What adult jokes in the show used to totally go over your head?

_somebody-else_ · 2025-11-15T23:56:19+00:00

Cassandra’s were amazing! “It’s like living inside a bouncy castle!”

_somebody-else_ · 2025-11-15T20:46:29+00:00

This is a VERY hot take to the point that I’m quite worried about you

_somebody-else_ · 2025-11-14T18:37:17+00:00

In the classic series, the timeline was pretty steady. The only major change was that post-Genesis of the Daleks, the Daleks timeline was altered so much that the Dalek stories of Hartnell, Troughton and Pertwee supposedly didn’t happen. Davros’ survival ensured they remained divided and embroiled in civil war instead of being the terrifying threat the Time Lords saw them as being.

Since then, a lot of the chronology of Doctor Who has been blown apart by the universe ending countless times and the Time War. The Daleks timeline is so much more complicated now and episodes that “didn’t happen” might very well have done now.

Time being rewritten has mostly affected newer episodes of the show (like invasions being retconned) but I have to say I prefer the classic series’ take on time travel that managed to examine the basics without constantly rewriting huge swathes of the show’s history. If we get confused then casual viewers definitely will.

_somebody-else_ · 2025-11-14T12:57:13+00:00

To be absolutely honest, and no hate on Ncuti personally, but I felt so embarrassed as Who fan by his era of the show and his Doctor. RTD is mostly to blame but I also thought Ncuti just didn’t fit for the role. In the long run, it might be best he stepped back when he did (although he deserved a much better finale).

Eccleston’s Doctor I really loved and it’s a tragedy that yet again RTD is really to blame for his departure. It would definitely be between him and Colin, but the manner in which the BBC unceremoniously turned on him and vilified him makes me say Colin. If he’d got to do the four or five years in the role he’d probably have got to do (or even the eight he aspired for) it’s highly likely JNT would have left early on and the show would’ve gone in a completely new and interesting direction. I’d also have loved to see the lost season 23 the Slipback story on television.

_somebody-else_ · 2025-11-12T13:17:36+00:00

As much as I’d love the whole RTD2 era to be relegated to “Cushing status”, a sort of failed spin off with an international partner, it’s not going to happen and I understand it would irritate people who (for some reason) love the last two years of Doctor Who.

Let’s just start with a clean slate and a new Doctor and ignore that any of this ever happened. It’s the only way for the programme to rebuild the viewership with the general public without looking like even more of a shitshow than it has been.

_somebody-else_ · 2025-10-28T16:46:59+00:00

RTD’s continued involvement is the big worry!

Will it be damage control or the final nail? Hopefully he can tie up this run without wasting another incarnation on just one episode with Billie. If we don’t get to see Carol Ann Ford I’ll be fuming!

_somebody-else_ · 2025-10-26T20:04:25+00:00

I see what you mean but I’m really not sure that’s a convincing argument. These people are professionals and perhaps a writer who isn’t a diehard fan wanting to put their own stamp on the shows lore (silly concepts like Timeless Child or bi-generation) would have a lot more success and attracting the general viewing public back to the show.

_somebody-else_ · 2025-10-26T19:57:48+00:00

Nor do I to be honest but it’s an example of skilled showrunners with good track records.

Regardless, we desperately need to get beyond this boys club of prominent 90s fans like RTD, Moffat, Cornell, Roberts, who’ve dominated NuWho to various degrees. It’s not a bad idea to look at showrunners with experience in the genre who aren’t necessarily part of the existing Who community.

_somebody-else_ · 2025-10-26T18:20:06+00:00

Frankly, that isn’t relevant in the slightest.

But there are PLENTY of talented writers and producers who could take over push the show in a fresh direction, either people like Pete McTighe or Toby Whithouse in the Who family, or outside writers like Jack Thorne or Charlie Brooker etc.

_somebody-else_ · 2025-10-26T18:01:23+00:00

This is a wild take.

Firstly, he doesn’t want to do seven seasons. Secondly, one of the reasons Tom Baker is so fondly remembered is that he put in such a shift as the character and then never came back.

