Sandbox / Broken Base Doctor Who

The first rule of the Doctor Who fanbase, is there is no such thing as a common consensus on any story ever. For every fan that likes something in this show, there is a fan that hates it, and vice versa. Just look at the Who entries under Awesome, Narm, Tear Jerker, etc. The overlap is something like 90%.

• Fans are divided over whether Lighter and Softer or Darker and Edgier is better.
• It is considered traditional (or so it seems, anyway) that once a new Doctor comes along a good percentage of the fanbase compensates by declaring that the Doctor who has recently departed, regardless of how popular and acclaimed he may have been during his tenure, was actually no good and we're good to see the back of him. This has happened numerous times, including without exception when Tennant, Smith and Capaldi took on the role. Similarly also occurs when a new companion is introduced or a new producer takes over. Usually adjusts itself within a few months as (again, acclaim and popularity being ignored) some fans will start pining for the previous era.
• Season premieres also fall into this category, twice over if they introduce a new Doctor or companion. Fans are always split between those who love the new direction/new arc/new Doctor/new companion and those who feel the premiere was a let down/the new Doctor or companion underwhelms/(Producer name) must go, etc.

• The show's fans will always be divided between whether the show should or should not include romance. In the original series, while ships were teased, the show generally employed No Hugging, No Kissing rules apart from deliberate Getting Crap Past the Radar Ho Yay moments and romance was not a main focus of the show. This changed in the 90s movie, where the Eighth Doctor kissed a companion, Grace Holloway. The fanbase exploded over this to the point where Grace Holloway's actress became afraid to interact with fans due to the vitriol against her. When the series was rebooted in the early 2000s, romance became a staple of the show and broke the base further, leading several factions of the show to decry the show as being Ruined FOREVER, whereas newer fans do not mind the romance or get into shipping wars over the subject.
• Since Sidney Newman suggested the Doctor regenerate into a woman to boost interest and ratings during a troubled time during the show's tenure, fans have been fiercely divided as to whether a female Doctor should appear on film. Similar controversy and arguments have appeared whenever fans suggest the Doctor regenerate as a minority or as non-British as well.
  • There have been novels in which the Doctor has regenerated into a woman in Alternate Universes, but this regeneration occurred as a result of the Doctor committing suicide, raising controversy among fans of the Expanded Universe as to whether a Doctor should be portrayed as suicidal on screen to allow a woman to play the role.

• Season 17, sparklingly intelligent highpoint of the show as comedy or unfunny, underwritten, overeducated tosh made with contempt for anyone who wasn't at Cambridge with Douglas Adams?
• John Nathan-Turner, producer who did his best under difficult circumstances or the Devil Incarnate Himself?
• Colin Baker, crap performance or good performance in crap scripts? Or even a good performance in good scripts that got a bad rep?
• Worst Season Ever, 22, 23, or 24? You'll also find fans willing to nominate any of the modern-era seasons for this "honour".
• Seasons 25-6, the final nail in the show's coffin or brilliant comeback Screwed by the Network?
• There's the conflicts between fans of the classic series who view the new series and everything about it as a betrayal of all they felt the show stood for, and the fans of the new series who view the classic series as a creaky, irrelevant old relic badly in need of being updated in the first place. Of course, yet another group insists it's all the same show and hates any suggestion that there's a competition.
• Russell T Davies versus Steven Moffat; who's better? Was either of them actually bad? Or is New Who terrible across the board?
• The time that Russell T Davies was showrunner is not as contested as his successor's time (see below), but it is still likely to cause arguments. Some people like his companion and Earth focussed take on the show while others think it takes away from fighting aliens and visiting other planets. The darker take on the Doctor of being a guilt ridden survivor of a Time War where he committed the genocide of his own people is either a clever reinvention of the character or a needless attempt to create angst that is way too out of character. His plots are either clever, epic but simple stories or stories with a "make everything bigger than last time" approach that results in style over substance, Reset Buttons, cop-outs and an overuse of the Daleks and other Classic villains. How he writes female characters in comparison to Moffat is also an issue; depending on who you ask, he is either better, worse or just as good / bad at writing females as Moffat.
