Franchise Original Sin / Doctor Who

• While it remains a fan-favorite, "Spearhead from Space" introduced a number of traits that would ultimately lead to the show's cancellation at the end of the '80s. Continuity Creep would first rear its head thanks to the plot relying on elements introduced in three different '60s stories (none of which were re-ran at the time), the story would be much grimmer and more violent than much of its predecessors, and the all-film production (the end result of a workers' strike) resulted in an unusually cinematic approach that belied the show's usual low-budget multi-cam nature. While these elements were and still are widely praised for helping refresh the series for a new decade, the John Nathan-Turner era's attempts at replicating these successes would ultimately lead to overambitious stories that drew accusations of Seasonal Rot and an irreversible ratings decline.
• Many of the most criticized aspects of the Graham Williams era (Seasons 15-17) are actually visible by Season 14. As early as "The Hand of Fear", Tom Baker is more obviously keen on performing even dull exposition scenes with surreal physical comedy for the sake of it, and is also expecting to ad lib a lot of his own dialogue, which means his talking style becomes more flippant and silly. All of this is funny, exciting and a new lease of life for the character at first, but, as the series grows Lighter and Softer, the antics get more extreme and don't have dark Gothic Horror plotlines to contrast against, turning the show into a wacky comedy where Tom Baker can upstage everyone else.
• All the problems with the original series in the John Nathan-Turner era—Author Tracts, useless companions, unintentionally inappropriate music, Camp, Chewing the Scenery, hilarious Special Effects Failure—were all present in the Graham Williams Era. But in the Nathan-Turner era they became highly prominent and common, and had few good plots or characters to balance them out, leading to viewership dropping like flies, a brief hiatus, and then another one that lasted for 16 years and is more often than not considered a period of cancellation (ironically, the second hiatus was implemented just as those elements had been mostly stripped; unfortunately the BBC lost so much faith in the show by then that they deliberately tanked its ratings by scheduling it against the far more popular Coronation Street).
• While a very popular season that many fans consider a creative high point of the show, Season 18 introduces a lot of the problems that would cause the Audience-Alienating Era:
  • The Doctor has gone from wearing an Unlimited Wardrobe of multiple articles of clothing based around a Byronic style to a Limited Wardrobe with a rather loud colour scheme, and his hair's gone from the soft and natural Quirky Curls of the 70s to a tamed and rather hard 80s perm, anticipating the controversial "uniforms" of later 80s Doctors and especially the problems with the Sixth Doctor's costume^note worth noting is that Four's perm in the 80's was not actually a creative decision, but a necessity—Tom Baker was so badly burnt out from working on the show that it caused his hair to straighten out.
  • The new production team is mostly staffed with Promoted Fanboys who want to be making gritty science fiction, so the tone gets drastically Darker and Edgier, the Doctor's characterisation suddenly shifts in a disturbing and unhinged direction, and the camp elements are either played absolutely straight or removed while Fan Wank ideas begin to influence plots—which is Revisiting the Roots at first but seeds the Continuity Lockout, Too Bleak, Stopped Caring and Angst? What Angst? that will plague The '80s.
  • The current producer is a gifted editor and the team is trying more than ever to make things look and feel expensive to fight back criticism that previous seasons had got a bit too panto, which allows the actors to do more intense, cinematic acting and leads to a dramatic Special Effects Evolution—but eventually resulted in wooden, soapy acting and overambitious attempts to do expensive effects-led SF action movies with no money and terrible effects, moving away from the series' 60s/70s strategy of 'theatrical' sets and Shakespearean Actors where it didn't matter if the effects or performances looked unrealistic if they worked aesthetically.
  • Tom Baker isn't allowed to do unscripted business to the camera any more, which is usually considered a good thing as his antics had been arguably derailing the show, but also means that from here on the most interesting character played by the strongest actor in the cast receives less focus than the less well-performed and more thinly characterised companions, which doesn't mesh well with bloated casts that necessitate plots to be driven primarily by the Doctor. Baker himself noted this problem's presence during Season 18 and cited it as one of the biggest factors behind his Creator Backlash towards the season.
  • An unofficial "continuity advisor" (Fandom VIP Ian Levine) allegedly joins the team, which at first helps build a strong mythos for those who care about continuity, but later leads to obnoxious Continuity Porn and Continuity Lockout.
  • This season is where we first see hints that the Doctor is not just an intergalactic Nightmare Fetishist doing what he does for fun, but something more akin to a Wizard Classic Drifter, which imparts a mythological feel the series previously lacked but also leads directly into the posturingly powerful Doctors, Messianic Archetype symbolism and often hamfisted attempts at epics associated with Doctors from the Seventh onwards, with most fans preferring the "intergalactic bumbler" overall.
• "Earthshock", on its first broadcast in 1982—and even today—was a hugely popular story thanks to its action, gritty and mature feel, and the return of a classic villain. However, attempts to recapture all of these elements in future stories would play a major part in driving the series into the ground in the mid-1980s. The continuity aspects were emphasized to such an extent that it led to major Continuity Lockout. This is well-shown by the Cybermen's next major story, "Attack of the Cybermen", which is very continuity-heavy, incomprehensible without a good knowledge of Cyber-History, and incredibly violent.
