Being a Long Runner with a huge fanbase, Doctor Who seems to be called on this one with every season, with symptoms ranging from cast changes to shifts in direction to questionmark lapels appearing.
- While not a severe case of this trope, the last full seasons for both the First and Second Doctors (Seasons 3 and 6 respectively) are felt to be a slight step down after two very solid seasons each. While both Seasons contain great stories, they also contain some of their weakest stories of their tenure in both seasons.
- Season 11, the Third Doctor's last season, is often considered his weakest. It did introduce one of the best-loved companions, Sarah Jane Smith, in the well-received first story "The Time Warrior, but "Invasion of the Dinosaurs" is a good story with awful special effects, "Death to the Daleks" and "The Monster of Peladon" contain a lot of Recycled Plot and "Planet of the Spiders" feels quite padded. It didn't help that the Master's actor had suddenly died, scrapping the original plans for an emotional sendoff to the Master and the Doctor.
- Many fans found Season 17 (the season Douglas Adams script edited) the weakest of the Graham Williams era. Yes, "City of Death" is almost universally considered to be one of the best stories of all time, but it doesn't make up for the despised "Destiny of the Daleks", the innuendo-laden "The Creature from the Pit", the Anvilicious "Nightmare of Eden", the ridiculous "The Horns of Nimon" or the fact that the entire season (and the story they were working on at the time) was cut short by a poorly-timed crew workers strike.
- Conversely, Season 18 is often considered an overreaction that went too far the other way. New production team producer John Nathan-Turner and script editor Christopher H. Bidmead declared their intention to make the show "less silly" and produced a season that came across as rather dour and humourless at times. Tom Baker often looked a shadow of his former self, forced to play the role in a way he disliked, and popular companions Romana and K9 were replaced with Adric.
- The Fifth Doctor's middle season (Season 20) is generally considered the weakest of his three, due to nearly every story being So Okay, It's Average and lacking any of the memorable episodes such as "Earthshock" in Peter Davison's first season, and "The Caves of Androzani" in his last.
- One thing nearly everyone seems to agree on is that Seasons 22 through 24 (1985-7), better known as the two seasons of the Sixth Doctor and the first season of the Seventh Doctor, were the nadir of the classic series, although different fans pick different ones of those seasons as the worst.
- Season 22 saw Eric Saward going overboard with the Darker and Edgier, with the Sixth Doctor (Colin Baker) acting like an arsehole most of the time (including to his own companion), grim plots with lots of Black-and-Gray Morality, and enough Family-Unfriendly Violence to, for the only time ever, cause the fans themselves to start getting uncomfortable. Saward was also purported to dislike Baker's performance of the Doctor and reduced his role accordingly, to the point that in "Revelation of the Daleks" the Doctor is completely superfluous to events.
- Season 23 had the unpopular "Trial of a Time Lord" extended arc, some very lacklustre writing, and an ending that revealed the behind-the-scenes chaos the show had descended into by being almost incomprehensible, unintentionally. Both this and the previous season are also notable for bothersome amounts of Continuity Lock-Out and Continuity Porn.
- Season 24 suffers from a Lighter and Softer shift that many fans considered to go too far into glitzy Camp, Sylvester McCoy playing the Doctor as an actual Ditz instead of his later, more popular performance as a world-weary Manipulative Bastard who occasionally engaged in Obfuscating Stupidity, and Keff McCulloch and his disco-aerobics brand of incidental music.
- All three seasons also suffered from having two of the most widely unpopular companions in the show's history: Peri who was one of the few pre-1989 companions to genuinely be as hapless and frequently-demeaned as they are often stereotyped as; and Mel who was just annoying and played by an actor who had an irritating public image and a lot of baggage from earlier roles.
- Series 2 of the new series (Season 28 overall) is considered the least of the first five, due in part to an over-reliance on the Doctor/Rose ship and the show in general becoming a little too goofy, even for Who. A lot of people also found the Doctor and Rose's behaviour unbearable. It also produced two of the least liked Doctor Who stories, "Love & Monsters" and "Fear Her". It wasn't a complete disaster, though; David Tennant's performance as the Doctor was fantastic, catapulting him to star status and making him the most popular Doctor since Tom Baker. The series also brought back classic series favourite Sarah Jane Smith in "School Reunion". The two-part finale is also well-regarded, though the ending is divisive.
- Series 3, while generally viewed positively and as an improvement over Series 2, is something of a polarizing season. On the one hand, it has a much better, more defined story arc than the previous seasons, and "Human Nature/The Family of Blood" and "Blink" are two of the best Doctor Who stories ever. On the other, there's a thoroughly-despised Deus ex Machina ending, a weak Dalek two-parter that marked the beginning of their Villain Decay, and companion Martha is a bit of a hot-button issue in fandom, likewise John Simm's portrayal of The Master.
