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the problem with doctor who is that they have forgotten how to engage an audience without utterly confusing them. if i were a writer, this is what i’d change:

1. i would lower the stakes

my biggest issue with dw in recent years is that the stakes are always SO high - it’s always ‘we need to sort this out or else the ENTIRE UNIVERSE WILL END. this rarely happened at the start of nuwho. of course, there were instances where galaxies and universes were at stake, but there were also plenty of instances where the doctor solves issues to A. save his own skin, B. save his friends, and C. to save smaller populations of people and/or generally do what is morally right.

prime example is in new earth. the world isn’t really at stake, he has a couple of objectives: get cassandra to piss off, free the test subjects, stop the infections from spreading. he doesn’t spend the hour worrying that if he doesn’t help then the world will end, he sees a problem that’s morally corrupt and he solves it for the sake of that group. the payoff is just as good, and actually IMPROVES the payoff for episodes where a bit more is at stake, like the poison sky, for example.

2. i would stop plots from spilling over across seasons

i’d like to remind everyone that, although there were things that kind of linked into each other and were mentioned again, generally for the first 4 seasons of (new) doctor who, an overarching issue was built up, climaxed, and resolved throughout a single season. for example: bad wolf in s1. this has gotten worse and worse over time but has honestly been a problem since rtd1 ended, and for some reason when he came back it got WORSE than it’s ever been!!! there’s just way too much overspill across seasons, things even span accross different doctors more recently which is just too much at times. when it’s little things it doesn’t matter, but it’s not. again, this has been an issue before this finale, but this finale is a good example since there were a hundred and one loose ends before he regenerated. when nuwho began, they literally stated each regen would be treated as a soft reboot and their neglect of that has been a downfall.

3. i’d make doctor who dirty and grungy again

it’s too clean futuristic ultra modern sci-fi these days. the tardis doesn’t look like he stole it. what happened to those fun tardis scenes where the entire thing would shake as it took off and landed? why is everything so light and clean? it should be dim and cozy and imperfect.

4. i’d make the companions’ family members more prominent and interesting characters again

doesn’t take much explaining, really. picture jackie tyler, now picture carla sunday. who has a stronger presence and personality in your head and why is it jackie tyler? (there’s bound to be someone who disagrees and that’s fine but i don’t rlly want to hear about it tbh)

5. i’d re-inject some british whimsy

please don’t mistake this as me saying doctor who ‘isn’t british’ or something weird and gammon-y like that, i love when dw explores different cultures, the story and the engine was one of my highlights last season, i just mean like - let him save the world with a jammy dodger again. let him be brought back to life by a good cup of tea. it makes it enjoyable.

there are lots of things, but those are my main ones.

the reason that the older episodes aren’t on Disney+ is because, at the time of the deal, HBO already had the distribution rights for existing episodes in the USA and to allow Disney those rights would probably infringe on such a contract.

there’s also the fact that the BBC still own full merchandising rights to Doctor Who, meaning that Disney cannot license out the brand to companies/manufacturers of any kind of product, only the BBC have that authority worldwide and it’s always been that way, plus the BBC have licensing contracts with Character Options for figures and toys.

i’m not trying to be rude or argue, it’s just that i study film and tv at university and i take a big interest in distribution and licensing and all that sort of thing and i see a lot of misinformation on it, especially regarding the BBC/Disney Doctor Who contract. I think the finale had so many shortcomings, but I also think people often direct their disappointment at the wrong people or express it in ways that are less productive and end up not actually getting anyone what they want. (prime example was people being unhappy with chris chibnall and saying ‘sack him’ so they did and brought back rtd when people weren’t being clear enough as to why they didn’t like it, so rtd made all the same mistakes and worse)

Pyrotechnics come fairly cheap (which is kind of shocking given the risks involved lol but it’s true) and so most of the minor explosions and the gunfire and stuff in Doctor Who is still done practically even in the latest seasons, but then for other things it can work out cheaper to do (even fairly high quality) CGI effects, and some things (regenerations, certain monsters like the version of Omega we see in The Reality War) can’t really be done practically and look even slightly acceptable in this day and age (and i mean ‘this day and age’ broadly as well, the entirety of nuwho not just the last couple of years).

It really all depends on what you want and where and when you want it.

Another thing I’ve noticed is the partial abandonment of prosthetics for aliens in the last couple of seasons, most (or more than before) of the aliens and monsters just look like people, either with minor physical differences or with no visible difference at all. It used to be something we saw all the time, think the Sontarans, the Silurians, the Zygons, etc. I’m not actually sure why, but i’d hazard a guess that they felt that approach looked dated and messy in many circumstances, but a more polished CGI approach was too expensive. I think they should stick with the prosthetics anyway, but the studios rarely see it that way.

I don't see what anyone can see in anyone else…

but you~