• The fandom are highly contested over Steven Moffat's time as showrunner. His fans praise him for having more complex and involved story arcs (as opposed to Russell T's reliance on Arc Words), more original monsters instead of just reusing classic villains, and using time travel and alien worlds more often. His detractors claim that his plots are confusing and needlessly obsessed with being "clever" to the point of including plot holes and silly explanations, his companions lack the emotional depth of characters like Martha or Donna, and that (especially in Seasons 6 and 7) he's mistreated the companions and used them as puzzles instead of people, and accusing him of overusing "The Doctor is going to die for real this time!" as a plot point. Also, how well he writes his female characters is a huge point of heated debate, especially on Tumblr. His use of sitcom and soap opera-esque elements is also a subject of debate - not usually about the quality, but about whether or not it fits into the program. It got to the point where one editor of The Atlantic spent the entirety of his articles at the magazine bashing Moffat.
• Is Series 2 or Series 3 better? Many fans prefer S3, thinking the arc and overall quality of the stories are better (though the Dalek two-parter and finale are contentious). Series 2 is quite contentious due to many people feeling Rose became unbearably smug and unpleasant in that series though others enjoys this season for the relationship between her and the tenth Doctor.
• The depiction of the Master since the relaunch has been particularly controversial. John Simm's portrayal of the character, introduced at the end of "Utopia", was decidedly more goofy and manic and less suave than previous ones, and played up Ho Yay with the Doctor well beyond what there had been in the classics. That episode also revealed that the Master has been hearing a constant drum beat in his head his entire life, which what what had been driving him insane this entire time. When he returned in "The End of Time", he was even further removed from Delgado's debonair sociopath, being more of a psychotic cannibal tramp with superpowers. Whether all of this was an insult to the legacy of Roger Delgado and Anthony Ainley or a brilliant modernization that led to compelling Character Development for a previously one note villain is hotly contested.
  • The Master's next incarnation ditched the shaggy hair and the old hoodie, and was generally more dignified and Machiavellian, but still just as crazy and even more flirtatious, actually kissing the Doctor. Oh, and the Master is now a woman. Time Lords switching gender after regenerating was something fans could never agree on as a hypothetical, and those debates only got more heated once the Mistress (or Missy, as she typically called herself) was introduced because it crossed over into the "should the Doctor be a woman" argument, while also enraging some who felt the decision to establish a standard gender-opposite attraction between the Twelfth Doctor and Missy (with Missy even starting to refer to him as her boyfriend) went against the longstanding Ho Yay subtext that was appreciated when both characters were male.
• "An Unearthly Child" has this after the first episode. Is it 3 dull episodes of running around with cavemen after a gripping start or well-thought out and continuing the themes of the first episode?
• "The Gunfighters": A clever comedy tale or a cringeworthy, unfunny story without an interesting plot?
• "The Deadly Assassin": A lot of fans have complained about this story for taking place entirely on Gallifrey, and thus stripping the Time Lords of much of their mystery. On top of that, the portrayal of the Time Lords contradicts previous ones - instead of an awe-inspiring race of god-like beings, they're a bunch of petty, pompous, lying, self-serving bureaucrats with no idea of the sort of power they wield^note alternatively, this story just showed the Time Lord civilisation during its decline rather than its prime. And then it introduced the idea of the thirteen-incarnation limit which a lot of fans wish later writers hadn't dwelt on.
• "Vengeance on Varos". Another overly violent story where the Doctor is a jerk who doesn't really help? Or a self-aware and cleverly thought of satire on reality TV? It helps this has gone through Values Resonance with today's emphasis on reality TV and the success of The Hunger Games.
