I take issue with this comment from the article:

A Doctor Who source says the show suffered because Gatwa never fully embraced the role. “There is more to that role than performing,” this person says. “You have got to be an ambassador for the brand and embrace being that generation’s Doctor. Matt Smith and David Tennant fully understood the responsibility it carried.”

What nonsense. An actors job is to act, and Gatwa acted well. He had gravitas, he had presence, he was entertaining to watch. And much like with Eccleston’s run (who was there even less time than Gatwa by the way), the problems I saw had nothing to do with an actor failing to be a “brand ambassador”. If there are problems with branding, that’s the broadcast executive team’s fault, not the cast and crew.

It’s such a weird spot for the show to end up in, and I definitely wasn’t expecting this at all. When they announced the Disney deal and RTD returning I was sure the show was getting back on track. RTD can still bring the goods when he wants to IMO (Years & Years and It’s A Sin were both great I thought, and he did do some genuinely really good episodes like 73 Yards and The Well in his second run), but he also seemed to make some really weird calls like not having 14 regenerate wearing 13’s clothes, retconning Davros, making the sonic not look like a screwdriver because it looked too much like a gun etc. Just like, going out of his way to fix things I’ve never heard anyone say were a problem.

And the big one for me was opening the season with Space Babies. For the life of me I don’t know how that episode got greenlit at all, let alone put right upfront as the season opener that was supposed to sell people on the new series. Anecdotally, my SO has watched all of New Who with me and pretty much liked all of it, but they bailed on that episode and almost quit watching altogether. Luckily they’re a big Drag Race fan so I managed to save it with Jinx Monsoon in the next ep, but yeah. I’m sure that was a drop-off point for a lot of other people.

That makes it sound like I’m saying it was all RTD’s fault, which I don’t think is entirely fair. I think Disney had a big hand in it too by essentially jamming the show up for a year or so by not announcing what was going on with the deal, which seems to have caused Gatwa to quit, which in turn caused all sorts of knock-on problems. Plus we don’t really know if some of the weird decisions were due to Disney meddling. Maybe not, but anything’s possible I guess.

Either way, whether RTD stays on or not, I’m glad he’s doing the Christmas special. Like I say, he can still write a banger when he wants to, and hopefully some of the criticism of the new series and going back to a BBC budget will get him to rein it in a bit. Also get Carole Ann Ford back and finish up that Susan thread properly!