Who will go down in history as the one who killed Doctor Who?

When this trainwreck is spoken of in the decades to come, who do you reckon will primarily be remembered for killing Doctor Who? On a related note, who do you think deserves to go down in history as the one who killed the show?

Will the blame be correctly apportioned?

Moffat killed nuwho, Chibnall merely buried it.

Absolutely 100 percent Steven Moffat.

He is by far and away the worst thing to happen to Doctor Who. This cunt destroyed the Master (and still crows about it like it was one of his greatest accomplishments. Its like he is taunting DW fans by making out that Michelle Gomez was such a big success and one of the great Masters. There is no way he can actually think that? Surely!) He also made the genderbending crap canon, and he handed the show over to the worst audience.

What's worse is that as awful as Chinballs is, at least he believed in all that crap. Moffat didn't. Moffat isn't an SJW, he was just bullied by them. I've never seen anything so weak and pathetic as his pandering to them, whilst stuffing the show full of pointless cameos of classic era Doctors, as he thinks we're so stupid that will placate us, in spite of him destroying the icons of the show like the Master and regeneration.

He vandalised a show he claimed to love since childhood, and torpedoed his own reputation with mainstream audiences, and the people who had built his career up over the years, solely to win favour with what he thought was the "in crowd."

No one's sins are as great in regards to DW LOL, as his.Only good thing is that everybody hates him as a result of his spinelessness. Classic era fans hate him for obvious reasons. Mainstream audiences hate him, as he alienated them with all of his pointless classic era references and identity politics crap, and finally SJWs like Claudia Boleyn still hate him because he is a white straight man.

Claudia recently tweeted when Moffat tried to get in with her mob, by saying there should have been a female Doctor before now, that if EVEN Steven Moffat supports it, how sexist are you.

To think after all he did, destroying the lives work of Terrance Dicks, Barry Letts, and Roger Delgado, constantly debasing himself as a white man with the future is female, and she and the other SJWs still think he is a sexist, racist, homophobic sack of shit.

I voted other - Michael Grade, particularly if there's a long-overdue reassessment of the current show and how it was scrapped initially.

Mott1 wrote:I voted other - Michael Grade, particularly if there's a long-overdue reassessment of the current show and how it was scrapped initially.

I see your point, but I would argue that Grade didn't do nearly as much damage to Doctor Who's future viability as a popular and commercially successful franchise as Moffat & Chibnall.

While Grade and his cohorts may have sabotaged the show in an effort to gradually diminish public interest, viewers didn't storm out in disgust, they merely drifted away. Season 26 was a more than respectable ending, leaving the show in a healthy state to be revived at some point in the future. Merchandise continued to sell, and calls for its revival continued to grow even amongst those too young to have seen it on transmission.

Chibnall & Moffat, however, have turned Doctor Who into a toxic brand, and a subject of immense public anger. The audience retention rate is dismal, merchandise is hardly selling, harsh criticism is so ubiquitous that censorship attempts can't contain it, there's a growing perception that one has to be a bigoted ideologue to be fan, and canon has been so badly damaged that only some drastic retconning would make a second attempt at a revival feasible.

There is the argument that the cancellation led to NuWho, but I don't think that was necessarily inevitable. Verity Lambert herself had ill-fated plans to bring it back in the early nineties, and if someone with decent intentions had got there first, none of the damage Grade had inflicted would have been a hindrance to their producing a proper revival. Can we really say the same about Moffat & Chibnall?

ClockworkOcean wrote:

Mott1 wrote:I voted other - Michael Grade, particularly if there's a long-overdue reassessment of the current show and how it was scrapped initially.

I see your point, but I would argue that Grade didn't do nearly as much damage to Doctor Who's future viability as a popular and commercially successful franchise as Moffat & Chibnall.

While Grade and his cohorts may have sabotaged the show in an effort to gradually diminish public interest, viewers didn't storm out in disgust, they merely drifted away. Season 26 was a more than respectable ending, leaving the show in a healthy state to be revived at some point in the future. Merchandise continued to sell, and calls for its revival continued to grow even amongst those too young to have seen it on transmission.

Chibnall & Moffat, however, have turned Doctor Who into a toxic brand, and a subject of immense public anger. The audience retention rate is dismal, merchandise is hardly selling, harsh criticism is so ubiquitous that censorship attempts can't contain it, there's a growing perception that one has to be a bigoted ideologue to be fan, and canon has been so badly damaged that only some drastic retconning would make a second attempt at a revival feasible.