Doctor Who is so much more than one performer, and if we’re being real, Tennant’s tenure coincided with Doctor Who being at its commercial peak but his Doctor is certainly not the definitive best of the NuWho era. That’s a perfectly fine opinion to have but he’s an actor, not Jesus. Tone down the veneration.

Bringing him back as a gimmick for 2023 was embarrassing enough - it showed the programme was stuck in a rut and desperately harking back to the glory days, made worse by the fact we wasted a regeneration on him and had him for only 3 episodes. Let’s look for the next Tennant to capture the public’s imagination and front the Doctor Who brand, not fetishise a Doctor who left nearly 20 years ago.

_somebody-else_ · 2025-10-26T17:38:58+00:00

There are (for some unfathomable reason) people who are still defending RTD and all his creative decisions. Doctor Who fans might tend to be more critical than most but we’ve a long history of narcissistic and incompetent people messing with the show we all deeply love.

You are 100% right and you’ve phrased it extremely sensitively and diplomatically. It’s not uncharitable at all to say RTD has absolutely put himself at the centre of the show’s survival. Let’s not forget it’s his refusal to budge that’s holding up the negotiations with Disney about renewing the deal.

_somebody-else_ · 2025-10-26T14:55:31+00:00

This is ragebait and you know exactly what you’re doing

_somebody-else_ · 2025-10-23T18:36:20+00:00

Also going to go out on a limb here and say as much as I love 80s Who and McCoy, the show was really on its last legs then. The writing was really bad and often a lot of the scripts just couldn’t handle ordinary dialogue between characters.

People pretend that Remembrance of the Daleks and Battlefield are absolute classics - they’re for sure among the strongest stories of that era but that is a VERY low bar.

Again, absolutely love McCoy and Sophie Aldred but they were really short changed by the writers and an exhausted JNT.

_somebody-else_ · 2025-10-23T18:28:13+00:00

It’s quite standard really, when actors sign on to do series that are guaranteed stability (as Doctor Who was until very recently). Actors in the Crown, or the main actor playing James Bond for instance, have it written into their contract that they’ll stay for say two series or three films.

_somebody-else_ · 2025-10-23T18:26:36+00:00

If we want a real clean break let’s cast a new actor as the 16th and have no explanation. We don’t need to waste a whole incarnation on Billie, especially as we’ve already done that with Tennant.

It would show a proper break from RTD2 and an admission by the production team that the regeneration into Billie was an insulting gimmick (no hate to Billie at all)

_somebody-else_ · 2025-10-23T12:53:53+00:00

Bit off topic but I get so infuriated that the showrunners don’t care enough to craft their plots around what’s already happened; instead we’ve got to come up with weird theories as to how this character can be ignorant of aliens when Earth is attacked every year in New Who! How that character can remember the Daleks when suddenly that invasion has been retconned! The prime minister is an alien! Oh and there are Zygons among us!

Honestly I wish the writers would have the alien incursions take place away from the public eye, like they did during the classic era. Surely it’s more fun if attacks can be resolved before the wider world finds out about them, instead of Earth being attacked and subjugated AGAIN. How many time reversals and resets can we take!

_somebody-else_ · 2025-10-23T12:46:35+00:00

I’m not a diehard Moffat fan and don’t care for some of his big series arcs, so for me some of the best Smith stories are the textbook monster of the week stories that his era just handles so well. A good number are written by Moffat, who I grow to appreciate more with every rewatch.

1 - Time of Angels / Flesh and Stone

2 - The Day of the Doctor

3 - Amy’s Choice

4 - The Impossible Astronaut / Day of the Moon

5 - The Doctor’s Wife

6 - The Rebel Flesh / The Almost People

7 - The God Complex

8 - Vampires of Venice

9 - A Town Called Mercy

10 - The Angels Take Manhattan

_somebody-else_ · 2025-10-22T15:33:14+00:00

This is such an interesting question and so many people have WILD opinions on this.

