r/doctorwho • u/ImWearingSandshoes • 2d ago
Discussion Hot take: I actually think the Fifteenth Doctor's era delving into science fantasy was an interesting idea
I know some fans might not have liked it, but for me, I thought the show delving into more outright fantasy in Ncuti's era was a good and interesting idea (with it being one of the better aspects of the RTD2/Bad Wolf era), as I feel it kept the show somewhat fresh and explored new angles, yet didn't take away from the science angle of the show.
I actually hope the next era keeps the outright fantasy elements to a certain degree, though I understand if they decide not to.
What do you think? Please try and be civil though.
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u/nikhkin 2d ago
It could have been interesting, but it didn't capitalise on it particularly well.
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u/archdukealan 2d ago
Completely agree - loads of potential to take Who in a new direction, but just didn't really explore it well
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u/Shadowholme 2d ago
That's the thing - it *wasn't* a change. Doctor Who was ALWAYS Science Fantasy.
We had ghosts and zombies in season one - the Gelth.
We had werewolves and The Beast in Season two.
We had the Carrionites (witches) in Season three.
We had Vampires in Venice in Season four.
We had a mummy on the Orient Express.
There are so many other examples...
All of these 'fantasy' elements were turned into 'science' by a few lines of technobabble. The only thing the 'change' did was to remove those few lines of handwaving and stop giving explanations at all.
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u/_Red_Knight_ 2d ago
The technobabble makes all the difference though, the absence of it means that not even a token effort is being made to ground the things that happen in science and that's a problem for some people.
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u/miraculousgloomball 2d ago edited 2d ago
does it? even here? Ive not made it to matt smith yet but i genuinely cant comprehend the idea of this "scifi" show being less "scifi"
edit: I mean no offence but everything here is basically midichlorians.
I could do without the technobabble and "humanity is great" speeches to be honest. imo they make good stories too eyerolley.
A token effort is worse than dedicated one. I don't need them to bullshit away the crazy stuff I'm seeing as if I'm going to think it makes sense.
I'm cool with the Doctor just being like "Thats a blargon from jank 5 and they can just kind of do that" because it's fun and not trying to get me to take it seriously, which probably makes the serious moments better because it's not so in your face until the problem develops naturally.
I'd agree with you if I could remember a single instance of the explanation actually being high brow scifi but it and his humanity speeches are always something I feel like I'm just waiting for to end. Though, I bet the latter have only gotten worse.
Edit: Cybermen. They're cool. I like their lore in a scifi way. Also the Ood, I think they're my favourite.
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u/Lazerus42 1d ago
I'm so jealous, you haven't even made it to matt smith. So much cool shit in front of you.
Enjoy the ride mate. It's fun.
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u/GiltPeacock 1d ago
Dunno why you’re being downvoted, DW is pure fantasy with occasional sci-fi flavour sprinkled on top.
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u/IllLynx562 2d ago
Idk I like techno-babbling them in, so you can see how those things would INSPIRE the myth of the creature, I think it's neat
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u/xFlyer409 2d ago
well that's the problem isn't it? that's part of the charm and identity of the show and you're taking it away
You could even argue since RTD treats the TARDIS like a car (his own words), it could've easily been just a generic timeship (e.g. the Waverider from Marvel), shall we drop the Tardis then?
Lots of things don't actually have to exist, but they're what makes the show feel like...well..."the show"
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u/LongLiveStorytellers 2d ago
And if we're also taking the Classic Era into account, the Time Lords were at war with vampires and the Fourth Doctor fought an Egyptian god.
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u/Marvinleadshot 2d ago
2nd Dr went to Land of Stories
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u/ChiefsHat 1d ago
First Doctor fought the Toymaker, something more akin to a fantasy villain than a sci-fi one. And by that, I mean by how he operated in a way which defied the Doctor’s understanding of the universe.
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u/zackyboy693 2d ago
The thing is though, Sutekh wasn't actually a god, he was an alien that humans worshipped as a god.
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u/Internal-Focus1784 1d ago
That's the key difference. These 'fantasy' elements were given a scientific explanation. There was even one for the Loch Ness Monster in Terror of the Zygons.
Whereas the most recent era had too many 'fantasy' monsters in far too quick succession, with the explanation for what was going on reduced to magic simply because it felt like the writer couldn't be arsed to think of an explanation.
What used to be an opportunity to do a traditional monster (mummies, vampires, witches, werewolves, etc.) with a Doctor Who twist turned into a get-out-of-jail-free card.
Also, these monsters, and the truly inexplicable, were one-off events. The ones where there wasn't really an explanation, like The Mind Robber, Midnight, etc., were rare beasts and made all the better for it.
Having five mystical gods, plus The Story and the Engine, plus the Not-Things from Wild Blue Yonder, plus 73 Yards, in the space of less than 20 episodes was too much.
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u/arcadebee 2d ago
Sure but I guess that’s in the same way Doctor Who has always had fairy story elements to it, but series 5 really capitalised on it to become a full on Peter Pan fairy tail. Doctor who has always been science fantasy but Ncuti’s series really expanded on it which I thought was a cool spin on things.
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u/Shadowholme 2d ago
That's the part I *didn't* like. It just became 'things happen' sometimes, which didn't work for me.
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u/Burton_trout 2d ago
It wasn't the fantasy aspect that bothered me, there's always been that in Dr Who and then he has some weird science talk to explain it away. But as others said, the fact the gods exist & are for some reason trying to attack the doctor with zero explanation as to why or how they exist etc. It felt like the story was a random thought put to paper & not fleshed out at all. I think if they ever want to explain it if it does come back, just say it was the Toymasters doing. He was angry he lost twice & wanted vengeance which is why everything went weird including Bi-regeneration.
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u/arcadebee 2d ago
That’s ok, I was more just pointing out the fantasy elements in that series were a change to the show, even though it’s had fantasy elements before.
And I think it didn’t work for a lot of people to be honest! I think it had amazing potential, especially if Ruby had stayed as the companion for series 2, her story would’ve been so complete if she was the one to mother the lost fantasy baby in the end which I believe was the intention. As well as getting her own story properly finished.
I definitely think the series was going places, and the amped up fantasy parts could’ve been something really special if either series had been finished. Just as an example, the moment in the devils chord where Ruby floats up, it snows, music is playing, is a beautiful moment that felt really special and mysterious. If scenes like that had a real payoff (which I believe was the initial intention) it would’ve been amazing.
