Yeah, a bunch of people aren’t happy about this. Because it doesn’t make any sense. Sure, Chibnall “unlocked” the possibility of crossgender regeneration, but it never made a lot of sense and was just done for sociopolitical reasons, not story reasons. I wasn’t a fan of it before, but this is weirder. This has come up again thanks to discussions by former writer during the allegedly good Russel T. Davies run (I disagree) that first brought the show back to British TV as well as the US thanks to the then-branded Sci-Fi Channel.
In a recent interview, writer Robert Shearman joined the list of people pretty sure Doctor Who is a dead show due to Billie Piper’s appearance. The interesting quotes:
“At the moment I’m in a ‘pull’ phase. It’s weird because the show is probably as dead as we’ve ever known it.”
“After 1989, we had, for years, a current Doctor. Now, everything that is ever going to be produced in Doctor Who terms is going to feel retrogressive. At least with the New Adventures [novels] and then the BBC Books, you thought, ‘It’s the current Doctor – McCoy or McGann.’”
“No one’s going to start writing Doctor Who books with a Billie Piper Doctor, because no one knows what that means.”
In the classic series, the Doctor tried to talk Romana out of assuming the form of someone they had just recently met, the show trying to find an excuse to get an actress they liked in that story to come in as the new Romana just as Colin Baker and Peter Capaldi both would as the Doctor himself in later regenerations. Now here’s the Doctor taking on the form of his first Companion of the new series. I mean, I know why Davies did it. His obsession with Rose Tyler and Billie Piper came into play. The man named his studio after that time Rose became the “bad wolf”. He started his first run and the new series with Billie, so why not end his second run on her? Was this also his way of ending a series that had not changed with him, not creating to be a source of activism? Political commentary stories in Doctor Who rarely go well, and both Davies and Chibnall couldn’t stop themselves from doing so, pushing feminist and LGBT+ characters and themes, especially with Ncuti Gatwa’s Doctor, over quality storytelling. It’s possible, being upset that fans didn’t “evolve” with him, he scuttled the show at the end with a ridiculous regeneration.
But can we make a story that explains this and introduces a proper Doctor? Off the top of my head (so not nearly as thought out as past pitches and “how I’d write” articles), I do have one vague idea of what could be done. Curious what people think, because the odds of the British show using an American writer is kind of low. Doctor Who is British at the core and that shouldn’t change, but that doesn’t mean I can’t come up with an idea.
BW Media Spotlight 
BW Vs Bleeding Fool> You’re Burying The Coma Patient
I used the image Bleeding Fool used because I wasn’t sure I could find the original tweet. By the way, it’s Bleeding Fool’s anniversary. I like the site very much, so it’s a shame I’m breaking a vs out on one of their contributors on their anniversary week. It’s also one of their contributors I happen to enjoy and have used for Saturday article links, Brian Neumeier. Sadly this is also not my first versus article with him We agree on a lot, but not everything, and this is one of those subjects. Sorry, Brian, I have to pick on you again.
In discussion is this article he posted from his regular site (I linked to both, so choose your preference) “Burying Dead Media”. It’s an argument I keep seeing too often and it kind of saddens me. It also confuses me and tells you just how badly the Hollywood system has bungled comics since acquiring DC (Warner Brothers) and Marvel (Disney) in both comics and movies, as well as all the not-stalgia movies and comics that have also come out. The thing is I don’t disagree with many of Neumeier’s opinions, just his solution: just give up and let it all die.
Personal bias may be in play here, but the heroes that formed my moral worldview as much as my family, the reason I didn’t allow my temper to regularly go psycho on my bullies or the school itself for example, as well as why I wanted to write these kinds of stories, are being tossed aside…which I believe is what the current stewards want. They want us to give up on our childhood heroes to replace them with their own zeroes. I’m against the egotists, corporatists, and activists as much as anyone else. They’re three of the groups that make up the SEECA acronym I’ve been using lately along with the snobs and elitists. There’s a sort of scorched earth perspective from many of my fellow commentators who say it’s too far gone and must be replaced. Basically, this attitude.
The thing is, I’m not ready to call off the remodelers and call in the demolition team just yet. It’s not just my bias. I’m at a point in my life when I could go ahead and watch/read the old stuff and be fine. On the other hand, I’m not yet convinced that this generation of writers has been able to undo what decades have built so easily. The termites haven’t completed the job, the media is only in a coma.
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Posted by ShadowWing Tronix on October 14, 2025 in Comic Spotlight, Movie Spotlight, radio/audio drama, Streaming Spotlight, Television Spotlight and tagged audio drama, comics, commentary, movies, old media vs new media, television, TV.
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