• "The Caves of Androzani" is considered one of the great masterpieces of Doctor Who, but just as with the praised "Earthshock", the writers of the time seem to have learned all the wrong lessons from this serial, taking most of its elements, but without the same success. The Sixth Doctor's era would be full of stories populated in depressing worlds, populated by cynical antiheroes and monstrous villains, with Peri being just the Damsel in Distress. And to make matters worse, the Sixth Doctor is a much more unsympathetic anti-hero than his predecessor (for most of his TV era), making the viewer question why spend time with these people.
• The Cartmel Masterplan is a term created by fans as Andrew Cartmel had visions of trying to make the Doctor being a chessmaster after being a whipping boy under Eric Saward and wanted to bring more mystery into the Doctor much like in the early days of the show. In doing so, there were hints that was much more to the Doctor than just another Time Lord, hinting that he was responsible for helping creating Time Lord society and even being as far as being a god. This unfortunately became a stigma when the show came back as they used a lot of religious aspects of the Doctor being an allegory for Jesus. Even more so during the Series 12 finale when it states that the Doctor was the origin of creating the Time Lords.
• The Revival Series' moral debate over the Doctor's actions, particularly with the Daleks, started as an interesting (though controversial) departure from the original series, with the Doctor wracked with guilt over his actions and always uncertain about whether he's doing the right thing. After this point, it was alternately ignored or given such disproportionate focus that it lost any sort of impact, and something that started as a way to explore the Doctor's morality was repeatedly used as a way for the Doctor to lord his moral superiority over everyone else. Eventually this aspect was dropped completely, returning to the times of killing villains no questions asked, but was revived in Series 8, making just as little sense. (Killing villains by yourself is justifiable, but killing them with a Cyberman army is bad?)
• "Journey's End" in many ways is a good example of the aspects of the RTD era overused and done badly. The moral debate about the Doctor's actions, such as killing Daleks, being inconsistent and not making much sense? Yes. A ridiculous Deus ex Machina? On multiple occasions. A cop-out on a major character dying? Certainly. On the other hand, with the 10th Doctor's increasing darkness and later revelations about the Time War and about just what the Time Lords (or at least, their rulers) had become by the end of the Time War explaining why he reacted so badly to wiping out the Daleks, and the Rule of Cool aspect, it's still quite popular.
• One criticism of the Moffat era by people who came to love the show during its Davies era is that too much time was spent on meta-commentary on the series, with endless iterations of "what does the Doctor stand for, I mean really?" taking the place of adventure and worldbuilding. However, older fans who didn't like NuWho straight from the start tend to point out that Davies did plenty of that sort of navel-gazing as well and frequently had wangsty discussions about whether the Doctor was ultimately a saviour or a destroyer - he just also had enough adventure and worldbuilding that it was possible to ignore the awkward attempts at deeper themes.
• "The Pandorica Opens" and "A Good Man Goes to War" are regularly cited as two of the best Eleventh Doctor episodes, but in hindsight, they also include many elements of the Steven Moffat era that would later be heavily criticized. Both of them consist almost entirely of buildup for Twist Endings, and could be justly accused of relying too much on elaborate action scenes over creative storytelling. Then again, The Reveal that the Doctor was the "monster" imprisoned in the Pandorica was a pretty damn clever twist, as was River Song turning out to be Rory and Amy's daughter from the future. Also, the action sequences felt like well-deserved payoff for season-spanning plot arcs, even if they ultimately boiled down to fairly simple "Good Guys vs. Bad Guys" clashes. But over time, both of those things got stale in many fans' eyes.
• A common criticism of Steven Moffat's run as head writer is his tendency to build entire seasons around long-term story arcs at the expense of writing good standalone episodes that can work on their own merits. This tendency was reasonably in check during Series 5 and Series 6, where the Pandorica and the Silence arcs actually built up to memorable Grand Finales that made them seem worthwhile. But it started to get a bit out of hand in the second half of Series 7, where the season finale was widely considered an unsatisfactory resolution to the mystery behind Clara Oswald, who after much buildup about her being "the Impossible Girl" born to save the Doctor, was revealed to have jumped into a time-warp to Set Right What Once Went Wrong. The details behind how she saved the Doctor were quickly glossed over, making her first two appearances and later teases to her "true" identity feel like a waste of time.
• What Clara accomplished in "The Name of the Doctor" was virtually forgotten for the rest of her tenure in favour of following her gradual Character Development into the Doctor's Distaff Counterpart. In turn, Series 8 was criticised by some fans for giving Clara more focus than the newly-regenerated Doctor. However, focusing on the companion's side of the story has been around since the first episode of the revival, "Rose". Nearly all the main companions after Rose had a large Story Arc built around them turning into someone else except for Martha, whose awesome moment only comes from actions she performed in the two-part finale. Lots of people claimed that both River Song in Series 6 and Clara Oswald in 7B were just plot devices disguised as characters. Clara was fleshed out in her later seasons, but her arc was still about her becoming the Doctor's Distaff Counterpart and half of the Hybrid, according to Word of God.
• Fans of the War Doctor tend to get aggravated when he is excluded from the mainline incarnations of the Doctor because he started out as a guest star addition who didn't have a tenure as the lead role on television. Even so, the Ninth Doctor has been marginalized since 2005 for having a very short-lived run, to the point his season is skipped in reruns on BBC America and the phrase "Don't skip Nine" arose as a knee-jerk reaction. Likewise the Eighth Doctor was subject to this, having only appeared in live-action on a divisive TV movie.

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