This new era of Doctor Who has gotten an awful lot right so far. From the brilliant casting of Jodie Whittaker to essentially pressing the reboot button and doing away with most, if not all of the messy continuity that’s built up over the years, season 11 feels like a wonderful breath of fresh air and we’re absolutely loving it.
It seems that not everyone’s a fan, though. Former showrunner Steven Moffat appeared on a recent episode of the Sitcom Geeks podcast and when the interviewer told him that, “My memory of Doctor Who is very much of a piece of cardboard that he is standing behind,” here’s how the acclaimed television writer replied:
“That’s the big challenge of Doctor Who now… running the risk of looking as cheap now as it did then, compared to what the rest of TV is doing, unless they put a whole lot more money into it. And it’s still an inexpensive show. A show that generates as much money as Doctor Who should be getting more of it back, frankly.”
“Television didn’t use to look the way it looks now. When we watch now, we watch something that’s quite often better than cinema. Have you have seen the recent Game Of Thrones? I haven’t seen anything in the cinema that matches their battle scenes.”
While we can’t say that Doctor Who is on the same level visually as something like HBO’s Game of Thrones (and really, so few shows are), Moffat’s wrong to call it cheap. In fact, this new season is perhaps the best that Who has ever looked, with the BBC shelling out for fancy cameras and traveling to some exotic locations to capture footage that’s so far, been pretty easy on the eyes.
We agree with the former showrunner in that television is changing and in some cases can look better than what you’d see in the theater, but Doctor Who certainly isn’t in danger of coming off as something that’s produced on a low budget. And again, especially not with this latest season.
But everyone’s entitled to their own opinions and if you’ve got your own thoughts on how Jodie Whittaker’s adventures through time and space look on your screen, be sure to share them with us down below.
