The decline in viewership over the 1980s is generally seen as due to weaker scripts and less popular Doctors. Or it was until fan appreciation for the '80s Doctors was bolstered by nostalgia and audio plays. It's not even cool to say Colin Baker was bad anymore.
The '80s decline was also due to competition from the much better special effects on Star Trek: The Next Generation. Certainly, it wasn't a lack of effects budget that made people dislike the latest era of Doctor Who.
One similarity I would point to is that the '80s Doctors were forever overshadowed by how great the Tom Baker era was. The last couple Doctors haven't been able to reach the heights of quality and ratings achieved in the first Russell T Davies and Steven Moffat eras. Studios don't generally like to hear that the wildly successful thing will henceforth get by on being mildly successful. So they brought back Russell T Davies and they threw more and more money at it. It really is incredible how much that backfired. Russell T Davies now has the distinction of being the man who resurrected Doctor Who and the man who killed it again. I wonder what it'd have been like if Tom Baker came back in 1989 and sucked.
Davies' statement about the cancellation is kind of bizarre:
And so GOODBYE from me to Doctor Who but HELLO to a big new future for the show, as the BBC announces it’s putting the show out to tender. As a result, there won’t be a Christmas Special - we only cooked that up to guarantee a future when no one knew what would happen, but now we do know, there’s no need for it. You’ll have to wait a bit longer for new Doctor Who… but you’ll be waiting for MORE Doctor Who than a one-off. So it’s worth it! For the record: there was no script, I never wrote it, and no actor was ever approached to play the next Doctor. You may disagree; fine, sit in that chair and wait to be proved right. You’ll wait a lonnng time 🪑 Now I’m as excited as anyone to see what comes next! Will they keep the theme tune? Will they lose the blue box? Will they bring back the Drahvin?! It’s all up for grabs, which is so Doctor Who, exciting and unpredictable and new! Here comes the future, vworp vworp
I mean, he directly says that he lied to everyone for months and then mocks anyone for disbelieving him now. Okay, Mystery Master, have it your way.
Russell T Davies has written some great episodes of Doctor Who. Some of the Ncuti Gatwa episodes were great, though I think Davies' last couple seasons will, for a very long time now, be remembered for its lowest points, like the "Space Babies" episode, as everyone now digests it as a period of indisputable decline. Such extravagantly bad moments, along with his bloody minded obsession with being even more woke than Chibnall, seem like symptoms of a massive, if well earned, ego. He got the idea that he could make anything he wanted work on Doctor Who. Turns out some things are impossible for even him.
So we may never find out why Billie Piper's big glowing face was grinning at us like the Cheshire Cat in the final shot of the now final episode. I think more than a few people, more than would care to admit it, predict the answer to the mystery would've been, "Oh, more of this bullshit."
So now what? If Doctor Who returns, it's going to be on a much smaller budget unless the BBC finds a replacement for Bad Wolf and Disney that seems like a surer bet, and I can't imagine what studio that would be. Paramount? And then how do you save face while putting out a budget cut Doctor Who? That's the tragedy of the increased production values that began in the Chibnall era. It became too big to fail. Now it's checkmated itself.
Or they could treat it like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and do an entirely new reboot every three years. God I hope not. I suspect they won't; I suspect we won't be seeing new Doctor Who for at least fifteen years, if ever. Everyone's just too tired and the imagination isn't there anymore.
No comments:
Post a Comment