Doctor Who needs to die – with no regenerations

The news that Doctor Who would not be returning for a Christmas special was, to put it gently, not well received by dedicated viewers.

Like many fans, I unleashed a flurry of exasperated posts on social media about showrunner Russell T Davies and production company Bad Wolf’s exit, indulging in plenty of memes blaming the BBC.

Until it dawned on me: even worse fate still awaits our favourite twin-hearted alien now that the show will be auctioned off to a new company, which seems destined to try to revamp the franchise.

Because while fresh ideas are exactly what the show needed, it would have benefited the Doctor several series ago. 

Now, I believe that it’s simply too late to save this TARDIS-wreck. 

As a once-dedicated viewer, I’m begging the BBC to stop regenerating this tired Time Lord and give the Doctor the death they deserve.

If you’ve been a viewer of Doctor Who since its 2005 reboot or longer, you probably agree that the quality seriously dipped somewhere around the mid-2010s, with Jodie Whittaker sadly being the poster girl for that decline. 

Many fans were unable to reconcile the mere concept of having a female doctor, and sent her, alongside the show, a lot of hate. But behind the scenes, she had another villain to battle: the poor writing in the vast majority of her episodes.

It was that season’s showrunner Chris Chibnall, who many believe damaged the show. 

Dedicated viewers left the franchise at that point, after he wreaked havoc on The Doctor’s reputation and ratings.

However, I’d argue things started to slip as early as Steven Moffat’s takeover, when focus began to shift from monster of the week to more convoluted series-long arcs.

Since then, fixating on connecting everything together and obsessing over Easter-egg throwbacks have confused the storylines, and slowly suffocated what makes Doctor Who so great.

Real fans didn’t mind the inconsistencies and retcons that occasionally defined Doctor Who, and there was no need to make 60 years of TV history seamlessly interlinked.  

Not to mention that having a main series villain only worked when they had 13 episodes to play with and fun monsters in between. 

Now, with barely eight episodes, reveals like season 15’s The Rani – a recurring nemesis and renegade Time Lord – just felt rushed and shoehorned.

The strength of Doctor Who was that you could dip in and out of episodes, enjoying whatever caper the Cosmic Hobo and his companion were getting up to that week.

Memorable episodes are rarely those with convoluted finales or any that had massive big-budget monsters. It’s the simple ideas that shake us to our core, like the Silence, the Vashta Nerada, the Gas Mask Children, the Weeping Angels, and whatever the hell was on planet Midnight. 

The episode Midnight, written by Russell T Davies, in season four is a shining example of Doctor Who at its scrappiest and most impactful. It’s a bottle episode (aka made very cheaply) which explored hysteria, fear, and sacrifice without leaving a single space train carriage.

It’s obvious why they chose to rehash the episode in the recent series with Ncuti Gatwa, but the result was far from sparkling. By evolving the creature, it took away the real heart of the episode – the exploration into human nature. 

Ncuti’s era was plagued by RTD replaying his greatest hits, leaving the Sex Education star chained to nostalgia he had no hand in creating.

Despite being touted as a clean slate – complete with a squeaky clean Tardis and a new, freshly pressed fit every episode – the series was lumbered with over engineered lore, recycled plots, and callbacks to characters viewers largely didn’t care about.

And for all that, he didn’t even get to fight a Dalek.

RTD’s return was meant to mirror that 2005 feeling of renewal and the prospect of returning to the already 40 year old franchise was initially met with huge enthusiasm. 

Now, three years on, instead of buzzing with possibility, this past series, and the looming next reboot, now just feels like a bloated extension of a show that should have bowed out gracefully years ago.

If the BBC decides to renew, even with a new team at the helm, it risks further tainting everything that makes Doctor Who a British institution. 

It breaks my heart to say it, but they should cancel it while they still have fans left to care.

That being said, I would happily watch one final Christmas episode, putting to bed that Billie Piper cliffhanger and giving The Doctor a dignified, and final death. The thought of this cherished show with over 60 years of legacy ending on that scene, which RTD admitted he had no plan for, is just deeply embarrassing to all involved.

Much like in 1989 when Sylvester McCoy’s series was abruptly cancelled, it’s time to say goodbye to our beloved raggedy man. 

This time, I hope there’s no regeneration. 

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing Ross.Mccafferty@metro.co.uk. 

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