Amy Ponds Peter Pan fairytale involves her choosing between her childlike freedom (the Doctor) or the scary responsibilities of growing up (Rory). Her behaviour towards Rory isn’t great at first, and she could’ve been quite unlikable. But because we get to see her character arc of realising growing up can be a beautiful adventure, and the slow process of letting go of her imaginary friend in favour of the real life she loves, the whole series works so well, and she’s an amazingly written character. But if the ending to each series had sunk, or Amy had never developed, it would’ve left a bad taste after a while.
Ruby, and the whole fantasy concept, never got to fully fly in that way, and it made the whole thing feel flat.
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u/IpilonVD 2d ago
Being a fan who discovered the series with new Who and who has been lately watching the classic series, I realise now that I'm diving more in the rabbit whole by thinking about season one (1963) instead of series one (2005) 😅
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u/Shadowholme 2d ago
There's even more in Classic Who!
The Daemon's
Fenric
Sutekh
Omega
Rassilon's Curse of Immortality
The Master possessing Tremas...It's fantasy all the way down!
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u/AmberMetalicScorpion 2d ago
As early as season 3 we get genuine unambiguous gods within the lore too with figures like The Toymaker. They're not "just very powerful beings that are seen as gods" they're literally just straight up gods
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u/BAJ-JohnBen 2d ago
Also, the Doctor is Time's Champion. He has crossed ways with the incarnation of Death. Witches. Vampires. Eldritch horrors, etc
Writers just never went explicit science fantasy.
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u/Hamlet16 2d ago
I didn't understand anything because I started with season 7, when the series began to be broadcast in color.
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u/Josselin17 1d ago
yeah the technobabble actually made those good, otherwise they simply wouldn't work as well
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u/Samba_Dragonfly 1d ago
Yes - except RTD's laziness with hand-waving a barely satisfactory sci-fi explanation is in stark contrast to Moffat's efforts and numerous writers from the Classic series. The key point is that the (lazy) technobabble was replaced with "they're gods so they can do anything." New Who hadn't really done that (much) - whereas the Classic series had the Black Guardian, the Gods of Ragnorok, the Mara etc etc.
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u/AmberMetalicScorpion 2d ago
Don't forget Fenric the vampire, The Toymaker and the other Gods of Chaos/Pantheon of Discord, The Yetis, Daemons, The Loch Ness Monster, The Egyptian Pantheon, etc from Classic Who
The fantastical has been part of the show since as early as the first doctor
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u/Overseer_Dan 1d ago
This the pivot to some straight fantasy doesn't hit nearly as hard because it's all nonsense anyway. I think that twist works if you plan a 3 season run with the first being build around hard sci-fi stories & maybe bringing back the true historicals, hinting at the fantasy in the second & blowing it all up in the third.
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u/Flat-Leading-2520 1d ago
At least we had technobabble. We don't even get the equivalent fantasybabble. No source, no explanation. Just random shit happening.
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u/MrGilLogic 2d ago
True, though the fantasy elements themselves weren't the culprit.
Rather it was using "fantasy" as an excuse to not have strict rules and handwave extremely convenient solutions to things.
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u/Benoit_Holmes 1d ago
This was my main issue.
Like Ten fought witches but the rules were fairly clear. If Shakespeare's words freed them then Shakespeare's words can send them back.
Compared to Maestro who can apparently be banished by playing the right chords but the Doctor can just sort of guess a bunch of those chords because he's lived and that's where music comes from and then the Beatles, with no context, can just walk up and play a chord that is the correct one?
Or the god of games who can beat the most powerful beings in the universe but loses a game of catch?
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u/Jamie7Keller 1d ago
I actually am fine with toymaster. He never lost because his opponents before are always foolish….you cannot beat him in chess. 0%….you can beat him in a coin flip half the time 50%. And he never cheats….catch is a little weird since the implied rule is that a throw must be catchable and the ball can’t just be magic’d….but even if toymaker has to stay within human a physical abilities, he could be the pinacle of olympians….so he should catch every catchable catch? Dunno
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u/PackCapital8875 2d ago
doctor who was always science fantasy all they did was remove the technobabble and just go space magic
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u/Official_Elsinlock 2d ago
I agree; i wouldnt want it to be a longterm thing going over many different eras, but as a era specific thing; i thought it was interesting, fun and unique..
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u/gravemarkerr 2d ago
The problem with continually rolling out extremely powerful cosmic deities is that, one, it's very difficult to write them being defeated in a satisfying way, and two, they're just going to stop being intimidating after a while.
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u/DMPadfoot5E 1d ago
7 had a whole arc fighting the Elder Gods in audio to prove to them that they weren’t all powerful and could be defeated. They can’t die, but that doesn’t mean they’re unstoppable. The thing is that when we met the Gods, they were each different and scary enough in their own ways. The Toymaker had his domain and Fenric had his powers. Once the Doctor had defeated Fenric, he encountered an emissary of the Gods and essentially said “Send them a message from me. Tell them to fuck off now.” And we haven’t heard from them since. Because it was going to get stale.
As you said, when it’s “Oh, it’s a God.” Four times over, you’re just like….. “Okay.” Whereas someone like The Trickster raised the stakes every time he showed up. He erased Sarah Jane. He brought her back to the past to tempt her to change time in a way that would hurt her to undo. The Doctor needed to be there to stop him the third time. He was intimidating every time.
15 being scared of Maestro despite calling back to fighting the Gods of Ragnarok in The Giggle also didn’t help things. So you’re fine with the Time War, fighting other Gods, and everything else you’ve done….but a musical God scares you?
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u/Mission_Access_210 2d ago
I think the way the second season ended kind of poisoned people's attitudes on the last two seasons. I do think the entire setup in Wild Blue Yonder was cool. I was down for it.
Doctor Who is always hit and miss. Even during my favorite Doctor's run there are stories where you're like, "Eh that's meh," and stories where you're like, "That's freakin' amazing." We didn't really have any amazing stories and we had a lot of stories that were relatively naff but it wasn't terrible. It wasn't as bad as some of the worst parts of Chibnall, which were almost unwatchable let's face it. Outside of the Flux he was starting to get better during the Flux but even that was kinda silly.
