Who's next? Jodie Whittaker to leave 'Doctor Who' in 2022

The writers that failed Jodie Whittaker Dr Who, and much as the wokery.

Who cares？Stopped watching at Matt Smith when the series became woke. They've simply ruined a great childhood show that was eclipsed with Tom Baker.

Just take a look at the plummeting viewing figures.

Jodie Whittaker.......

“What’s interesting to me is we did an episode about Rosa Parks. And it highlighted Rosa Parks’ heroic moment in history, but it also highlighted that modern society is still suffering from a lack of progress in some people’s attitudes towards different people.”

“I just don’t understand what’s politically correct about saying there is still racism within our current society. I just don’t understand!”

Chris Chibnall......

“The Doctor and the show are beacons of compassion and empathy.”

What a croc, what part of Dr Who, Sci-fi series don't you understand??

Lost interest after Tom Baker.

Jodie Whittaker is an a renowned and accomplished actress, what processed Whittaker after reading the scripts to take this role is mystifying.

The themes are so far removed from William Hartnell sci fi, hide behind the sofa, superb characterization only to descend into a pit of politically correct wokery drivel.

The finale of Series 12 “The Timeless Children.” lowest ratings since 2005.

Toe curling, cringing PC nonsense.

And worst to come with the possibility of Olly Alexander on the horizon. What a utter waste.

I just want Dr Who back, him, she, Mr, Miss.

I want the Dr Who that had Dad hiding behind the sofa.

What I don't want, is a lecture on the political sensibilities of various minority groups and a history lesson in cultural consensus when I am looking forward to a sci-fi.

Dr Who is a fun series, early days all bulserwood and cardboard.

Fun!!!

Not attempting to be something Dr Who never set out or intended to be!

A lecturing self-righteous blaggard of the modern day issue driven marginalized..

Stopped watching at Matt Smith when the series became woke.

I never saw it until I started watching Matt Smith with my kids. A great show even then. Yes, there were little drops of wokeness, but the stories were great, I thought. Eventually, and especially when Jodie Whittaker arrived, they threw out any thought of storytelling and went for full time moralizing. A show that could go literally anywhere in all space and time decided to park itself in late 20th century Western politics. It was as though the science fiction show went out of its way to hire writers who hated science fiction.

I like the old Patrick Troughton era. IMO recent doctors have been too self confident, righteous and predictable.

Erik MoralesToday  04:10 am JST

never watched this show or understood why so many Americans like it. They probably have a romantic view of the UK LOL. Pretty lame show. Just my opinion

If you've never watched it who cares whether you think it's "lame" or not.

@Simon Foston

Interesting posts, thanks for that. I have little idea of the back story but your comments about upper-echelon BBC executives strike me as right on the button. I also wasn't aware that Chibnall made Broadchurch - the first series was excellent television and featured Whittaker, of course.

It could be because in the story they have an evil time-travelling white supremacist bad boy trying to stop the human rights movement by making sure she never got on that bus. Make of that what you will.

Interesting. That series left no lasting impression at all and I'd completely forgotten the plot of the Rosa Parks episode. Alles clar.

The obvious affection a lot of people have for Tom Baker's Doctor reminds me of something else that the show lost, i.e. a sense of humour. To be fair, though, I think that was gone a long time before Jodie Whittaker.

Yeah, it's definitely become rather po-faced over the years. Shame, as the reboot with Christopher Eccleston was surprisingly good and all the actors selected for the role since then are terrific, including Jodie Whittaker. The scripts and the showrunners are the problem. Selecting the game show host Bradley Walsh as an assistant was bizarre and the series being earthbound seemed a strange choice too. I gave up after series one, didn't bother with series 2.

Whittaker is a good actress and I have enjoyed her in other things but she was never Dr Who. Just don’t think she fitted the character, but I agree the story lines were less sci-fi adventure than a moralising diatribe.

Of the companions, the only one I thought was a good portrayal with a believable character was Yaz (Mandip Gill) though Bradly Walsh did a workman like job and I thought the attempt to introduce an older more sensible and less gung-ho character was a brave try.

The script writers have seriously let the programme down.

