With the caveat of the pandemic being an issue, man did they start slow churning these and it really feels like they’ve lost a lot of momentum.
Agreed but new Doctor can revitalize this show pretty easy if it works. Hitting the ground running with Tennant+Tate then straight into a new doctor could be huge.
Whitaker was solid, IMO, let down by poor writing/concepts along with the misogynistic backlash from her first casting. Combine those factors and it's easy to see how the show lost support fairly quickly.
To me the companions were the biggest problem for 13. There was no need to jump straight to 3. Early on the Doctor struggled to establish herself with all the companions. Graham was awesome and he should have started as the only companion. Bringing in Yaz and Ryan later if they wanted to make the bigger team, but half a season to allow the Doctor to establish herself with just the sarcastic Graham would have helped. Yaz and Ryan are probably tied with Martha for me as the most forgettable companions since the Revival. Just there, meh. Dan showed some promise but he was shuffled quickly without fanfare early on this last one. 10+Rose, 10+Donna, 11+Amy/Rory, 12+Clara (despite that I didn't care for Clara all that much) those relationships felt more tangible, more real than 13+anyone. Graham was solid, the rest meh. Glad they are starting fresh.
Of course the stories were up and down at times as well. The lack of an over arching storyline for much of her run hurt as well, IMO. Flux had its moments, but again was really uneven. Hell even the specials. I really like this last one, but the Sea Devils one was pretty terrible. It felt like a corny terrible regular episode, not like a special. Just very uneven tenure.
Despite that I still liked Whitaker as the Doctor. She brought alot of the whimsy back to the character after it was lost in later Smith seasons and especially during Capaldi's run. Having fun with the ridiculous scenarios is half the fun of Doctor Who. I think she could have been great, but took over at a bad time and didn't get much help. Let's hope this next run from Tennant to 14 turns the tide again. I'm not sure it'll ever reach the popularity level it had during late Tennant and early Smith days, but I think it'll recover somewhat going forward.
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