And I love the idea that the BBC would remotely decide to, checks notes, jettison the last twenty years (plus McGann) including some of the most popular Doctors the show has ever had to effectively have McCoy wake up in the shower ala Bobby Ewing in Dallas with everything that's happened since Survival being just a dream. There isn't a laughing emoji big enough to do that idea justice. I'd point posters towards the fanfic forum but frankly most fanfic writers have way more imagination.
Nothing the modern show has done spoils anything that happened in the classic era. Hartnell is still the First Doctor because the Doctor has almost zero memories before being Hartnell.
Hell there's plenty of stuff I don't really like in the show, but I'd never want to wipe Colin's Doctor for existence (to give one example).
Don't like the modern era? Nobody's making you watch it. Here's a suggestion courtesy of a show RTD produced in the 1980s. "Why don’t you just switch off your television set and go and do something less boring instead?"
I'm not talking about it all being a dream ala Bobby Ewing in Pam Ewing nee Barnes' shower. Rather it would be an alternate reality, thus preserving what has come since 1996/2005. And I don't think the Timeless Child/Fugitive Doctor is any less soap operatic or fan fictiony than my proposal. I think a potential show runner could probably be able to spin the idea of a partial reboot (I'm not calling for a total one for the reasons others in this thread have raised re full reboots). This hypothetical showrunner could argue that it gets rid of a lot of controversial changes made such as destroying the Timelords (twice), the Fugitive Doctor and Timeless Child, which some fans clearly love or are at least ok with, but many aren't. The issue is which group is in the majority, if its the latter then I think the BBC would be only too happy to see a load of controversial baggage jettisoned.
And suggesting that Hartnell is still the first just because he has no memories of what came before doesn't make sense unless you contend he had false memories implanted to make him think he was first including a childhood, which doesn't work for me and I imagine many others.
Incidentally would you watch the show if there was such a reboot as I proposed?
Oh and for the record, I like the modern show, at least I did when I could imagine it was a continuation of the original which was until in her second year on the show Jodi Whitaker's Doctor found herself meeting a certain tour guide in Gloucester and learned she wasn't a future incarnation of herself but a previous one she couldn't account for.
And there was a time when the Doctor was a human time traveller. He referred to himself as human, not as a Time Lord. And a later showrunner changed that. But you're okay with that. You don't address any of the other changes made to the show or the character over the decades. Why not?
The ratings went down in the Capaldi era. See the many articles in Doctor Who Magazine about the show's ratings since it came back in 2005.
I have no idea what this means.
Citation needed.
In the original, un-aired version of the Pilot you are quite right, he & Susan were indeed humans from a far future Earth. Starting with the broadcast version of the story however, he's been an alien. Giving his species/home world a name - was probably going to figure into the show at some point if it lasted long enough. It just happened to be Terrence Dicks, a man who definitely earned the right in my view to make changes to the lore, who came up with Timelords and Gallifrey (along with Malcolm Hulke the story's co-writer) in the 'War Games'. Two Hearts (first featured I believe in the very next story 'Spearhead from Space' written by Robert Holmes, someone else who earned the right to make profound lore changes), they wanted to reinforce his alieness. Being alien he probably doesn't have an appendix nor tailbone, I don't think it would break the show if some future showrunner were to reveal that.
Just over a week ago I said this:
"With both Doctor Who and Star Trek, a lot of people reject new developments because there was a status quo when the old series ended and that status quo was always there. The Doctor always had two hearts and was a Gallifreyan Time Lord with a limit of 13 regenerations or whatever. All of those were things that were made up along the way, not part of the core concept. Same deal with Spock and Michael Burnham. We know he never had a human stepsister! Well, his parents came as a surprise, his fiancee came as a surprise, his half-brother came as a surprise, his trip to Romulus for unification activities came as a surprise... but you can't have any more surprises after the point where a particular fan came in and assumed all of those were how things always were. Then, as a slight twist, there's the fans who came in with TNG and didn't watch TOS and insist Star Trek has always been like TNG and must always be like TNG, especially in ways TOS wasn't."
Who says Innes Lloyd had earned the right to introduce the idea of regeneration, the single biggest change in the show's history? It was never mentioned while Verity Lambert or John Wiles produced the show. What made him think he had earned the right to change the show so dramatically? Nothing done since then compares in terms of its impact on the show.
I know. For some reason, you think that's different. But just saying so doesn't make it so.
You could argue that as the surprises continue to mount up they reach a critical mass and credulity is stretched to breaking point, even for sci-fi/fantasy people & situations. As for the question of whether Innes Lloyd earned the right to introduce regeneration, you picked the wrong example. We all know the origins of regeneration. Innes Lloyd recognised the show still had legs, but Hartnell's declining health and (probably related to his condition) irascibility and alleged bigotry, meant it the show couldn't if Hartnell stayed in the role. Instead of just replacing the actor without an on-screen reason as they do with James Bond, at least did prior to 'Casino Royale', they decided to try something different. They were going to do it in 'The Celestial Toymaker' by having his face changed by the titular villain, then chose regeneration instead as it offered options for the future. If the Hartnell situation had never arisen we might have ended up with a show that ran a few years, perhaps five or six and quietly ended. Again I fail to see the need for Timeless Child/Fugitive Doctor in order to prolong the show’s life, especially how it was executed.
And yes, things were done in the classic run of the show that potentially made fundamental changes, but quite often they were introduced in a way that could be ignored, which they almost always were: pre-Hartnell Doctors in 'The Brain of Morbius'. As I keep saying, they could be considered Morbius' past lives. The idea that the Doctor had post War Games/pre-Pertwee adventures in 'The Two Doctors', were never touched on again. For the Second Doctor and Jamie it took place between 'The Tomb of the Cybermen' and the start of 'Fury of the Deep' with Victoria really taking graphology lessons. Better than the credulity-breaking idea of Troughton's regeneration being halted and with altered memories, Jamie accompanying him on further adventures for the Celestial Intervention Agency, or the idea some have suggested that Jo Martin is the real third Doctor. None of these changes or others mentioned altered the fact the Doctor was (biologically at least) an ordinary Gallifreyan.
And its a lot harder to retcon the Timeless Child and Fugitive Doctor out of existence in the existing continuity if the Doctor alludes to his childhood under other showrunners as I believe he did with either David Tenant's second go-around or by Ncuti Gatwa. Or having Jo Martin pop up every now and again in a flashback or (though admittedly this has yet to happen) in a multi-Doctor story. I pity the poor show runner who tries retconning all that out of existence using existing continuity, they'd probably be branded a racist or sexist or both by many of the fanbase and for the same reason sadly be praised by the Nerdrotic's and Critical Drinker's of this world. I suppose the new showrunner they could go with the Timeless Child being just a dream like Bobby Ewing in the shower?