There is the argument that the cancellation led to NuWho, but I don't think that was necessarily inevitable. Verity Lambert herself had ill-fated plans to bring it back in the early nineties, and if someone with decent intentions had got there first, none of the damage Grade had inflicted would have been a hindrance to their producing a proper revival. Can we really say the same about Moffat & Chibnall?

100 percent spot on.

I was born after the original ended in 1991. I was introduced to it on video, and I loved it. Plenty of my friends loved it. Yes there was some stigma attached to it because it was sci fi, but its the same even now. Check out the Gogglebox thread I posted where you see them ripping New Who to shreds. These people will always hate it.

Ironically I used to get teased for liking then current fantasy shows like Buffy more than I did old who. My friends reaction to Old Who would be "oh that's that horror show about monsters?" where as with Buffy or Xena it would often be "oh that's a sappy show about romance" not saying they were right LOL, but it does show you that every experience is different.

Fans like me, of which there are millions, are airbrushed from history, because we don't suit the narrative of no young people got into DW before RTD and Mofftwat came along.

In the 90s Leonard Nimoy at one point wanted to revive the show, as did Steven Spielberg and Terry Nation and Gerry Davies. Are we really saying that they wouldn't have done a better job than the fitzroy 90s clique of self loathing fanboys?

Hell if anything I thank the people who canned it in the 80s now for the following reasons.

They gave it a dignified end. Unintentionally so of course, but still they killed it at one of its strongest points, Fenric, Survival, Remembrance etc. Everything has to come to an end sooner or later, and 26 years and 7 leading actors is a fantastic run.

Really I didn't even need a revival of Doctor Who. I was happy with 26 years worth of good adventures.

However had they not canned it in the 80s, then the Fitzroy crowd would have taken it over in the 90s, when they took over the brand. These bastards were always waiting in the wings, and got to the top through connections rather than talent.

Imagine if their shit was actually linked to the show properly. As it is, now it can be taken as an alternate sequel, like the Cushing movies.

Chibnall, fair or not.
The average fan consensus seems to be 'I want Moffat back'.

I think there will be a continued denial that the political inputs, changes, and even the female Doctor were the source of its downfall.

Chibnall.
Moffat burnt out quick, and some of shit was toxic but I also get a very strong impression that a lot of the SJW BS and paving the way for the Dickless Doctor was very much BBC-mandated and that he was uncomfortable with a lot of it (look at a lot his own comments regarding a female Doctor over the years). Chibnall on the other hand is a total sellout.

I agree about Grade. By the late 80s the show was back on fine form, and he was gone by then. All it needed at that point was the BBC to show some confidence and faith in the show by giving it a better timeslot and promoting it more. They just couldn't be arsed.

It should have been an arch enemy!

Surely the Daleks.

Or the Master.

Conceivably the Valeyard perhaps?

But none of them killed Doctor Who.

It was instead a very fucking strange and slow death with several guilty parties involved but I suspect only one deadly assassin we'll remember delivered the killer blow.

We can trace the rot maybe as far back as when the BBC kowtowed to Mary Shitehouse during the Tom years. That did change Who drastically at the time, I think to its detriment, even if the show's popularity continued. Unprecedented damage could be done and precedent set. By Colin's time, it was like an infection spreading due to the deliberate lack of care from that overrated trader on a family name, Michael Grade, who certainly had an axe to grind. So Doctor Who was taken off air after its leading actor was blatantly dropped and a prematurely curtailed trial 'season' heralded the painfully slow demise.

Never before was the programme treated with such open disdain by its own television executives. Who was just never going to be the same again. Without ignoring the merits of the Sylvester years, the fact remains Who ultimately sputtered out in 1989. Resurrection rumours followed, film projects and false starts, the television movie in 1996 raising hopes only to apparently dash them again.

When a revival came (after a fashion), bringing Doctor Who back to life seemed possible due to initially incredible popularity following the wilderness years. But 'New Who' turned out to be a revival in name only to many old fans and the new series began to grate. If Russell T Davies was a false prophet then his successor Steven Moffat even more so.