• "The Happiness Patrol": A fascinating, statement-making piece of satire or just a dumb, implausible story with a cringeworthy villain?
• "Love & Monsters". Wonderfully absurd break from the action or a loathsome piece of filler? Also the fellatio joke at the end; silly and harmless line of dialogue or Squicky and unnecessary?
• Some fans see the two parter "The Stolen Earth"/"Journey's End" as an epic work of Russell T Davies, tying his work together, while others see it as a self-indulgent mess more like a shipping fic. Rose haters hated Rose somehow getting the Doctor and say she was unnecessary and just there to steal the spotlight, while many people who liked Rose felt it was a poor follow-up which negated what many thought of as one of the best companion departures.
  • 10's partial regeneration and the Metacrisis Doctor. Some people found it a clever twist. Others thought it was a massive Cliffhanger Copout which was largely there to pull in ratings, and that the Metacrisis was a poorly-done character who was just there so Rose could get a Doctor. And there are those who felt that it was the best RTD could do what with the logistical problems of actor contracts and whatnot^note David Tennant was leaving, though he'd considered signing up for an additional season; and it's hard to imagine Billie Piper would've signed up for more seasons without Tennant, not to mention she was starting other projects like Secret Diary of a Call Girl Then there's the "grow your own TARDIS" scene that was cut out, though RTD says it can be considered canon. Some people love it, others find it sappy.
  • And even more so, Donna's fate in the story, which still causes much debate between fans who think it was genuinely moving and fans who found it an abhorrent Diabolus ex Machina Cruel Twist Ending that didn't just ruin Donna but made it impossible to ever again view the Tenth Doctor with anything but loathing and disgust.
• The Tenth Doctor's negative feelings about regeneration in "The End of Time". Half the fandom regard it as a Tear Jerker, while the other believes it to be out-of-character Wangst that doesn't make sense when compared to every other regeneration in the show, and could be seen as deliberately inciting Ten fans to hate the next Doctor and showrunner. (Possibly as an Author's Saving Throw, later showrunner Steven Moffat later established that the Eleventh Doctor believed himself to be the final Doctor, thereby completely justifying Ten's anger and reluctance to change, knowing that - as far as he was concerned - he was about to undergo his final regeneration ever).
• The regeneration itself falls here. Is it an entirely appropriate, moving tribute to both an incredibly popular Doctor that sees him pay tribute to all the people dearest to him in a fitting manner before dying in a perfect Tear Jerker, while simultaneously acting as a heartfelt farewell to the beloved show-runner who restored the show's fortunes? Or is it an excessive, overly long and mawkish Narm fest riddled with Ending Fatigue that indirectly (or directly, depending on who you are) tries to sabotage his successor, created by a self-indulgent show-runner who just didn't know when to quit when he was ahead? Where you fall here tends to reflect your overall opinion on the Tenth Doctor and the Russell T. Davies era.
• "The Day of the Doctor":
  • When the trailer came out, some fans went wild over the inclusion of Billie Piper. Other fans who hated Rose feared for the worst. When she ended up playing an AI instead of Rose Tyler, those lines were complicated. Many fans were fine with that compromise, but others thought it was either too much Rose or too little.
  • Clara suddenly being able to close the TARDIS' doors with a snap of her fingers, doing cool stunts on her motorcycle and managing to talk the Doctor down from burning Gallifrey again. Audience reactions ranged from "Wow!" to "What the hell?!" She's becoming very divisive in the fanbase. Part of the issue is that the finger snapping to close the door was a big deal for the Doctor to do, so for Clara to just casually do it is a bit off-putting. That and it marks the fact that the TARDIS has apparently done a 180 on its opinion of her (it had previously blatantly hated her) because the paradoxes surrounding Clara have been resolved! It's probably also because Clara (i.e. the Gallifreyian version of her) introduced the Doctor to his TARDIS. Though that brings up its own issues since the TARDIS explicitly stated it chose the Doctor. In retrospect, Clara's actions are even more divisive for some fans as, after some hints previously, this is the episode in which her journey towards becoming the Doctor's Distaff Counterpart truly begins.
