How can you forget about it with a new issue of Doctor Who Magazine every month, monthly comics from Titan, several official books a year (and several more semiofficial tie-in book series like Lethbridge-Stewart), and the considerable audio output from Big Finish and BBC? Not to mention the occasional release of animated versions of lost 1960s episodes. Hell, I got seriously into Doctor Who a few years after the TV movie and a few years before the revival, and I had plenty of new Doctor Who then to keep me busy. It never felt like a dead franchise even when I didn’t expect it to return. A lot of fans who watched the show go off the air in 1989 didn’t forget, either.
And then...commercials... commercials saying, "Hey, guys, new season!" It's not like they keep Doctor Who a secret
The BBC announced today the Judoon are returning in an episode set in Gloucestershire guest-starring Neil Stuke.
It probably hurt Chibnail to put an actual Doctor Who alien on his show, because it might remind people that there was a show called Doctor Who before he pretty much stole the name for his generic Sci-Fi crap, and he has to hate when that happens. But, unless that scene ends with something out of nowhere like the Judoon impaling one of the companions on its tusks, its probably going to just be a wasted cameo. If its not just a cameo, then I'm sure the 13th Doctor will beat them by the power of uncaring pacifism, meaning they'll cause a lot of damage then after she gets bored of watching them hurting people/blowing up stuff/etc (but doing nothing about ii for 90% of the episode, because the 13th Doctor never doesn't even try to do anything worthwhile until the last few minutes of an episode) and then she'll spout a bullshit speech and they'll go away. With the way this is going, maybe the show will go crazy and show a Doctor Who alien from before NuWho outside of the mandatory yearly Dalek appearance that the BBC almost certainly forced on him (now, if only they'd force him to actual make episodes of Doctor Who...). Actually, forget that. With Chibnail around, the only version of a classic alien that we're likely to get on the show is the return of the Cyberwoman.
Of course, there's been a classic Doctor Who alien in every episode of Chibnall Who... I could understands the notion of dispensing with classic monsters (let's not forgot on the whole the Judoon are nominally good guys, or at least lawful neutral) and plenty of people on this forum moaned about reusing Daleks, Cybermen etc etc... but S11 did seem to be missing something, and if you're going to provide new monsters you have to come up with good ones, and on the whole S11 didn't (IMO), or in fact curiously dispensed with monsters altogether. The other thing returning monsters do is provide more room for story, because you don't have to spend time explain to the audience what a Dalek is, or what an Ice Warrior is, or at least not as much time. They're narrative shorthand.
I'm filling in the gaps by getting back into the Big Finish stuff - picking up the landmark releases and crossovers, plus they're now releasing stuff with David Tenant. There's some worthwhile stuff, it's just that there's so much and the cost - I'd love to do all the eighth Doctor audios but there's a lot. Pity they don't do a streaming subscription service. Also, I'd only managed to see the first half of the last two TV seasons, so I'm rationing and enjoying those...