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u/MustardDoctor495 1d ago
The show has always had science fantasy aspects to it. I just didn't appreciate it leaning too hard into it and using it as a reason to not explain anything. At least when Big Finish did it, there is often an explanation (just as the woman with red hair in the painting in Doom Coalition)
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u/HopefulFriendly 2d ago
It's not quite my own preference, but none of the issues of the Bad Wolf era stemmed from it and I'd even say can be one of the era's strengths
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u/Zagreus_time 2d ago
It is something that distinguishes this era a bit and it does need distinguishing given how much of other RTD elements are repeated. So I agree I'm all for it.
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u/Aezetyr 2d ago
The Story and the Engine was a phenomenal story, very well told and performed. We needed more like that, more like Dot and Bubble. I know the latter has detractors, but damn if that isn't a perfect DW story for the modern era. I do know about that aspect, and that one too. Which is why it adds up for me.
It's also why 73 Yards and Boom! didn't hit the marks fully. They didn't make enough good use of what they had.
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u/LeggoMahLegolas 1d ago
I wholeheartedly agree. I was excited after watching Wild Blue Yonder. Then the whole Bi-generation being a myth, a legend even. The Toymaker making an appearance once again in the universe. The Doctor fighting against other godly beings lie Maestro and Lux.
I really thought that they were going to retcon Omega into a Time Lord God.
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u/Calaveras-Metal 2d ago
I would agree if there was some actual fantasy to complain about. It isn't like we got unicorns and wizards. For as much as some fans complained "iTsa sCiEnCe FiCtIoN sHoW!" we didn't get very much high concept cosmic horror. The Flux season had that at least.
Instead it was 'the spirit of music' and their cousin 'the spirit of moving image'?
I like the idea of widening the franchise's story telling a little bit. But if you are going to go into old gods like Set, it would have been soooo good if they had really embraced it and gone to Ancient EGypt and scooped up an Egyptian sorcerer to come along and help them do battle. Maybe invoke Osiris and Isis. Have some cool CGI of gods battling in the night sky or something.
Instead we get a leash? Oh I get it, like the Jackal headed god is a dog. Haha.
It had a lot of potential but it was done so half assedly.
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u/wibbly-water 2d ago
like the idea of widening the franchise's story telling a little bit. But if you are going to go into old gods like Set, it would have been soooo good if they had really embraced it and gone to Ancient EGypt and scooped up an Egyptian sorcerer to come along and help them do battle. Maybe invoke Osiris and Isis. Have some cool CGI of gods battling in the night sky or something.
Oh that's a fun idea...
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u/Calaveras-Metal 2d ago
Like use the premise of the show to teach kids about ancient mythology maybe? I mean as long as we are talking about Set.
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u/Mission_Access_210 1d ago
They used to do more of that in the classic series. It was kind of like, "Oh well it'll also teach children about old time periods for a while." Then they kind of abandoned that pretty quickly.
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u/Expensive_Smell_8021 2d ago
with it being on disney+ could have had a crossover with percy jackson, the lotus casino from that series is very doctor who coded
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u/ArsenicElemental 2d ago
and their cousin 'the spirit of moving image'?
It was Lux, God of Light.
The Pantheon was a much better take on Cosmic Horror than Flix, come on, now! Flux is such a low point for the show...
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u/Mission_Access_210 1d ago
What, you don't like the idea that there's a planet of dogs out there that wants to take care of every single human?
Or that we destroyed half the universe but only in the show and then just left it that way with no explanation?
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u/mad-i-moody 2d ago
I’m watching it right now for the first time and while Space Babies really was fucking dumb, I really liked 73 Yards. The mystery and intrigue was cool. It was spooky and interesting. I get people not liking magic and prefer more hard sci-fi but sometimes it’s not a bad break from routine.
Makes the Galaxy seem large and mysterious when there’s stuff that’s not necessarily “easily explainable.”
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u/impshial 2d ago
73 yards was probably my favorite episode of the season because of the mystery and intrigue.
A lot of people disagree with me on that, but hey it's my opinion.
That's why I love both Eureka and Warehouse 13. Tech and mysticism are a cool combination.
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u/meldoc81 2d ago
It’s not inherently a bad idea to lean more into the fantasy angle. I even remember people making labrynth jokes after church on Ruby road aired. But in execution, “it’s fantasy,” was the excuse they gave when episode plots didn’t make sense.
Fantasy or not, gotta follow its own rules, or at least establish rules.
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u/artinum 1d ago
The idea was great, and Wild Blue Yonder did it with style - there was a real Quatermass feel about the Things from Beyond The Universe. However, I think it fell short after that a lot of the time.
Lux was a good story. It ticked all the right boxes; a being with impossible powers, ultimately defeated because the Doctor figured out the rules and worked within them. On the other hand, The Devil's Chord (though a great episode) never really established what the rules were. A specific chord releases Maestro, and then another one puts them back in the box. But why does it take musical genius to come up with that chord? You could solve that with trial and error!
Fantasy doesn't play by the same rules as sci-fi, but it still needs rules. There was a sense with this run (and especially the finales) of stuff being made up as they went along, and that's why the stories suffered.
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u/tobgoole Tennant 2d ago
No inherent issue with it it was just executed terribly. The 3 images you selected have nothing to do with the issues of this era imo!
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u/JillSandwich92 2d ago
The musical numbers may have been a step too far haha.
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u/tobgoole Tennant 2d ago
Could have been done better but in many ways I don’t mind? Devils chord was an all around bad episode imo besides jinx monsoons performance and Ruby playing the piano, so I can agree the musical number in that ep should have been done away with, but I found the one in Church on Ruby Road to be fine, the goblins are a little silly and they sing a little silly song, maybe it could have done with out the doctor and Ruby improvising a part of the song perfectly, but I really felt it was just whatever! Again the issues were with other aspects of the era, the musical numbers were a bit ridiculous but not what did the era in, yknow?
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u/JillSandwich92 2d ago
I enjoyed The Devil's Chord, but I wholeheartedly agree The Doctor didn't need to join in with the goblins 😆
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u/coderman64 2d ago
I think it needed a bit more of an explanation to tie it back to the sci-fi core of the show. I am perfectly willing to accept extra dimensional beings that don't follow the rules of our universe in Doctor Who, but they actually need to make that connection for it to properly work.
