Do you want NuWho to improve?

Does anyone here actually want NuWho to get better? Would anyone still be willing to give it another chance under a new showrunner and Doctor? Imagine the current trainwreck was followed by an unprecedented return to form, a new golden age almost on par with the Hinchcliffe era. Would you be willing or able or overlook the insanity of the past five years and accept it?

Personally, I think it's utterly irredeemable and want it cancelled. Rumours about Chibnall's ludicrous decisions no longer fill me with dread, because the more parodic it becomes, the less likely it will continue to be accepted as a legitimate successor to the original show. I want a male Susan, I want a female Dalek, I want an episode of Jodie lecturing Tennant about his misogyny, I want some pre-Hartnell female incarnations, I want it to be "revealed" that the Doctor's real name is Ruth, I want this show to get so astonishingly bad that even its most diehard apologists are forced to abandon it. If things have to get temporarily worse in order to save Doctor Who's reputation in the long run, so be it.

Agreed. It’s fundamentally fucked to the core, and doesn’t deserve any sort of improvement or refined dignity. It’ll also, as you say, establish NuWho as a faux imitation of the original series as opposed to a continuation in the eyes of the general public. There’s no way it can improve under any possible circumstance anymore, and frankly, it’s so fucking pathetic at this stage that I hope it doesn’t. I look forward to seeing it crash and burn, frankly.

To be honest, I have constantly thought about the former from 2005-13 with 2010 seeming like a false dawn.

However at this point, I have merely stopped caring about it....

I think if someone genuinely wants to improve Doctor Who, and try and fundamentally fix NewWho's past misdeeds, I'd say they can definitely attempt it. But after what Moffat has done in Twice Upon a Turd and Chinballs has done with Series 11, whatever the next showrunner would want to do, they'll have to fix so much of what Chinballs has ruined, perhaps too much work, and their era as showrunner wouldn't be able to stand out as much. Which is a shame, considering that there may be a person that generally wants to go back to the core roots of Who. I do find some glimmer of hope that is just waiting underneath there.

Few shows have gone through quite as *eccentric* a decline as Doctor Who. Even as hopeless and unsalvageable as much of the 80's felt, there always occasional stories like Enlightenment, Caves and Revelation of the Daleks that seemed to provide brief glimpses of a parallel universe in which the show was still doing everything right, and that seemed to always keep the hope alive that the show could still become the best thing on TV again.

Likewise with New Who, for the longest time it felt like beneath RTD's worst, degrading philistine sensibilities and bullish ego, there was still a great show trapped somewhere in there that was desperately trying to get out.

The first half of Series 5 (and perhaps some of the New Series novels) might've been the closest we ever got to that in the main, but it didn't quite last. But it did keep me hoping.

That was until Missy and Death in Heaven happened. Up until then I suppose I did want it to improve. I did want more of the good stuff from Rings of Akhaten and Into the Dalek. But after Missy happened, it was just dead to me. Almost against my will I lost the ability to even care anymore. To the point where Series 11 wasn't even a big deal to me. It was just dull.

Maybe I'm pessimistic to the idea the show has ever been truly salvageable after Warriors of the Deep happened. Maybe The Five Doctors was its last chance.

But it does seem at this point like all the potentially great ideas with the show have been done, and done badly by Moffat. The monsters have lost their effect and been reduced to jokes. No longer does it even feel like a show in eccentric decline with occasional glimpses of could've-been brilliance. It just feels like it's never going to be more than the blandness it is now.

In some ways I think it would be a shame for those fans who did grow up on the 2005 revival and do want their show back, if it just died, but I think to be honest they've already really had their golden age, and might be better off clinging on to that.

New Who?
It's beyond redemption now and should be put out of it's misery.

I can only reprise the same. A few series back I might have fantasised of how it could be mended, at this point the only option is to start over.

It needs to die now. I truly, honestly no longer care.
I'm really looking forward to 2020 - for classic Who blu ray box sets and at least two spiffing missing story animations.
Doctor Who is classic Who. Fuck the 21st century pisstake.