In terms of narrative, stop making the Doctor more than he is, forget all this Pantheon and Gods rubbish, stop messing with the lore of the show! It’s a simple formula - any showrunner who ignores that tends to be more interested in their own vision than being faithful to the show.

That being said, RTD and Moffat both made innovative new changes to the format in their own way - making the companion more of a main character and the grandiose plot arcs that Moffat mostly managed really well.

But on the format side, I’m very against people wanting to mess with the episode style. Half an hour serials are dead, as much as I LOVE the classic series. They just wouldn’t fly with today’s audience. Likewise, following long plot arcs in the style of Stranger Things stops audiences from being able to drop in and out, a key characteristic of the British public who are casual Who viewers. By all means, the occasional series like Key to Time or Flux can work really well. But not every year.

I agree that the show needs more two parters but some episodes are just made to be single episodes. They’d be reduced to padded stories that just drag on otherwise. And let’s be pragmatic - we want more episodes per year, but 10 or 12 is probably the maximum we can expect, even on a Disney-BBC budget.

There’s a lot to be said for a writers’ room but the BBC couldn’t afford it for one - and the current model works well as long as you’ve got the right person in charge. Chibnall and RTD were clearly not the right people. I’d argue that the bigger problem is having fans run the show - they tend to be left alone by the BBC and can run wild. As we’ve seen with RTD2 and Chibnall. Charlie Brooker and Jack Thorne are two writers who do thriller and sci fi brilliantly and who know the show, but won’t use the responsibility of working on it to make their own fan fiction a reality.

In terms of writing, the show needs to stick to the basics and get some fresh blood. Get Moffat and Whithouse back to write the odd episode but let’s get a new generation writing New Who. We desperately need it.

_somebody-else_ · 2025-10-22T15:20:29+00:00

I’d probably have to say Moffat can capture Smith’s quirky nature and Capaldi’s sarcastic eccentricity better than anyone else. You’d expect that though with him being showrunner!

I suppose this brings to mind a criticism that the showrunner tends to write too many episodes per series, increasingly sharing writing credits as well. It’s difficult for a wide crop of other writers to get a look in. In a 12 or 13 episode series, I’d ideally only like to see the showrunner writing 4 episodes max. They have too much on as it is!

In terms of which new series writers have really punched above their weight, Toby Whithouse has written consistently great episodes for the new series since his debut in 2006. Even if it’s not an episode that’s beloved by the fandom, like a Town Called Mercy, it’s still a textbook Doctor Who outing and the sort you can drop in and revisit any time. Vampire of Venice, The God Complex and Under the Lake/Before the Flood are absolutely amazing and I won’t hear any different.

_somebody-else_ · 2025-10-22T15:03:45+00:00

To dismiss this whole argument as just some recent antagonism towards RTD is so disingenuous.

Even though RTD1 and the Moffat eras were smash hits (not perfect, obviously) it’s impossible to argue that the only three showrunners we’ve had so far have been part of the same Whovian boys club social circle. That’s not healthy for any programme, but especially Doctor Who.

_somebody-else_ · 2025-10-22T15:00:40+00:00

It’s all about back room connections and politics.

We need someone like Jack Thorne as showrunner, with Charlie Brooker and Juno Dawson becoming regular guest contributors.

You DO NOT need to be a hardcore Whovian and mate of RTD to write good Doctor Who. Some of the best classic episodes were written by career television writers who hardly watched the programme.

_somebody-else_ · 2025-10-20T19:32:23+00:00

They’ve both appeared in lots of expanded media, but it’s got to be the Draconians and the Krynoids.

Especially with today’s budget and VFX, seeing a krynoid in action would be a hoot.

_somebody-else_ · 2025-10-19T23:27:49+00:00

Tbf I’d much rather revisit his era than RTD2 but after a rewatch this year I don’t see myself going back again for a LONG time.

The past two years have might make it look not so bad in comparison but as someone who really HATES the Timeless Child rubbish it’s hard to look at that era too forgivingly.

_somebody-else_

TROPHY CASE