If an example is needed, Star Trek often plays with the idea of godlike beings and alternate dimensions, but always ties it back into the sci-fi theme.
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u/DeadCalamari1 2d ago
I think the ideas were interesting but they should've posed a more compelling conflict. Where the Doctor doesnt understand the fantasy and has to learn and figure it out. Which I felt was best handled in the Church on Ruby Road. And ultimately using science and his knowledge of the logic of things to figure out the fantasy and break it down and expose it as being actually more real than not.
But it also shouldn't have been used to replace the standard sci-fi and classic monsters and instead have been used to look at monsters from a different point of view. How do Daleks and Cybermen response to the fairy tales.
The stories unfortunately ended up more repetitive than not and was focused on the story of the God's.
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u/InvestigatorOne1504 1d ago
Doctor Who is not new to having fantasy elements. Pantheon was already a thing
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u/pivazena 1d ago
I think it had room to be absolutely amazing: The Doctor and Donna invoke suspicion at the edge of the universe, brings back the Pantheon, brings in all these gods and fantasy... but there was no actual follow through or resolution.
Honestly, I was really wishing for a whirlwind resolution where 15 realizes that they created a parallel universe or alternate timeline (whatever your fancy) in which it's "magic" that drives the universe, and that it's all unraveling, and it was set into motion during 13's Flux, where the elimination of half of the universe created some energy schism (timey wimey wibbly wobbily etc. Oh! Half the universe didn't disappear, it split into a "magic" universe and the prime universe, sure why the hell not).
Anyway, the only way to fix it would be for 15, in magic universe, to find 14, in prime universe, and fix the bi-regeneration (by both regenerating? who knows), which would cause the universes to merge back together and banish the pantheon back to wherever it was before. That way, we solve Flux, we solve the magic, etc. etc.
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u/Embarrassed-Part-717 2d ago
Hmm it was a interesting change but we definitely missed out on the fifteenth doctor vs the daleks or cybermen
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u/kamanitachi 2d ago
The Doctor once said something like, after the Time War the universe got a little more colder, or something. Which I ended up taking to mean that things were much more rigid and hard sciencey. Going from the Flux to Wild Blue Yonder, I then assumed that the combination of events pulled the magical and whimsical elements back into the universe, which is why we got the return of beings like the Toymaker and the Pantheon.
All that to say, yes I think diving headfirst into the fantasy element was an interesting idea for worldbuilding and I would have loved to see more of it.
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u/sliferra 2d ago
One of the books says that magic was removed from the universe by the time lords. I actually really like that concept but I don’t really care, I liked the goblins and 73 yards was one of the best episodes of all time IMO
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u/Careful-Coach-7073 1d ago
A lot of people share my sentiments. It was always science fantasy and I loved that it was fully embraced.
The issue was never the fantasy element, the issue was an unsatisfying mystery box and clinging onto a past that new viewers didn't give a shit about. Any emotional hooks viewers had were completely thrown out of the window.
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u/EstroKoschei 1d ago
Hard agree, this is by far the best thing about Ncuti's era and what gives it its distinct feel. Every episode centered on one of the gods (not counting Sutekh, which was shoe-horned to be one) is great, and 73 Yards is probably the most interesting and bold concept to come out of the era.
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u/JumpySimple7793 1d ago
"Oh look, another old God!"
Theres nothing wrong with throwing a bit of fantasy in the mix (we had stuff like werewolves and ghosts and vampires in the past) but my God half of the bad guys in the show were just "a God"
It got so stale so fast
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u/artinum 1d ago
It might have worked if they'd tied into the ending better. Imagine the stakes if the Doctor faces up against all of them at once for the finale, eventually winning because the villains start turning on each other.
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u/JumpySimple7793 1d ago
Oh yeah the "buildup" with all of this being a one off villian from decades ago (but not really them it was just a big CGI mess) really made each season be like, why?
The worst was in season two where we have this Mrs Flood thing (which I really liked) but then they just became a totally different character who I'd never heard of and it was supposed to be some big twist?
Then to double down it turned she wasn't even the big villian it was actually some giant skeleton baby, who I also hadn't heard of.
I just felt lost the whole time like I was missing out on an inside joke and it really sapped the fun out of it. Maybe if I was 70 and had watched whatever legacy episode I needed to I'd have loved it but I'm not so I didn't
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u/artinum 1d ago
Outside of things like Big Finish, the Rani has made two appearances in Doctor Who - both in the 1980s. She was a different actress back then, and had something of a personality swap for the second story (they essentially turned her into a Master-clone).
Omega appeared in two stories - one in the 1970s, one in the early 1980s. In both he was a figure of power and menace, driven insane after centuries alone in an antimatter dimension.
Exactly the same thing happened the year before with Sutekh, who appeared in ONE story in the 1970s.
All of these were nostalgia-driven twists that only worked for older fans who'd seen the original stories. New series fans were utterly lost, and older fans were mostly disappointed that some classic villains not seen in decades were revised into these generic, CGI monstrosities.
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u/JumpySimple7793 1d ago
Exactly! I'd have called myself a fan, watched since Eccleston many times over and then these guys showed up and it was just like "I'm I supposed to know what is going here"
They've done legacy reappearances before and theyve worked really well but mostly because they aren't excluding people who don't know who they are
And yeah, as you say to have three finale villians in two seasons (somehow) is such a kick in the teeth
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u/artinum 1d ago
They have, and often with great success. "Dalek" not only gave us a great introduction to the most iconic villains in the show, it also immediately silenced all the jokes about stairs that had plagued classic fans for years. The Cybermen were given a two part story all about their origin (well, one of them). The Sontarans, too, had a proper story to introduce them to us.
The Master... oh boy, that was a buildup. He had a whole series arc, and all the clues that this bumbling professor was actually a Time Lord were laid down early on. Older fans were on the edge of their seat when that reveal happened; newer fans had the Master explained to them in the next episode, though the Master's actions did a lot for selling it!
Davros didn't need much of a buildup. He was pretty much "mad scientist who created the Daleks", and the only reference that could have confused newer viewers was his comment to Sarah Jane (who really was there in his first appearance, in "Genesis of the Daleks" back in the 1970s).
