I mostly like Doctor Who for being a fun, campy show. I stopped watching after Capaldi initially because it felt like the show wasn’t really doing that anymore. I’ve been re-watching the modern show after checking out classic Who for the first time along with family recently. We recently got back up to where I had stopped and… I’m still not really feeling it. But the show has been on for quite a while since then. So I’m kind of curious what it’s like now and if it’s worth pushing through/skipping ahead to get to a part that I’ll like more.
You’ll probably like the most recent season, Russell T. Davies (the showrunner for the Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant eras) is back as showrunner, and “fun” and “camp” are probably the two best words to describe the latest season lol.
Capaldi’s era is definitely a bit more on the serious side. Jodie’s era is unfortunately not very well made as you’ve probably heard, a lot of early episodes take themselves too seriously, and often try to make a point but completely miss the mark.
You’ll probably like the new season with Gatwa though, a lot of it is very campy (sometimes to a fault IMO), with some amazing more grounded episodes mixed in.
You can mostly skip to the new season. The only thing you need to know is:
Spoilers
Galifrey is destroyed again by the master, who reveals that the doctor isn’t a time lord, but an unknown species from another dimension that the time lords stole regeneration from.
After Disney Who finished, I re-watched all of Modern Who. I tried my best to watch each episode with an open mind and an open heart. Series 11 still lands in the bottom third for me, but I was surprised to find that now I rank Series 12 and 13 among the best. Makes me sad that I didn’t give it a fair shake in the original run. YMMV.
Doubt I’ll ever change my opinion on Disney Who itself, though. What a disaster. I wanted to love it so much. Disney ruins everything.
While I still liked it overall and it had some fantastic episodes of it’s own, I too felt that the Capaldi era was a bit too harsh/serious. Whitaker’s series gets bad buzz, but I really enjoyed her take on the character and just the vibe in general. It was very refreshing and joyful (with it’s own share of serious moments).
So far, Gatwa’s has been mostly fun. Probably a bit more camp than I’d prefer, but it’s definitely still good, imo. I’d recommend checking it out if that’s what you were missing from the Capaldi era. And be sure to start with the 4 episode series of specials if you’re going to skip Whitaker entirely (though I wouldn’t recommend that, personally).