  • Some fans of the classic Who felt the special was more of an anniversary special on the new era rather than a celebration of all of Who history outside a few cameos and the fact that the event that separates old from new Who is the focus of the plot. Fans who joined in during the reboot pointed out that the Big Finish Audio Drama, "The Night of the Doctor" and The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot were all more focused on Classic Who. And the cameo of Tom Baker, the use of the original opening theme song, the inclusion of the Zygons, and the quips of the War Doctor at the behaviors of Ten and Eleven took a great big nod at the classic roots.
  • The Reveal that the Doctors managed to save Gallifrey instead of destroying it. While many fans loved the uplifting ending, and many Classic Who fans were just happy to have Gallifrey back and the Doctor not committing genocide against his own people, there were plenty of RTD era fans who were actually furious with Moffat for removing what had been an essential part of the Doctor's backstory for the past eight years. However some people felt the Doctor moping over the Time War and being the Last of His Kind had already been milked for all its worth, and were happy for a change of direction.
• "The Time of the Doctor":
  • Whether the Doctor slapping Clara's butt (when introduced as her "boyfriend" to her family) is playful and cute or sexist and not appropriate for a family show. Or just the Doctor having No Social Skills.
  • While fans don't mind the War Doctor being added as a numbered Doctor, some don't like adding the Tenth Doctor's partial regeneration, saying that Moffat added it just for angst. And caused continuity errors with several earlier episodes, which would have played out very differently if the Eleventh Doctor had been planned to be on his last regeneration from the start.
• "Deep Breath". Perhaps "broken" is too strong a term, but the episode and the introduction of a new Doctor lived up to the tradition of fans (and critics) being divided on their merits, with some fans declaring it an instant classic while others decried it as a waste and called for Steven Moffat's ouster; Peter Capaldi's bow as the new Doctor received a far more positive response, though there were still vocal fans who felt he'd been miscast.
• "Into the Dalek" is a controversial episode, thanks to it being a bit unclear just how much we're supposed to agree with the Doctor's Armies Are Evil stance. Subsequent episodes amplified this. (It doesn't help that these episodes aired around the time the UK in real life entered into a war.)
• "Listen":
  • A large percentage of fans responded positively to this episode, with some going so far as to naming it Best.Episode.Ever. A large percentage of fans were decidedly unimpressed, with some going so far as to naming it Worst.Episode.Ever. While this is nothing unusual with sci-fi fans, there seems to have been a large contingent of episode-haters who have gone onto the various forums honestly perplexed at its acclaim, moreso than most episodes of this type. Exacerbated by the fact Moffat is fast approaching, if not already past, the "best before" date usually set on showrunners by some aspects of fandom (most sci-fi showrunners end up being increasingly hated if they stick around for more than a few years). By comparison, Russell Davies had just produced "Midnight" at the same point in his tenure.
  • The fact that Clara once again has a huge role in the Doctor's past. Some didn't mind, others were tired of this.
• "Kill the Moon":
  • Perhaps the single most divisive episode of New Who yet, with some calling it beautiful, audacious, and emotionally complex and others calling it completely ridiculous and disgusting.
  • Fans seem particularly split on the scientific accuracy (or, rather lack of) of the episode, with some displaying total loss of their collective suspension of disbelief, while others seem puzzled why they find the fake science so much harder to swallow than that in numerous other episodes.
  • It seems that the fandom is on the fence about whether Clara's What the Hell, Hero? speech to the Doctor was deserved or whether the Doctor was respecting humanity by taking a step back and letting them make their own decisions and she is simply overreacting. Or whether the Doctor's intentions were noble and is just his execution that botched it all up. (Which seems to be what the author was aiming at)
  • A few have also questioned whether Clara had the right to overrule the votes of the whole Earth. In fairness, switching off the big lights was unlikely to be individuals voting - it takes Governments to turn off streetlights in entire districts, and it ignores rural and developing areas altogether.