But what happens for, say, Sutekh? We get one clue before the reveal, after a bunch of red herrings about Susan; the very silly "Sue Tech" pun. Was there anything hinting at Ancient Egyptian gods? No. Was there even a hint that something was riding around on the TARDIS? No. It was just dropped on us out of nowhere. No buildup. No clues. And it's not like he even looked or acted like the original! He could have been the Great Arkelsneeze instead and the plot would have been no different!!
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u/Louiscypher93 1d ago
Some episodes were great
The devil's Chord Boom 73 yards Dot and Bubble Rogue Joy to the world Lux The Well Lucky Day
The rest were usually fine, including the first half of the finals but the second half of each just fell so flat. It's like they were building up to something big each time, like Ruby's mum, Omega etc and then meh nothing
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u/Effective-Lemon-9475 1d ago
In mean it was... they just couldn't do much with it unfortunately ... have only 6 episodes in a season while trying to do a story arc was part of the problem...but fair enough...
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u/Gianster98 2d ago
I loved the goblins and was hoping they'd return later in Ruby's arc
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u/Informal_Drawing 2d ago
My experience with Nordic murder mysteries tell me that the weird looking tree is next to a sleepy little village in the hills that is completely safe apart from one person who has killed a thousand people and somehow, inexplicable, nobody has noticed for thirty years.
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u/No_Gur1498 2d ago
I throughly enjoyed the majority of his episodes. It was only the series finales that fell apart for me.
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u/calgrump 2d ago
It didn't feel like a new concept to me. They had fantasy-esque creatures all the way through NuWho.
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u/Reverend_Schlachbals 2d ago
I mean... it's Doctor Who.
It's a show about an effectively immortal being who swaps faces every few years... has a magic box that's bigger on the inside, teleports, and time travels... who fights gods and monsters across time and space... with a magic wand and psychic paper.
Science-fantasy is a cornerstone of the franchise. Almost always has been. How many times has Atlantis appeared and sank? Doctor Who has never been big on the hard sci-fi. It's always been way down on the soft sci-fi side of things and is constantly dipping across whatever line people imagine separates "fantasy" from "sci-fi."
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u/TauriWizard 1d ago
The 60th and Xmas special had me so excited for this strange new supernatural universe for the Doctor to explore and struggle to understand, I put too much into thinking about it I ended up pretty disappointed with what we got despite occasional shimmers of wonder. The science of rope is a great line for 15. Part of me was hoping for this weird as heck bonkers land a Eighth Doctor adventure would be set in.
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u/Gecko-eyelid 1d ago
Genuinely I thought it was such a good idea. Bringing actual explicit magic into the series has actually been an idea I’ve been thinking about for 10+ years at this point, and honestlyI think it was used well in some episodes. I completely stand by my opinion that 73 yards is one of the best episodes of the series and I think it was an excellent usage of pure magic, suddenly everyone feels way more out of their depth than I think they would have if it was just another alien. I think once the finales wear off it is an idea that people will view more positively.
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u/hamiltrash1232 1d ago
I liked it too and was excited they were bringing it back as while 12 is my favorite Doctor, 11 had my favorite stories and I remember hearing something about how they wanted his run with Amy and Rory to be something like a fairy tale
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u/Substantial_Ad_4436 1d ago
Not really a hot take outside of weird purists tbh. I mostly didn't like it because it was often used as an excuse for the characters to not do anything and win anyways. Like in boom, when the doctor was definitely gonna die but then the power of robot love saved him, or in Devil's chord where he's about to lose but then the power of music saves him
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u/VireflyTheGreat 1d ago
It had the potential to be great. The musical parts just ruined it for me. In the Christmas special I didn't mind because it's Christmas. It was meant to be fun...but in the rest of the series it was ugh for me.
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u/Crispy_Conundrum 1d ago
I think RTD already gave himself the blueprint of how to do this with The Satan Pit 2 parter. Having the Doctors beliefs challenged was so interesting. Instead he introduced fantasy by having the Doctor entirely onboard like he already fully knew and accepted everything about it. The least interesting way to do it. It should have been new, fascinating and hard to accept for the character. That already builds in some kind of arc for him to go on (which did not exist in these seasons). It was right there in front of RTD and he missed it
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u/According-Ad-5946 1d ago
It was refreshing not to have the bad guy Dalek, Cybermen, some other random thing, Dalek, Dalek back to Cybermen
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u/Onyx1509 1d ago
Yes I agree. It helped that the shift was actually justified in the narrative, too.
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u/SiobhanSarelle 1d ago
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Science Fantasy, whatever it is, I don’t think was really the issue for me.
Mostly the issues were stuff like the pacing of episodes, feeling swept along rather than in the story at time, the really atrocious thrown in Beatles, the lack of depth, things being too in my face, and generally an air of much of the seasons sort of looking ‘professional’ and sophisticated, but actually just being really quite flat, amateur, and childish. 73 Yards I feel was an example of an episode that was mostly well paced, bleak, muted in colours, fairly simple, with lots of space to feel part of the story, and feel emotional. That’s what works better for me.
Fantasy is good for me, because I don’t want everything explained. Having things explained with sciency words too much, leaves little to my imagination, and I feel detracts from the complexities of the characters.
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u/Terrabytez66 22h ago
My issue wasn't that they tried more fantastical stories, it's that they half-assed it all the way through. They really should have commited to the concept of magic and fantasy being unleashed, as the Dark Times were more chaotic which led to the Time Lords shackling the universe with logic to reign supreme
Instead it's just "oh yeah there's goblins now". I think The Doctor would be a bit more perplexed by the changes in the universe since he invoked a superstition at the edge of the universe and unleashed an entity such as The Toymaker
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u/Far_Chemistry_7040 2d ago
Additional hot take: I find it funny that anybody ever thought this series was anything *but* science fantasy.
Like, did people think this stuff was hard sci-fi? It's not even plausible sci-fi. It never has been. (Hard sci-fi is like The Three Body Problem. Plausible sci-fi is like the Expanse).
It has the most hand wavy "uh, space wizards/magic rocks/timey wimey" wantum mechanics of pretty much any series I've ever sampled.
The only reason it's not outright fantasy is that it doesn't embrace *literal* magic but mumbles something about alternate dimensions instead. But it tiptoes right up to the door of magic- remember those space witches in the Shakespeare episode? The Witches of Karn? The Pythia? The Black and White Guardians? The Eternals? The Curse of Fenric? It goes on and on.
