I stole if from
Darren Mooney, so all credit to him for the concept. That particular article is more about the Moffat/Chibnall dichotomy, I think they parts about the Doctor's powerlessness against real-world issues was something threaded through his episode by episode reviews, but it's been like five years since there was a new episode of Doctor Who, so I don't remember where to find the best articulation of his argument specifically.
Interesting article; a little drawn out, and has a tendency to repetition, but does make a number of good points. I do think it's giving Moffat too much credit, though, and actually, somewhat inadvertently, highlights an issue with his era: his fixation on rug-pulling and about-faces and clever narrative tricks often came at the expense of simply telling a satisfying story.
One of the episodes the article keeps referring to,
Hell Bent, is actually a good example: the attempt to subvert epic storytelling to instead focus on the personal fails because the crux of it, Clara, simply isn't a strong enough character, a potent enough motivation for the Doctor's actions, and
that's mostly thanks to her being little more than a walking puzzle for him to solve for much of her TARDIS residency.
You could also argue that Moffat was guilty of the things he was refuting. How long did the epic saga of the Silence run for? Countering the darker elements of the RTD era, then going even darker with Capaldi. From
The Beast Below to
Thin Ice. From everybody lives to everybody dies. True, the burnout would have been a contributing factor, but there's still a fair whiff of trying to have his cake and eat it.
Not wanting to dwell too much more on the past, and In the spirit of counter-balance: what would people want from the next era of
Doctor Who? I'd want the show to lighten up, rediscover its sense of fun and adventure. I'd like season-long arcs, but not world-ending, or universe-ending, or all-of-time-and-space-ending threats; maybe a season-long mystery, clues sprinkled throughout, all drawn together in the finale. I'd also want much less of a focus on Earth, and more on other places, and other cultures; maybe even have an alien companion. Lastly, I'd like the show to stop mythologising the Doctor, stop making them an all-conquering god with a body count to rival a DC Crisis event, or a legendary progenitor of their entire race with deeply mysterious origins, and return them to being just an eccentric, funny, warm, clever, resourceful, inquisitive, slightly mysterious wanderer with a knack for being in the right place at the right time.
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