Whereas Whitehouse, Grade, and Davies are guilty in different ways of inflicting damaging blows upon Doctor Who over the years, I think Moffat is really chief culprit for administering the fatal dose of poison. I single out his arrogant undermining of real continuity with the classic series, crude bastardizing of many original creations, and the very worst aspects of encouraging predominant parody. Deluded by unwarranted conceit and pandering to toxic fringe influences, he was the most disastrously disrespectful destroyer of the show's legacy.

We're living with the consequences of Moffat's shameful capitulation in pandering to a perverse political ideology which unfettered has brought about the pathetic condition of 'Doctor Who' today. I reckon Chibnall is just a particularly unpleasant symptom of a disease already unleashed.

It's been commented before that 'New Who' ultimately didn't so much breathe new life into 'Doctor Who' as desecrate its corpse and now, after so much damage has been inflicted, it just seems bloody impossible to restore.

burrunjor wrote:

Really I didn't even need a revival of Doctor Who. I was happy with 26 years worth of good adventures.

Burrunjor, I've been saying that for the past 14 years!

To answer my own question, I'd apportion the blame 45% to Moffat, 55% to Chibnall.

Why do I feel that Chibnall deserves greater condemnation? Well, if the Capaldi era had been followed by a truly magnificent return to form, a new golden age of first-class sci-fi horror storytelling with a great cast, free of external political interference, something that rivalled the very best of TruWho, then I could easily have accepted it as a valid continuation of the story. I would have just brushed the latter-day Moffat era aside as a time when the show mostly wasn't for me. I'd revisit Orient Express & Heaven Sent on occasion, but otherwise say to myself that this was a period of the Doctor's life I didn't follow, and that I simply don't know what happened in this era.

I couldn't possibly do that with the Chibnall era, no matter how good his successor turned out to be, for two key reasons:

Capaldi is a great actor, and as for the inconsistently written Twelfth Doctor, there is a valid interpretation of the character in there somewhere that could have been built upon in spinoff media. Whittaker is a truly dreadful actor, and the unsalvageable joke of a character Chibnall has shat out has absolutely nothing to do with the Doctor. I could largely ignore the Capaldi era while still believing that he was the Doctor, whereas I could never on any level accept Jodie as the same character.

Aside from Missy, the SJW-isms of the Moffat era were mainly unwelcome intrusions on stories that could have been at least somewhat respectable without them. Series 9 and 10 could be significantly improved by director's cuts that edit out the feminist garbage and Trump references. Perhaps even the Master could have been salvaged by future writers with some creative retconning (perhaps the TruWho Master switched places with an alternate universe counterpart during the Time War?). The Chibnall era differs in that every single casting and storytelling decision bar none is made with exclusive regard to demographic box-ticking and hateful political posturing. No amount of editing could save these stories.

Moffat may have taken us to the edge of a cliff, but I'd still rather be standing there than plummeting to my doom.

Needless to say, I completely share burrunjor's disgust with Moffat's spineless pandering to extremists, and believe that history ought to look back on him with disdain. Do I think he'll actually get what he deserves? Probably not, I'm sorry to say. I predict that the Capaldi era will be compared favourably to its atrocious successor as the last era of NuWho with any storytelling merit whatsoever. To date, it stands as the last time the Doctor was ever played by a credible actor who occasionally got some decent scripts to work with, and there are a few real gems hidden amongst the mediocrity... few enough to count on one hand, sure, but that's still a class above none at all.

What's worse is that I don't even think Chibnall will be remembered for what he did. As fans, I think we sometimes seriously overestimate how much the average guy on the street knows or cares about these behind-the-scenes personalities. The BBC's survey-based quiz show Pointless used Doctor Who as a topic a few months ago, and I was shocked by how many high-profile NuWho companion actors the respondents apparently couldn't name, and the general public pays far more attention to actors than to screenwriters. Sadly, to this day it's not uncommon to hear casual viewers assume that Colin & Sylvester were personally responsible for TruWho's cancellation.

I predict that Whittaker will ultimately (and unjustly) be remembered as the one who destroyed NuWho. She may be a talentless, deluded, self-aggrandising charlatan, but she's only there because Chibnall cynically convinced her she was right for the role after his first choice (Olivia Coleman) had the common sense to dodge the obvious bullet. As much as I dislike Jodie, I utterly hate the idea of Chibnall being able to use her as a shield, hence why I make sure to never, ever discuss this monumental crime against imagination without mentioning his name.