- The "Specials Year" that saw out Tennant's tenure is seen as a step down compared to Series 4, with the first two stories, "The Next Doctor", and "Planet of the Dead" being fairly average and unmemorable, "The Waters of Mars" actually pretty decent, and "The End of Time" massively divisive, with some considering it a worthy Grand Finale to both Tennant's and Davies' time on the show, but others seeing it a bloated and Wangst-filled example of Russell T Davies overindulging in some of his worst flaws as a showrunner, and bringing Donna back after her heart-breaking exit only to do nothing with her.
- Series 6-7 (Eleventh Doctor) and 8 (Twelfth Doctor) constitute an Audience-Alienating Era collectively to the Steven Moffat era. The complaints summarized:
- Series 6 had a good premise and cast, but very shaky writing, culminating in the Troubled Production and disastrous reception of the mid-season premiere "Let's Kill Hitler". The Story Arc, in its attempts to continue and top the wildly popular arc of Series 5, was incredibly convoluted and marred by constant plot twists, odd swerves in tone and character development (thanks in part to two episodes being switched to different halves of the season), Romantic Plot Tumors, and controversial plot points poorly presented (Amy's pregnancy, River Song's existence, etc.). Tellingly the best-received episodes were the ones that had the least to do with the arc, such as "The Doctor's Wife" and "The Girl Who Waited". For "bonus" points, the post-season Christmas Episode "The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe" was seen as a big comedown from "A Christmas Carol".
- Series 7: With the show effectively trying to make two seasons out of one AND fix the issues fans had with Series 6, Aborted Arc, pacing issues, and They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot set in. 7A meandered with little more to say about the Ponds and their relationship with the Doctor, and then they were thrown under a bus in favor of Clara Oswald in "The Snowmen" and 7B, with the long term mystery of just who she was being seen as poorly handled and causing many to label her as an over glorified Living MacGuffin. The Great Intelligence (re)introduced at the same time as Clara never reached its full potential as an arc villain. The post-season 50th anniversary special and associated shorts were huge hits, but the Christmas special the following month was divisive in its clumsy attempts to wrap up Eleven's story after a season spent neglecting it. All this meant trouble for...
- Series 8: An inconsistent characterization/companion dynamic affected Peter Capaldi's performance and the Twelfth Doctor wound up too dark and grouchy, not softening soon enough for many viewers' tastes. Finally defining Clara as a character meant she got so much screen time that the derisive fan nickname "Clara Who" emerged during this season; her Romantic Plot Tumor with a Scrappy of a boyfriend was part of a gloomy Story Arc which implied, among other things, that her gallivanting around with the Doctor was bad for her. There were two dumber-than-usual episodes ("Kill the Moon" and "In the Forest of the Night") calling back to the early revival seasons, while the biggest development in the post-Series 7 specials (Gallifrey's return) went unaddressed except to provide a minor plot point in a finale that had many controversial twists (Clara's blackmail attempt, female Master, murder of Osgood, Cyber-Brigadier...) and a mostly-sad ending. At least it laid the groundwork for the very well-received "Last Christmas" and Series 9, which broke the show's losing streak.
- The Chris Chibnall era in general, overlapping with Jodie Whittaker's tenure as the Thirteenth Doctor, was divisive at best:
- With Series 11, even those who like it do feel it suffers for Yaz being an underdeveloped companion, several weak and unmemorable stories (with "Rosa" and "Demons of the Punjab" being exceptions), and an underwhelming Season Finale, though the follow-up New Year's special "Resolution" was the best-regarded Dalek story in years. Jodie Whittaker's performance is praised, but a lot of those excited for a female Doctor were rather put off that Thirteen's initial season made her the most ineffective Doctor since Five, hardly ever getting a clean win as Karma Houdinis abound. History Repeats as well with the issue of Yaz's underdevelopment, since a major criticism of Five's era was his having too many companions.
- Series 12, despite some improvements on Series 11 (the big one bringing back some "classic" antagonists and concepts after 11 focused solely on new ones), hasn't been much better. Some in the fanbase believe Thirteen became more insensitive and ruthless for no clear reasonnote , Yaz remains a non-entity, and Graham and Ryan have far less compelling arcs. Episodes alternated between Filler and Wham Episodes that contradicted canon even more than usual. Without going into spoilers, the Season Finale "The Timeless Children" became one of the most divisive episodes in the entire show's history thanks to a Retcon that changed the entire lore of the show for seemingly very little payout — and yet still avoided the brunt of the criticism for the season due to the almost-universally reviled "Orphan 55". To make matters worse, the ratings were the lowest since Series 1 in 2005.
- Series 13, the "Flux" Story Arc, had a very Troubled Production thanks to COVID-19 restricting TV production in the UK. The episode count was reduced to eight, with two of those episodes being delegated as specials. Chibnall had to write every episode himself, with only one receiving a co-writer. While "War of the Sontarans" and "Village of the Angels" were considered highlights, with fresh takes on old monsters, the Timeless Child arc was revisited in a severely truncated fashion with no real payoff. The finale proved to be nigh incomprehensible and was left on an unsatisfying note, with the characters themselves not seeming to acknowledge one way or the other about the destruction that was wrought.