Death becomes her.

Someone posted on Gaylifrey Base that the rumour is they'll be a reboot starting with a movie; sold to a big streaming company on license with a bigger budget and a more polished feel to it. Apparently this all comes with a theme park.

The BBC feel the show is being left behind and isn't turning the profits it used to. The profit ratio on the old range is much higher than what they can recoup from NuWho.

Probably bollocks, but very funny if it's a wind up. Even funnier if it isn't.

"We all are capable of the most incredible change"

-Jodie, from an episode I actually like.

Zarius wrote:"We all are capable of the most incredible change"

That's an extremely hypocritical and vacuous quote that carries no meaning.

I want it over with now. There's not really any life left in it, and its in danger of bringing down the original permanently.

Aside from the politics I also think it needs ripped from the hands of the Fitzroy Crowd who have become stagnated. Lets face it the only way that can happen is if its cancelled as they will always just pass it on to one of their mates.

Its hilarious for people whose whole mantra is "all change is good." They don't half reuse the same ideas and stories all the damn time.

Almost every series has featured the Daleks, the Cybermen or the Master as the main villains.

Series 1, the Daleks.

Series 2, Cybermen and the Daleks.

Series 3, The Master.

Series 4, Daleks and Davros.

The Specials, Master and Rassilon.

Series 5, the Alliance (the most visible of whom are the Daleks and the Cybermen.)

Series 6, finally a new enemy.

Series 7 the GI.

Series 8, back to the Cybermen and the Master.

Series 9, there is no main villain, but the Daleks and the Master are the instigators of the plot, so I'll count it.

Series 10, the Master and the Cybermen again.

Also Rose, Donna, and Clara have the same fucking story arc.

Rose, ordinary cockney woman who yearns for something more, so when she meets the Doctor she wants to stay with him forever, but there is something weird following her around? The words Bad Wolf. It is revealed to be because in the finale she gains super powers and uses them to obliterate the Daleks, with the Doctor having been forced to almost destroy the earth to stop them.

Donna meanwhile is an ordinary cockney woman who yearns for something more, so when she meets the Doctor she wants to stay with him forever. However there is something odd following her around. It is soon revealed to be because in the finale she gains super powers and uses them to stop the Daleks, with Martha having been forced to almost destroy the earth to stop them. (Donna and Rose even get the same twinkly, gold eyes.)

Clara similarly, there is something odd about her, all the different versions of her, which is revealed to be because she gains superpowers in the finale to use against an old enemy of the Doctors.

Amy meanwhile similarly has magic powers that save the Doctor in the finale.

In addition to this Rose, Martha, and Donna all have an unsympathetic mother figure who clashes with the Doctor, and a more sympathetic father figure. Rose, Martha, Amy and Clara all fancy the Doctor. Rose and Amy and Clara have a more wimpy, boyfriend character who is jealous of the Doctor, starts out as a bit of a joke, but becomes a hero by the end.

All of these companions come from modern day too, and all are said to stop the Doctor from going mad. All of them get happy endings where they won't see the Doctor, so he's devastated but they will still live out the rest of their lives fine.

Also all of the finales are either aliens invade the earth (Parting of the Ways, Doomsday, Last of the Time Lords, Journey's End, End of Time, Death in Heaven.) Or they involve time being rewritten in some way, an alternate time line, a fixed point being broken (The Big Bang, The Wedding of River Song, The Name of the Doctor, Hellbent.)

The New Who formula is so tired and played out at this stage that it would be a mercy killing.

I haven't voted, because there isn't an 'I don't give a shit either way' option.

I used to care enough to hope it would get better, but the false hope of early Moffat/Smith episodes descended into something that achieved what even RTD had failed to do. I stopped watching.
And even though I've been dipping my toe back in the water a little bit of late, deep down I know that I'm not really that arsed. To be honest, it's a relief. It's like finally falling out of love with a toxic girlfriend who was only ever bad for you.
I've got classic Who. And a bit like Ian, new blurays and animated missing stories to look forward. I'm too old to waste much energy on NuWho.