Your controversial Doctor Who thoughts / opinions

[Catboots]

So I'm starting off with a right royal one that seems almost universal. I'm the outlier here but I didn't mind Tegan and Adric as companions. I know that fans hated him for whatever reason but watching all his episodes I didn't mind the kid. Tegan also seems to rub a few fans up the wrong way too and I'm not sure why they don't like her.

The reason I didn't like Adric was just down to a couple of episodes that made him betray/turn against the Doctor, and I blame the writer for that more than the character. I also liked Tegan as well, she and Nyssa made a good team.

My own controv opinion; The Master is overrated and overused, and I really don't like how the Doctor is so friendly towards him, handles him with kid-gloves, spares him etc. He (they?) is a mass murdering evil a-hole, and the fact the Doctor doesn't act accordingly to him simply because he is a Time Lord just bugs the crap outta me. Apparently the Family of Blood warranted eternal damnation for the small-scale murders they caused, but the guy (gal) who does multiple genocides gets a pass because they're the same species? Yeah, I hate it. The Master is no better than a Dalek.

 

[Sketcher]

It's not so much that they're the same species, it's the fact they were childhood friends that both seemingly want that connection back. The Doctor has a blind spot for sure when it comes to the Master.

 

[FredH]

A (possibly unfounded) strong suspicion: the whole “it’s out to tender” thing is a PR smokescreen, just like “it’s only on hiatus” was back in the day. They don’t particularly expect anyone to take it up, and the show is de facto cancelled, just as it was in 1989.

 

[DarrenTR1970]

My problem with The Master is that every actor since Anthony Ainley has played the character too broad and too campy.
I don't want an insane Master, I want a cold, calculating, ruthless Master.

 

[Starkers]

A (possibly unfounded) strong suspicion: the whole “it’s out to tender” thing is a PR smokescreen, just like “it’s only on hiatus” was back in the day. They don’t particularly expect anyone to take it up, and the show is de facto cancelled, just as it was in 1989.

I'd lean more towards 'probably' unfounded.

 

[JD]

I really don't mind romances between The Doctor and his companions, when people spend years traveling together that kind of thing is inevitable from time to time.

 

[26138]

My problem with The Master is that every actor since Anthony Ainley has played the character too broad and too campy.
I don't want an insane Master, I want a cold, calculating, ruthless Master.

Derek Jacobi was good for the 3 seconds we got him as the Master. There is a whole series of "The War Master" audios that I should look into sometime.

 

[Candleicious Ghost]

I'm not averse to the Doctor and companion in a bedroom scene . He married River for crying out loud so that counts

 

[Qonundrum]

The reason I didn't like Adric was just down to a couple of episodes that made him betray/turn against the Doctor, and I blame the writer for that more than the character. I also liked Tegan as well, she and Nyssa made a good team.

Once, sure. The second, as if there was no growth - both of Adric's stories exist in their own vacuums in that regard. Of course, they redid the same thing but with a slight tweak for Turlough...

Nyssa got sidelined or misused too often, especially with her on-screen mentioned knowledge of bio-electronics and cybernetics to help resolve other problems. Tegan was a great complement to her and the Doctor.

My own controv opinion; The Master is overrated and overused, and I really don't like how the Doctor is so friendly towards him, handles him with kid-gloves, spares him etc. He (they?) is a mass murdering evil a-hole, and the fact the Doctor doesn't act accordingly to him simply because he is a Time Lord just bugs the crap outta me. Apparently the Family of Blood warranted eternal damnation for the small-scale murders they caused, but the guy (gal) who does multiple genocides gets a pass because they're the same species? Yeah, I hate it. The Master is no better than a Dalek.

The Master is of the Doctor's own species, not some alien monster, which renders some conflicts more personal. But the Master was allowed to easily escape seemingly definitive fates and that's the worst problem, since even characters didn't mention or reflect on the possibility of relative timelines. Not until "Silver Nemesis", in a scene that got deleted anyway, was the first to really mention "you'd been there but not yet so don't think about it". Or described less eloquently, "Wibbly wobbly timey wimey". Either way, I don't know what's lamer, "So the Master escaped somehow" or "You humans think in puny three-dimensional terms" but the former feels less patronising somehow...

My controversial opinion is that the show should have ended in 1985, if not 1965. Too much stuff in between made a mess of the show's format, mission and vision statements, etc.