  • And the less said about perceived anti-abortion themes, the better.
• "Flatline". Considering how Clara's one of the more divisive companions in the revived series, a Day in the Limelight episode focusing on her was inevitably going to face this.
• "Dark Water":
  • This episode could be considered the archetype for this trope, given the fan reaction to Missy actually being a female incarnation of the Master, exploding the debate over whether the Doctor should someday be played by a woman. Although the producers have frequently lied about future plans for the series many times before (with Steven Moffat openly stating that this is his modus operandi), some fans have seen this as the last straw. Meanwhile, a huge contingent of fans acclaimed the episode, loved the twist, and felt all was right with the world. Additionally, there are arguments over sexual orientation representation, with some fans viewing it as homophobic that the Master is only allowed to kiss the Doctor when she's a woman, and others viewing it as progressive treatment of Gallifreyan gender ambiguity. (It should be noted that Missy does make overtures towards Clara and an alternate take of her first kiss with the Doctor had Missy holding Clara's hand at the same time). There's also debate over whether the Master should have come back at all, given his highly rousing exit in his previous appearance that easily could have stood as his permanent departure from the show.
  • The plot points concerning the dead still being conscious, even though this was a scam perpetrated by the Master/Missy, were sufficiently disturbing to enough of the audience that the BBC actually had to issue a press release defending the story.
  • Clara's attempt to blackmail the Doctor into saving Danny. For many, this was the final straw and many stated their dislike of Clara for being childish enough to be willing to destroy the TARDIS keys (at least, in her head) over Danny (as was proven in Nine's season, this should never be done). Others, meanwhile, felt it greatly expanded on Twelve and Clara's relationship and loved it.
• "Death in Heaven":
  • As is customary for nearly every Doctor Who episode. In this case, the break is between those fans who thought the Brigadier's return as a Cyberman was a touching tribute, and those who thought it was in the worst possible taste. Or for some people, the concern was he lacked a moustache and a UNIT uniform to signify that this really was the Brig. Others loved the fact that not only was the Brig back, but he could now fly and had laser beams!
  • Osgood's death got a lot of fans upset, coming off as a positively Joss Whedon-esque case of killing a character purely for the sake of killing a character. This despite Moffat explaining at length in numerous venues why it was necessary to establish Missy's evil bona fides, and the logic that Osgood was the only expendable character given Kate needed to be saved by her father and killing off a Red Shirt wouldn't have had any impact. This death was somewhat rectified in Series 9, which revealed there is still an Osgood — either the original or the Zygon duplicate from "Day of the Doctor" who permanently assumed her form. (She's not saying which she is!)
• Clara being kept on as a companion for Series 9, making Jenna Coleman tied with Karen Gillan as the longest-running New Who companion. Fans of Clara were obviously overjoyed at the news, as the end of Series 8 made it seem as though she parted ways with the Doctor for good. The other half of the fanbase wanted her character retired; some disliked her so much that they didn't even want her in the post-season Christmas special much less another series. A third section of fans liked her character but didn't want to see her go the way of the overused Ponds, where fans were screaming for the end of their character arc.
