Posted on 06/10/2026 10:57:46 PM PDT by Cronos
DOCTOR Who showrunner Russell T Davis has QUIT the show after the series was slammed for being “too woke” – and the Christmas special was cancelled.
It comes after actor Ncuti Gatwa, 33, quit the role last year, amid plummeting ratings after fans were left disgruntled over some of the storylines.
Fans said the “wokery” hit an all- time high when Doctor Who was taken over for a second time by showrunner Russell in 2023, with storylines including non-binary aliens
The latest series of Doctor Who, which aired last year, faced a huge backlash from fans.
A poll revealed that fans had been left “bored” with the “woke series”.
James Johnson of pollsters JL Partners said: “This is the first ever major poll done on attitudes to Doctor Who and the results are bleak.
“The public believe a once-great show has lost its way — and their biggest complaint is it puts pursuit of wokeness above entertainment value.
“The main words associated with it are rubbish, boring, and woke.
(Excerpt) Read more at thesun.co.uk ...
the iconic show has seen viewing figures plummet amid woke storylines featuring transgender characters.
The recent series suffered abysmal ratings with fans outraged by the BBC shoehorning wokery into the storylines.
The woke bits were there, but subtle during the Eccleston/Tennant/Smith eras, as the showrunners at least understood the assignment of telling good Dr. Who stories. The Day of the Doctor movie featuring John Hurt comes to mind.
Then during Capaldi’s run, it started escalating (and even his acting prowess, as great as it was, could only do so much).
Then the Doctor became a woman. Then a black guy. Wokeness was elevated above even established lore, and it just became...dull.
The best thing they could do is retcon the Whittaker/Gatwa eras, and take only what they need from the Eccleston/Tennant/Smith/Capaldi eras.
Seems like the Woke crowd is always into pretend games and that in entertainment. They can’t face reality. They could never deal with the civil war of the 1800s. Too real.
But meanwhile they’re all super heroes, women can fight like Zena, warrior princesses. Oh, that’s another thing, they’re princesss, more pretend.
As to how to handle the infection of the woke into these franchises…take the “Dallas” route…it was all a bad dream. It never happened.
The future is woke.
Is he quitting because it’s woke, or because of the criticism?
Wasn’t it already cancelled because he made it too woke? Go broke lol
The latter.
Good!
Mat Smith was the last Doctor I watched, everything after that was pure crap spackle
I’ve never watched Doctor Who, or the BBC, but I have caught wind of the ruckus over the show.
As with all these controversies, it is useful to focus on the production studio involved. They are not all the same. The industry as a whole is well to the left, but here and there, there are individuals and studios standing against the woke hive mind.
I have to tread lightly because I don’t watch the BBC, but I gather that in general, it’s worse than Disney. The BBC is government propaganda media. The source is a poisoned well.
“woke but good stories”
I’d somewhat agree with you - but I would say liberal instead.
Have you ever read or watched “Warrior’s Gate”? I only read it and found it really profound - drawing on (in my head) the experience of the Assyrians, Persians etc.
I didn’t watch the Smith era and later, but they already showed the (woke) things to come with their Torchwood spinoff.
The mass audience rebelled. Like Disney's form of make-believe, science fiction movies and TV make bank as fun, family safe entertainment with immense profits from kids' toys. Yet what parent in their right mind wants to risk trying to explain a princess with a beard, what a pansexual is, and to have to remedy the poisonous moral confusion at the heart of wokeness?
I’m backing the campaign for J. Michael Straczynski to take it over. He’s already shown a lot of interest.
https://x.com/straczynski/status/2064763579207741573
Loving the ideas being pitched to him elsewhere; the one that really caught my attention is returning to the 80s format of a single story being run over 5-6 episodes. Another was to set the whole season inside the TARDIS.
The ruddy thing is a bottle universe, for crying out loud. Yet we saw more of its innards in the 70s and 80s than we have seen in the entire reboot. They kept blowing all the budget on poncing up ONE room in the TARDIS, but hardly ever gave us a glimpse of anything else (other than a quick gag about the swimming pool).
In the classic series we saw dorms, corridors, costume rooms, dressing rooms, the Cloister, there’s a room with one of the Doctor’s companions deactivated and locked in, and at one point the Doctor had to jettison a set of rooms that was almost on the same level as binning something the size of The Pentagon...
The biggest problem DW has had aside from the woke bollards is people who cannot pace an episode properly, trying to cram everything into 48 minutes. American productions are just better at it.
Enough with:
1. Interesting scene setting pre-credits
2. Blah blah blah blah
3. 35 minutes of nothing happening
4. Ooh, almost 30 seconds of peril.., then
5. Out comes a ludicrous quick bodge, then
6. Today’s Big Bad is defeated in 30 seconds
Time Lord uber-demon bloke appears for all of 30 seconds before getting vanquished. It’s like the writers were tasked to watch every episode of Charmed where the playbook was exactly the same except “Power of Three!” instead of the sonic screwdriver, and then got tasked with the idea of writing the same thing, worse, with utterly appalling pacing.
Gah. You can tell that the woke bollocks wrecking Doctor Who really grinds my gears.
Ncuti Gatwa played the Doctor as a skirt-wearing, flaming gay.
We loved the British series, “Doc Martin”, so when we heard that it was being re-invented as a new series, “Best Medicine”, we were excited. Now set in America with same writers, producers, quirky plots, etc.
The first episode was pretty good, and then the focus quickly became the married homo couple who owned the hotel / restaurant. In Doc Martin, a group of giggly girls was a feature throughout the series. In Best Medicine, it appeared that one was trans.
After the episodes it was unwatchable (to us).
Why do “they” have to ruin everything?
As an old school doctor who fan I was pleasantly surprised at the job they did brining back the series but I think it’s time to go on another long break. They ran out of steam with Capaldi (who should have been an excellent Doctor).
Maybe cast Scott Adkins as an ass kicking Doctor, that could revitalize the show .
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