 

[Qonundrum]

A (possibly unfounded) strong suspicion: the whole “it’s out to tender” thing is a PR smokescreen, just like “it’s only on hiatus” was back in the day. They don’t particularly expect anyone to take it up, and the show is de facto cancelled, just as it was in 1989.

Possibly. Circumstantial or anecdotal correlations are not enough. But I'll add one of my own: Which show is more likely going to remain popular in the general public: A 20 year-old one or a 40 year-old one? (Or even 60, now.) The last time a four-decade old franchise was remembered, they couldn't get the rights to make it so they kept influenced with some of the basic tropes and elements, retooled them, added a lot more new things, and made something that felt truly new and became embraced and beloved for the modernizations and originalities it brought in? It's called "Star Wars", but it's not 1977 anymore either?

 

[FredH]

Possibly. Circumstantial or anecdotal correlations are not enough. But I'll add one of my own: Which show is more likely going to remain popular in the general public: A 20 year-old one or a 40 year-old one? (Or even 60, now.) The last time a four-decade old franchise was remembered, they couldn't get the rights to make it so they kept influenced with some of the basic tropes and elements, retooled them, added a lot more new things, and made something that felt truly new and became embraced and beloved for the modernizations and originalities it brought in? It's called "Star Wars", but it's not 1977 anymore either?

It’s so weird to me that Star Wars is now older than Flash Gordon was at the time.

 

[jaime]

Controversial opinion that I am currently entratining having just to be an irritating person:
If you’re a Johnny Come Lately who doesn’t know anything pre 2005 as a fan, you should respect your elders a little better and not offhandedly disregard information that comes from before Tennants Doe Eyes caught you. (I’d say Ecclestone, but we al know why the viewing figures shot up… it was when the Tall Version of Richard Hammond showed up)
This is doubly true if us venerable old monks went through the marginalised time of the Wilderness Era.
Extra true if you were old enough to have been watching the Classic Era and suddenly discovered your born again fandom once it was hip to do so.
Bah.
Plastic Who Fans.

There was a time when being a Who fan meant getting a slap and possibly being homophobically slurred you know.

 

[Turtletrekker]

That sounds like gatekeeping to me.

 

[Starkers]

That sounds like gatekeeping to me.

And all fandoms need less gatekeeping...

I've been watching Dr Who since Tom's era (I have a really vague recollection of Planet of the Spiders though I wasn't quite four when it aired) but I don't see how that gives me any special privilege over someone who started watching the show with Eccleston. Nor does it make me an inferior fan to someone who's been watching since the 1960s.

 

[jaime]

That sounds like gatekeeping to me.

And all fandoms need less gatekeeping...

I've been watching Dr Who since Tom's era (I have a really vague recollection of Planet of the Spiders though I wasn't quite four when it aired) but I don't see how that gives me any special privilege over someone who started watching the show with Eccleston. Nor does it make me an inferior fan to someone who's been watching since the 1960s.

Nah. I said newer fans shouldn’t disregard stuff from older fans.
Gatekeeping would be saying ‘you’re not a real fan unless’ or preventing entry in some way. You know. Like guarding a gate.
(On the subject thereof, a Gatekeepers actual job is to open the gate for people who need entry. I suppose they implication of how we use gatekeeping in fandoms is that they’re all taciturn jobsworths who will leave your barge stuck on the canal.)

Besides which, it’s somewhat tongue in cheek, as I said… it’s not an opinion i actually hold, but one I was entertaining the idea of holding.

 

[Chaos Descending]

That sounds like gatekeeping to me.

Isn't that actually Anti-Gatekeeping?

 

[Nerys Myk]

Isn't that actually Anti-Gatekeeping?

Keymastering?

 

[camdudetenger2018]

i wonder why bbc never made many spinoffs of the doctor who 2005 era since 2005

its like between 2005 and 2026 there should have been like at least 20 to 30 doctor who 2005 era spinoffs

even thought most of the spinoffs would have probley been limited series

 

[Nerys Myk]

i wonder why bbc never made many spinoffs of the doctor who 2005 era since 2005

its like between 2005 and 2026 there should have been like at least 20 to 30 doctor who 2005 era spinoffs

even thought most of the spinoffs would have probley been limited series

Gods no

 

[FredH]

i wonder why bbc never made many spinoffs of the doctor who 2005 era since 2005

its like between 2005 and 2026 there should have been like at least 20 to 30 doctor who 2005 era spinoffs

even thought most of the spinoffs would have probley been limited series

There were at least four: Torchwood, The Sarah Jane Adventures, Class, and The War Between the Land and the Sea.