• "Hell Bent", the Series 9 finale that (for now) served as Clara's last hurrah, was very controversial. Some people thought the Driven to Madness Doctor was too much of an unsympathetic jerk in breaking his own moral code and trying to change a fixed point in time to save Clara from being Killed Off for Real, which has been established as impossible to do without causing the end of the universe and the sort of thing he usually tries to stop — most recently in "Dark Water". Others saw him as a sympathetic Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds in the wake of his horrifying isolation and torture in "Heaven Sent", which gave him no hope for moving past his anguish save for a gigantic force of will only the most saintly being could be capable of. The ending separated them but allowed her to continue "living" for a while — having her own adventures, companion, and TARDIS. Either this is more proof that Moffat can't kill off characters or it's a better send-off for Clara than the Downer Ending of "Face the Raven" (and its ugly Accidental Aesop "Don't help/inspire others, you'll only get hurt or worse"). There's also much debate over whether They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot in having the Doctor's return to Gallifrey for the first time in the revival series serve as the setup for this doomed rescue attempt rather than the A-plot, and whether this just solidified Clara as the ultimate Spotlight-Stealing Squad of newWho (she's had a hand in all the biggest moments of the Doctor's life, he'd risk everything for her, and now she IS him in all but name!) or not. Not helping was Clara getting her own companion in the form of guest character Ashildr/Me, as she was a base breaker (a fascinating exploration of the downsides to both immortality and the Doctor's heroics, or a sloppy, inconsistently-characterized waste of Maisie Williams?).
• Get a group of Doctor Who fans in a room together. Make sure to include male, female and LGBTQ fans of varying ages and experience with the show (i.e. a good mix of longtimers and those who came on board during the revival). Suggest that the next Doctor be played by a woman. Run for cover as the two sides of the argument do everything short of throw grenades at one another.
  • Alternatively, suggest the next Doctor should be black, mixed race or played by an actor who is not British. The reaction will be just as spectacular.
• Peter Capaldi's tenure was especially base-breaking: Not only are there Series 8-9 vs. Series 10 arguments, but Series 10 itself is breaking the fanbase into two groups!
  • Series 8-9 vs. Series 10: Since the announcement of Peter Capaldi's impending departure, there's been a strange and out-of-nowhere trend of many Who fans have done nothing but complain about how Capaldi was "held back" by "terrible writing" and a lousy companion in 8 and 9, and is only coming into his own in this final season vs those who like Series 8 and 9 and think Series 10 is not as good. The latest attacks on Steven Moffat's writing/showrunning are especially confusing as some of these fans are still praising certain episodes he wrote (i.e. "Heaven Sent") for those seasons as well as his Series 10 scripts "The Pilot" and "Extremis". With regards to the companion, many reviews (professional and amateur) of Series 10 spend more time cutting down Clara Oswald than discussing Bill Potts — even writers who profess to be huge fans of Clara have done this.
    • And then Bill Potts' choice to allow the Monks to enslave humanity just to save the Doctor, against his wishes, in the Cliffhanger of "The Pyramid at the End of the World" turned a character who looked to be one of the most popular revival companions ever into a Base-Breaking Character, one side seeing her as a selfish, stupid monster and the other seeing her as a true student of "What would the Doctor do?" — brave, loving, and noble.
  • Episodes 1-4 of Series 10 vs. Episodes 5-12 of Series 10: Fans who appreciated the continuity-heavy, deeply emotional and philosophical storylines, Story Arcs and Character Development of Series 8 and 9 were initially frustrated by the simple Vault arc and "back to basics" approach of Series 10, some finding Bill Potts a duller companion than Clara. Then the ending of episode five, "Oxygen", revealed that the Doctor was blind by way of launching the Prophets of Truth mini-arc. Episode six, the Moffat-penned "Extremis", was a puzzle-box and one of the darkest Who episodes ever, signalling that from here on out the show's tone would be back in line with Series 8 and 9. Rejoicing was swift...but all the fans who liked the lighter approach of the first four episodes were deeply upset with Moffat and company for not maintaining it.
  • The Monks Trilogy caused a Broken Base all on its own. Some thought "Extremis" meant the trilogy began with a major disappointment and the other two episodes were better, while those who liked "Extremis" felt that its followups "The Pyramid at the End of the World" and "The Lie of the Land" didn't fulfill its promise. Other people had the complete opposite reaction, believing "The Lie of the Land" was a disappointing end to a good story set up by the first two episodes. Then there are those who loved the whole arc from beginning to end and those who hated it and felt the arc was a waste of time.