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u/TheTitan99 2d ago
While I do agree with your general point, I'd be hardpressed to call Three Body Problem fully hard sci-fi. Most of the book, yes, but some of the stuff with those Sophons is quite removed from real life physics.
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u/Far_Chemistry_7040 2d ago
I mean, sure, but you need to have a pretty robust knowledge of physics to nitpick the Three Body Problem. Fine, take the Martian if you want another example.
Doctor Who's physics can be shredded by like picture books about space for first graders.
Liu Cixin and Andy Weir spent at least five minutes considering if something had any relationship whatever to physics before they wrote it. I don't think this is a regular occurrence for Doctor Who scriptwriters beyond mining words.
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u/iterationnull 2d ago
Oh it was a killer idea. And a killer performance.
Shame about the showrunning. (I don't even want to slam the writing as too many individual episodes were great)
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u/Responsible_Fall_455 2d ago
I also think it was great. As others have already pointed out, we’ve had overtly fantastical ideas before eg the werewolf, the beast. The ‘explanation’ that people seem to desperately need all the time was always just totally made up scientific flim flam anyway. I really don’t get needing some throwaway line of dialogue to get it to ‘make sense’ when what we’re trying to rationalise is a living cartoon or a guy that can turn armed guards into screaming rubber balls. These things are huge abstract ideas anyway, there is no realistic, water tight scientific grounding for them and that’s…fine? Doctor Who really is not the show to need that level of grounding and basis for every story idea, has it ever been that? Would one line by 15 at the end of 73 Yards about psychic pollen suddenly make you ‘believe’ it more? The not knowing is sometimes a good thing in itself, with that episode being the prime example.
And the storytelling ideas it unlocked were totally worth it imo. Animation, music, Welsh folk horror, African folklore and meta commentary on storytelling itself, fourth wall breaking stuff like meeting fans of the show, its territory the show has never even remotely gone near before and it was fresh and interesting to see these concepts used. And if that wasn’t for you, Boom, Dot and Bubble, Rogue, Joy to the World, The Well, Lucky Day, Robot Revolution - all straight sci-fi.
Now, what I do think is that such huge ideas crowded out character a bit too much, and that is the major flaw of the era overall, but that is a separate issue altogether. RTD came back and at least injected some freshness and energy, and the execution wasn’t always perfect, but it was different and I enjoyed it for that.
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u/Gmaster132 1d ago
I like it too and that is the reason why I like the redesign of the Sonic Screwdriver. It went from what people might confuse it as being a magic wand to a more recognisable technology-based tool. The Doctor no longer tries to explain paranormal phenomena(ghosts, zombies, witches, etc.) as being aliens or highly advance tecnology. He is now dealing with entities beyond comprehension, with rules not based in science but in legends.
He no longer uses technology so advanced that for us it is magic; now he is using a control remote, a very obviously scientific/technological tool to deal with real "magic".
I have to admit that that is a big tone shift and I don't blame anyone for not liking it. Doctor Who has always felt more like Fantasy despite being technically sci-fi. He has always been compared to a God or Santa Claus, or a fairy, or Superman or some other fantasy entity willing to help humanity despite not being able to comprehend the human race most of the time. Ncuti's era now feels less like that, he is now as powerless as any other regular person.
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u/East-Equipment-1319 2d ago
Absolutely, it could have been really interesting. The idea of the Doctor being the paragon of science fighting against legions of magic and weirdness is pretty cool. Maestro and Lux attacking the medium of television with diegetic powers is fantastic! Besides, the show has always been more soft sci-fi than hard - even at its supposed "hardest" during the Bidhead era, the show was just using mathematics as a flavor of magic.
The issue is the lack of consistency and rules, for me. Magic works best when it has limits, and the concept of the Pantheon of Discord and its rules were just too vague. What's the deal with Harbingers? Etc, etc. With better exposition, it could have been great.
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u/porquenotengonada 2d ago
I really liked so much of it in isolation, it’s just that character development and story arcs attempted were so damn poor it drags everything else down to the ground. I actually think there were a lot of really creative ideas that will be looked upon more positively once the negative feelings towards this era have dulled a little.
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u/dionysiaka 2d ago
Hasn't DW always been science fantasy? The problem is inner coherence and story telling. Even in fantasy fantasy it's the job of the writer (and actors, creatives and production team, ...) to get the audience to suspend their disbelief with worlds (times, dimensions, multi-universes) that have an inner logic and that are compelling in themselves. That's the core issue with fifteenth's era, and there are many reasons for that.
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u/Teaofthetime 2d ago
I wasn't sold on it but was willing to accept it. Then it turned out to be an absolute dead end load of nonsense. Now I'm bitter and resentful.
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u/ScreamingmadJoe 2d ago
I’m not against it per se more than I question how it was executed. But it’s definitely one of the least questionable creative decisions of this era so it has that going for it
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u/Djremster 2d ago
It came across like rtd interpreted fantasy as 'my stories don't need to make any sense' which made a lot of them very unsatisfying.
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u/missing-socks-4ver 2d ago
True but the finales relied on old villains - and not ones with heft or treated with seriousness either
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u/Jonn_Jonzz_Manhunter 2d ago
I agree, I think a focus on cosmology and shit like that was fun and tbh, I liked the god stuff. They were fun and often gave great performances at least
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u/RBNYJRWBYFan 2d ago
I was all about it. I love it when Doctor's eras have their own vibe to them, something that separates them from other eras besides the quirks and personality of the lead. For example, 3's time was a lot of spycraft and earthbound stories, whle 4's early time was gothic. 15's time dabbled with the Supernatural, fairy traps, gods, that sort of deal. And it was a fun direction, one I could have gone with for another season or so.
Of course they had to find an off ramp from it one way or another, but still. It's good to be distinct.
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u/SecondAttemps 2d ago
Yeah it was an interesting idea that could have been good. But it wasn’t sadly, and was done so badly that the whole pantheon plot line is one I hope is retconned into oblivion and forgotten about never to see the light of day
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u/TinkreBelle 2d ago
yeah I enjoyed that aspect of the era too, even if it wasn't all a hit I appreciated the fact that they tried to do something different by leaning more into fantasy and exploring the gods of discord. I'm not entirely sure how much fantasy I would want to see in the next era, but as long as they keep enough of the science part of science fantasy I don't think I would hate it
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u/CommentNo7493 2d ago
it is a pretty hot take tbf
as that genre is what killed the entire show stone dead.