Selecting the game show host Bradley Walsh as an assistant was bizarre 

Not at all, Walsh was an experienced and much lauded actor before he did The Chase. He was excellent as Graham, one of the best ever companions.

The tone and scripts failed Whittaker, but fortunately show runner Chibnall, a marmite figure, is going too. We need a writer producer who is also a fan, someone who understands the show and it’s original remit to entertain and educate.

@LudditeToday 06:37 pm JST

Selecting the game show host Bradley Walsh as an assistant was bizarre 

Not at all, Walsh was an experienced and much lauded actor before he did The Chase. He was excellent as Graham, one of the best ever companions.

Fair enough, I only know him from The Chase. My mother likes him and forces me to watch it every time I'm back in the UK.

@Pukey2Today 07:35 pm JST

Dr Who used to be a serious sci-fi series.

With Jon Pertwee in his purple velvet suit, frilly shirt and cape? He was more Austin Powers than James T Kirk!

To be fair, they did have several environmentally-themed shows and a lot less of the gurning and running down endless corridors to pad it out filler of David Tennant.

I hope the producers can right the ship and return to making imaginative science fiction adventure. It's a great show so it would be a shame to see it flop again after all the hard work to revive it.

Still didn't get an answer about the Rosa Parks story. No surprise there, though....

I'm not bothered about Jodie Whittaker leaving one way or the other but Chris Chibnall has been in his job at least three years too long. I find all the online "woke" accusations really, really tedious but I do suspect that BBC politics and spin are behind a lot of the decisions that have made the last two seasons so dismal. I suspect there's a big push for "inclusivity and diversity" being spearheaded by right-on BBC upper managers because it'll look good on their CVs, leading them (of course) to green-light the casting of a female Doctor and hire Chris Chibnall as showrunner.

He only wrote a few Doctor Who episodes prior to 2017 that don't exactly stand out as classics, but I think it was a coup for the BBC to get the creator of an ITV hit, Broadchurch, and with him under contract he wouldn't be making any more ratings hits for a rival network for a while. This would outweigh any considerations if whether he was the ideal man for Doctor Who or not, and I guess what would have clinched it was his proposals for big changes that would make it plausible to feature as many female or ethnic minority Doctors as necessary to meet inclusivity and diversity quotas, never mind how clumsily they were shoehorned in. It's also a bit ironic that the first female Doctor has really been a bit useless. On two crucial occasions she's needed a middle-aged white man to get her out of dire situations, so I don't know what kind of message the BBC think that sends.

Alfie NoakesToday  09:39 am JST

"It could be because in the story they have an evil time-travelling white supremacist bad boy trying to stop the human rights movement by making sure she never got on that bus. Make of that what you will."

Interesting. That series left no lasting impression at all and I'd completely forgotten the plot of the Rosa Parks episode. Alles clar.

Jodie Whittaker's first season is pretty much made up of what in earlier seasons would be considered forgettable filler episodes, although the preachiness content is so high it's surprising they didn't flash up "THIS WEEK'S MORAL" in big letters on the screen just to make sure the kids didn't miss it. Although that was hardly likely to happen. I suppose you'll have heard something about her second season. I've written more than once about how much I hate it and why it's put me off watching ever Doctor Who again, but I'll sum it up with two words - "timeless child."

I’d like anyone but Kris Marshall.

When David Tennant was Dr Who, the show averaged 8 million viewers. The current writers have gone so PC and incorporated woke virtue signaling to the extent that Jodie Whittaker is only averaging 4.7 million viewers. Dr Who can be male or female.

However, if the writing is woke,

the show will go broke,

this isn't a joke

It's important to some folk!

Dr Who used to be a serious sci-fi series. Then there were slight comic elements with Tom Baker, culminating in the dreadful series with Sylvester McCoy which led to its axing. Not only have they kept this comic style, but tried to make the doctors since the relaunch too 'cool'. If I wanted to watch comedy sci-fi, I'd watch Hitch-hikers guide. At the end of the day, I'd just rather watch Star Trek of the 1960s.

watched a bit of Pertwee, then Baker, Davison, Baker's brother, McCoy and was out for a long time. McGann was their test subject but almost there. Eccleston and Tennant brought the series back. Watched Smith only because of Clara and the hopes that she would become a Romana type character endlessly teased but never materialized. And the anniversary special was ok. But with Capaldi it went too campy and I left again. Whitaker just reminded me of McCoy never leaving always in the same spot so that was a no for me. Probably would be a good idea for another 7 year hiatus.

