able to redeem the writing quality of the show. I'm hopeful! Tune in next time an episode airs, because I'll undoubtedly have something to say about that, too.

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