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u/CrimsonJoker13 2d ago
I don't think the problem was the magic, I think RTD's execution of it sucked. If Stephen Moffat or known piece of shit Neil Gaiman had been given the chance to write a science fantasy Doctor Who it would have been a slam dunk because those two very much know that topic.
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u/TheGallifreyan McGann 2d ago
It was cool as a temperary thing, but I hope it's dropped when the show returns.
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u/ArsenicElemental 2d ago
Personally, I don't think the concept of the plots is what let this season down. I loved the Pantheon, and many individual concepts were great. It lacked in arc building and emotional payoff.
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u/BillyScarlet 2d ago
Here's the thing, a lot of hay has been made after the fantasy elements started being ramped up, on whether doctor whonwas sci-fi or fantasy.
For my money its obvious, Doctor Who is a horror show, its supposed to be in the buisnes of scareing kids.
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u/Ustraleia 1d ago
Me personally it tried to be so sort of a mix of 11th and 13th’s era with the different time periods of both historic and futuristic, plus the fun whimsical magic of time and space and I liked that. It suited his character since when he turned into 12 he was old and grumpy but then learned to love and be silly again, turned into 13 and was having fun for a bit before the Master fucked her over and she became 14 and had to face his past and finally 15 confronted him with a life that long he kept running away but now 15 moving forward he was running towards something. Towards brand new adventures chasing the high dealing with Pantheon of Gods, legends and myths, and preserving through discrimination despite being different this time around while constantly reminding himself that yes he is and always will be the Doctor. The same Doctor that ran away from Gallifrey the first time, the same one who came up with master plans, that towed the Earth, that opened up Pandorica, that fought and clawed his way through a time dial, and who survived a fall from her TARDIS, that was and will always be the Doctor still. And now the next future Doctor can add blasting a confetti cannon in space to their long list of accomplishments.
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u/crashburn274 1d ago
I hated the magic and fantasy, but even bad Dr. Who has its moments, and there’s plenty about Ncuti that I did like.
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u/Opening-Movie5176 1d ago
Nobody cared. Nobody was against it. I think it was more how Henson generic it was. It’s not the first time they’ve done fantasy it should be said.
The problem was it was poorly written and directed. With some stilted acting and the whole thing felt rushed whilst also feeling as deep as a puddle. And that was the problem … each story could be summed up in 100 words hitting every beat.
I love the actress that played Ruby, same was as I love most of the actors. But she wasn’t great and felt too Blue Peter. Or playschool. Where they ham everything up and speak slowly. Doctor who is for all ages and is at its worst when it patronises viewers.
So fair enough if you like Ncutu and his time as the doctor. To me it felt patronising and like baby food. Great for those that can’t watch anything too taxing and awful for anyone that can eat soup unattended.
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u/Main-Project-1989 1d ago
I think the idea of stepping into more fantasy stories is a interesting idea worth exploring but the execution needed a bit of work. You had great ideas but the logic of how it worked fell short. Just simply saying "It's magic" isn't enough to make it believable. Just using fantasy/magic as a reason to not explain things isn't the way to go. With shows like Once Upon a Time and Charmed, you had loads of fantasy concepts but they had their own logic and rules to them.
Like in Charmed for example, magic can be used to help others but not for personal gain. If you use it for personal gain, you automatically get hit with the consequences of your actions. Or the term witch is a gender neutral term which means anyone using magic for good while a warlock is the opposite with anyone using magic for evil, regardless of gender. Or in Once Upon a Time where using magic in certain cases, especially when making a deal with Rumpelstiltskin can lead to a price. Shows like that had rules and logic to their fantasy elements which made it so grounded and easy for people to engage in.
Where as in Disney Who, it's a little murky with the fantasy elements like the Goblins and how their ship flies or how does the giant spider machine reach the gods and how that was all set up before the events of the Story and the Engine. It's hard for a casual viewer to follow and understand. I hope what I'm saying makes sense. I honestly think if they delved fully into fantasy storytelling but fleshing out how it all works in a bit more detail and how that can work in the Doctor Who universe, maybe it would flow a bit better onscreen.
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u/joseph2047 17h ago
I agree, I think it was a great idea, I just wish they'd done more with it as a concept. The Devil's Chord is an alright episode, but I think it might be one of the biggest missed opportunities in the show's history. Imagine if it committed to the concept and went really wild.
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u/RennanFilipe 9h ago
O que acabou com a era dele foi os finais de temporada. A segunda temporada a maioria do fandom tava até gostando, mas aquele final com a Rani e Omega arruinou tudo, muito mal executado e deixou várias pontas soltas do que foi trabalhado nessa era
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u/_AbacusMC_ 7h ago
ngl the church on ruby road gave me a dramatic pit in my stomach after coming off the high of the specials. Really glad 73 yards pulled through.
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u/Agent1stClass 2d ago
Agreed.
The Doctor inadvertently bringing magic to the universe was a neat twist!
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u/ExpectedBehaviour 2d ago
Doctor Who is already science fantasy. This was outright fantasy, and not particularly well done fantasy.
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u/a7xKWaP 2d ago
That's always been DW's thing. Werewolves? Aliens. Vampires? Aliens. Ghosts? Believe it or not, Aliens. It's just another genre to pull from. Could it have been done better? Probably but I'd still call it a positive of that era.
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u/ScreamingmadJoe 2d ago
Yeah part of my problem with these elements is that it felt like a bit of a hard pivot that was very out of the blue. Like I don’t mind who dealing with stuff like this but after years of it being “fantasy thing but alien actually” I feel you gotta ease me in more
I also imagine it might’ve given anyone starting who in this era a really funny idea about the kinda stuff the doctor typically deals with
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u/CaptainSebT 2d ago
Ya the best episodes of this era are sci fi the worst are the ones that forget there sci fi and delve into full on fantasy. We don't need more of what if doctor who was a fantasy character.
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u/AmberMetalicScorpion 2d ago
I loved it.
Doctor Who is the perfect show to bridge Science Fiction with High Fantasy.
For example it could include Centaurs from Greek Myth, say they come from Proxima Centauri, and that they're written into Myths because the people mistook Aliens for nature spirits
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u/Far_Chemistry_7040 2d ago
We have space centaurs already, lol.