Good debate. What is beyond doubt is that as far as Tru Who loyalists are concerned Grade, RTD, Moffat & Chibbers are the four horsemen of the apocalypse (or, using Hive terminology, a bunch of cunts).

Chibnall. I just love the idea of him being responsible for the show's demise. I really wish John was alive to see this.

Commander Maxil wrote:Chibnall. I just love the idea of him being responsible for the show's demise. I really wish John was alive to see this.

Yah

Vervoids was good. Better than anything Chibnall has coughed up for Doctor Who.

It's a bit like asking in a less serious vein of course who was responsible for the German national socialist death camps along the Bug River. Goebbels, Himmler, Gestapo Mueller- everyone pitched in. To choose just one requires I think narrowing it down not only to strict legal responsibility but also to the venom, self-commitment and evil enjoyment they took from what they did.

In the much less serious context of Doctor Who that has to be Moffat. He loved trolling normal fans, loved vandalising parts of the existing canon and particularly liked doing a Joss Whedon as he pandered to the small army of mental cases rather than the taxpayer general audience.

Moffat.

Chibnall.
There were times over the last 14 years when I've despaired at the soapy nonsense produced by Davies and Moffat but nothing could prepare me for the terrible lows of Series 11.  Whittaker simply cannot act and is, without doubt, the worst thing ever associated with the programme.


I agree whole-heartedly with comments made earlier; we didn't need the show to return.  Personally, I was more than happy with my classic series DVDs/videos and the occasional Big Finish release.

BillPatJonTom wrote:We can trace the rot maybe as far back as when the BBC kowtowed to Mary Shitehouse during the Tom years.

I think another reason that might've coincided with Mary Whitehouse's complaints is that the BBC weren't having much luck selling the Tom Baker stories to Europe, as most countries thought his episodes were too frightening for children and wouldn't buy them.

The BBC might've thought that bringing in Graham Williams and producing a tamer version of the show that still retained Tom's star power, might be one they'd have more success selling.

And that's possibly why the BBC tampered so recklessly with the show at its best.

By Colin's time, it was like an infection spreading due to the deliberate lack of care from that overrated trader on a family name, Michael Grade, who certainly had an axe to grind.

I'd say unfortunately because the show was no longer being made for the public but for the fringe cranks of fandom, there was a severe compromise to the credibility and purpose of the show if it wasn't there to entertain the public anymore, which made it suddenly more vulnerable to institutional opponents like Grade.

When a revival came (after a fashion), bringing Doctor Who back to life seemed possible due to initially incredible popularity following the wilderness years. But 'New Who' turned out to be a revival in name only to many old fans and the new series began to grate. If Russell T Davies was a false prophet then his successor Steven Moffat even more so.

I used to blame RTD and Moffat as individuals, but now I more blame the modern BBC culture they're from.

We live in a culture obsessed with wellbeing. The fans who became BBC staffers particularly bought into that culture because it was one that dominated their workplace.

Doctor Who was always their guilty secret because aside from some Tom Baker stories, it was very difficult for them to explain to other people in that modern culture where the sufficient 'happiness' and 'fun' was in revisiting the old show, in a way that a crowd of their work colleagues would 'get'.

This is why of course the RTD era laid on the wicky wacky 'fun' so unbearably thick, and why fandom tended to act like the happiness patrol against any fan spotted being 'negative' and not enjoying the 'fun'. Or at least making sure their fan friends were very careful how they criticize, incase they make it all too easy to appear like undesirables tainted by 'negativity'.

The new show was so aimed at that culture as the 'mainstream' that it ended up becoming the very sinister thing the show ideally was meant to attack.

I think Moffat is really chief culprit for administering the fatal dose of poison. I single out his arrogant undermining of real continuity with the classic series, crude bastardizing of many original creations, and the very worst aspects of encouraging predominant parody. Deluded by unwarranted conceit and pandering to toxic fringe influences, he was the most disastrously disrespectful destroyer of the show's legacy.

Sadly all true (although in terms of crude bastardizing of original creations, JNT was just as bad). Moffat definitely arrived a hero and left a villain for me.

Infact although I wasn't really behind the idea of a female Doctor, I did feel obliged to give Jodie a chance in the role, and I must say for her first few episodes it was if nothing else refreshing that the slate was wiped clean from the mess of Moffat's nightmare era.

The problem is it wasn't replaced with anything interesting enough, and so just feels a hollow shell of a show now.