I stopped watching at Sylvester McCoy.

@Chibakun

I stopped watching at Sylvester McCoy

I understand. But I'd recommend David Tennant episodes Blink, and The Girl in the Fireplace. Those were brilliant

Doctor woke?

Time to put this great series out of its misery. BBC should be taken to the tower.

BigYenToday 08:42 am JST

Dr Who - from the pinnacles of Jon Pertwee and especially Tom Baker as the Doctor, to the miserable failure of Sylvester McCoy, to come back with all guns blazing (metaphorically) with Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant (and Rose), only to lose its way again somewhere with Matt Smith, despite Amy Pond and the Weeping Angels. Nothing to do with being "woke", to me it just became noisy, confused and messy, a complete waste of time. The show benefited from the post-McCoy sabbatical, time to give it another rest.

I thought the first series of Whittaker's Doctor Who was an attempt to simplify the show, which had become an overly complicated, self-referential and confused mess with the Doctor as a kind of multi-purpose superhero, and return it to being a kids adventure series. Unfortunately the scripts were poor, the assistants dull and Whittaker's version just reminded me of Brilliant Kid from the Fast Show.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgMgkl-gRxk

Nothing to do with woke (whatever that means), the same extremists who were losing their minds yesterday on that Disney story are now losing their minds over an adventure show for children. These people are really weird, you should have seen the comments the mods deleted yesterday, creepy and weird. If they don't like 2021 they should just go back to 1970.

How about Sean Pertwee? Having the son of a Time Lord play a Time Lord would be very interesting! However, they would first have to retcon the entire 13th Doctor from the timeline.

I don't get the whining about "wokeness", not that I seriously ever watched Dr Who. As most UK millennials I grew up watching mostly American series on our amazing four (later 5!!) channels. Other than the red-necks in Dukes of Hazzard (and who cares 'cause they had a Charger and the stunts rocked) most American series were full-on with moralizing back then.

Alfie NoakesJuly 31  02:37 pm JST

"The current writers have gone so PC and incorporated woke virtue signaling"

I didn't watch series 2 because series 1 was boring.

Very good decision.

I'd be interested in hearing how it was 'PC' and what 'woke virtue signaling' means in relation to Dr. Who. In fact, I'd like to know what 'woke virtue signaling' means in general.

Well, I think it means showing off what a good and worthy person you are by making all the right noises about good and worthy causes, e.g. environmental issues, gender and racial equality, and all that kind of good stuff.

One programme featured a story about Rosa Parks. Is that why people believe it's 'PC' and what 'woke virtue signaling'? Because it featured a sory about Rosa Parks?

It could be because in the story they have an evil time-travelling white supremacist bad boy trying to stop the human rights movement by making sure she never got on that bus. Make of that what you will.

Where did all the Boomers go? An anti-vax rally ?

The current writers have gone so PC and incorporated woke virtue signaling

I didn't watch series 2 because series 1 was boring. I'd be interested in hearing how it was 'PC' and what 'woke virtue signaling' means in relation to Dr. Who. In fact, I'd like to know what 'woke virtue signaling' means in general.

One programme featured a story about Rosa Parks. Is that why people believe it's 'PC' and what 'woke virtue signaling'? Because it featured a sory about Rosa Parks?

Dr Who is fun, I love the black and white, why ruin something so perfect?

When David Tennant was Dr Who, the show averaged 8 million viewers. The current writers have gone so PC and incorporated woke virtue signaling to the extent that Jodie Whittaker is only averaging 4.7 million viewers. Dr Who can be male or female.

I see that in many Brit TV shows. Won’t watch them. It’s infected the US these last few years too.

never watched this show or understood why so many Americans like it. They probably have a romantic view of the UK LOL. Pretty lame show. Just my opinion :)