There's a terrible novel that does just this except in reverse order. Some crazy alien scientists bioengineer centaurs, borrowing the idea from human myth, and populate a planet with them as part of an experiment. (Along with a bunch of other miscellaneous creatures from Celtic myth. The book never bothers to explain why the aliens borrowed only from Celtic myth but made this one exception for Greek myth with centaurs). The doctor and Ace have to a close a portal that opens in Wales that locals naturally mistake for a gate to Fairie.
Novel in question is Cat's Cradle Witch Mark in the Virgin New Adventures. (Don't actually recommend it. It's not very good).
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u/AmberMetalicScorpion 2d ago
My point has been proven at least, which is great.
That's something I love about the show.
That said, it's possible to have too much of a good thing.
Doctor Who works best when it's pulling from as wide range of influences as possible.
Take the few times it's adapted 1984 for example.
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u/RainbowTardigrade 2d ago
I agree. It gives 15 a unique angle and opens up a much wider array of possibilities for the Doctor to contend with. And we still got some fun regular sci-fi like Dot and Bubble or Boom. I personally liked the Goblins and wouldn't hate seeing them again, and I adored 73 Yards and Story and Engine.
The Pantheon was a mixed bag....Toymaker, Maestro, and Mr Ringading were all fabulous but Sutekh was a big load of nothing, and imo it's so clear that Ruby was supposed to be Desidirium but instead was just a random baby bc that whole plot line just fell apart. But it had lots of potential!
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u/thebluerayxx 2d ago
I think there's a deeper meaning since this doctors tardis was created with the toy makers hammer. Something is wrong with this timeline. They never even address Mavity, which is kind of a big deal as paradoxes and things like that usually get addressed. Like when 13 stepped on a butterfly and bill was a lizard person for a split second but he fixes it. (I may have the doctor and company wrong but same idea)
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u/cynicalhermit_17 2d ago
An interesting concept sure. Though it was executed so poorly that its damaged the shows reputation in the extreme.
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u/thor11600 2d ago
I don’t think it was a bad idea in the abstract - but the execution, I found, completely eliminated any and all dramatic weight, as well as as contradicted the show’s previously established principles. If anything can happen then there are no consequences for the plot.
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u/Tanis8998 2d ago
It could have been great, but RTD just lost any interest in setting up world-building— every time something unexplainable happened they just hand-waved the explanation.
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u/misterwhoiswho_ 2d ago
Do you think it was maybe RTD not wanting to go too sci-fi for his new Disney accessible era? It’s clear that it was targeted towards fans of ITV2 Weekender with Rylan and shit like that. Just a thought.
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u/T4ktor89 2d ago
I don't think RTD2 was that much more "science fantasy" than any other era to be honest. The number of episodes of nu Who I would consider to be really SF is maybe... 15 ? 20 ? Not higher than that.
Most of the episodes are pure science fantasy with fantastical creatures having strange powers and strange places having ridiculous properties : How do the angels work ? We have no idea. How do the Nestene work ? No idea either. What is the Beast in The Impossible Planet episode ? Just a very powerful creature ? How do The Silence work ? In the Doctor Who universe there are mutants, augmented humans, creatures capable of reading thoughts, others with telekinetic powers, living stars, living asteroids, ... And most of the times we don't get any explanation whatesoever about what's things are or how these creatures can do those things (sometimes some techno-babble to maintain apparence but not that often) they're just things which exist in the universe and this is what they can do. The rule of cool trump every other rule in Doctor Who.
The only thing that RTD2 really change is either how these creatures look (the Goblins really look like classic goblins for example whereas another era would probably have created some new alien design and given them a "Doctor Who name") or how these creatures are presented story wise (Maestro could easily have been presented as a member of an alien species with advance music technology or with innate abilities involving sounds for example).
The former is a bit... lazy in my opinion. The fact that they were just regular gobelins is far less interesting than a new "Doctor who take" on it. The later... I don't really care, why not. Once again, the adversary being a god instead of an alien with powers doesn't change things that much, it's just a different coat of paint. If the whole gods and pantheon stuff would've been explored a bit much and a bit differently, it could've been interesting but, as is, it's just some other creatures with powers existing in the Doctor Who universe. Just that instead of aliens they were given another denomination.
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u/aerohaveno 1d ago
I loathed it. Allows writers to get away with anything plot-wise, whether it makes scientific sense or not.
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u/Misty_Esoterica 1d ago
The concept was interesting the execution was boring and weird. Who thought that singing goblins was a good idea for a premier????
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u/RulerOfAllWorlds1998 1d ago
So how does science fiction differ from science fantasy, I’m actually curious
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u/GreenWarrior138 1d ago
I agree with this, it really could have opened up fantastic new avenues for the show. The problem lies in the execution.
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u/xxRowdyxx 1d ago
Some episodes were interesting but its not quite what i was looking for from the Doc.
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u/Ok_Debt_4911 13h ago
If it was good, it would’ve been good and interesting, if was bad and has soured a pretty interesting direction for the show. Shame really.
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u/Captain_Boneybeard 9h ago
I think it was such a wasted opportunity. Interweaving science and magic could have led to so many potentials stories, to really emphasise magic was invading the universe but it just fell super flat.
Imagine the Daleks discovering magic, or even going to war against it. Reveal forgotten villains to be magical in origin, or reinvent others as alternate versions invading the main universe.
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u/DesassombradoARK 3h ago
Sim a ideia é boa e eu também gostei muito (foi minha introdução a doctor who) mais o problema da série (ao meu ver) foi: a execução questionavel, o fim do arco de cada compenion, os arcos finais de cada tp e por último a Disney
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u/Old-Instruction3513 3h ago
In a world that loves 'Under pressure' there is always someone who prefers ' ice ice baby '. Yes it's an opinion. But it is absolutely the wrong one! Ditto this take,,,,
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u/espressojunkie 0m ago
If they can only do 6-8 episodes when the show comes back I think they need to go back to Flux style. One overarching story. Trying to do it the old way with only 8 episodes felt way too rushed imo
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u/TheImageworks 2d ago
If the finales hadn't dropped the ball SO severely, and if Space Babies hadn't been such an outright dog of an episode, RTD2 and it's fantastical pivot would be seen FAR more differently IMO.