Before I begin to explain why Doctor Who is a giant mass of wasted potential, I want to say that I sincerely enjoy the show. The reason I'm writing this is because there have been so many missteps taken in the show that I'm tired of its fans heralding the show as God's gift to science fiction. The show is good and has its moments, but consistently makes the same mistakes. Hopefully, if I detail out these mistakes, then the writers will use common sense.
Warning: I've only watched to the end of season 4, so if you're going to argue that the new Doctor is much better know that I neither agree or disagree with you.
Character mismanagement
Doctor Who drops the ball consistently with its character selection. Interesting characters are hardly given screen time, while incredibly dull one dimensional characters are allowed endless development, which they do nothing with because they were flawed characters to begin with. I'll go through as many important characters as I can.
A note on companions: The purpose of a companion in the show seems to be twofold. First a companion should be an in-depth character whose life changes significantly because of the doctor and who changes as a person because of the doctor. Second, a companion should incur a significant change on the Doctor, teaching the Doctor something about himself and the universe he wouldn't have otherwise learned. If a companion doesn't do any of these things, then they really aren't serving any purpose in the show. Which leads me to...
Rose Tyler-
Rose Tyler shouldn't have existed past the 1st season. She should have died with Eccleston because her character is boring and pointless. Rose Tyler doesn't grow from anything. She becomes a young woman who has nothing going for her, to a young woman who is now traveling with the doctor. She worked in the 1st season perfectly because that's what you wanted for the first season. A companion that puts the spotlight on how amazing the Doctor is and how he's changed everything in their life. And it's true, everything in Rose's life changes. But she never changes as a character. Throughout the entire time she's with both Eccleston and Tennant, she consistently: tries to pick up men, tries to pretend to be smart, tries to flirt with the doctor (more so Tennant than Eccleston). Rose never changes and so those watching the show really have no reason to be invested in a character that's static.
Rose also doesn't change the doctor in any significant way. The Doctor argues in the second to last episode of season 4, that Rose healed his war wounds. When did this occur? If anyone healed his war wounds it would probably be Donna, the person who kept him from being vindictive toward another being. But I can't remember a single episode where Rose kept the Doctor from being angry and war torn (except for maybe the episode Dalek in season 1). Other than that, Rose just got into trouble and the Doctor would have to play another round of "let's clean up Rose's mess". It got to the point where the only thing you were looking forward to was what crazy antic Rose got herself into.
What's worst about Rose is not that she stood for two mind numbing seasons, but the amount of homage she receives from the writers in later seasons. Even after the supposed "alternate dimension" is closed, Rose still finds a way to continue to whine about how much she misses the Doctor. One eventually loses sympathy when one contextualizes Rose in the long line of companions the Doctor has abandoned. Truthfully, Rose sounds more like a little kid, complaining that she didn't get a long enough turn on the ride, while ruining the experience for the next few companions. Oh, hey Martha! I knew you'd transition somewhere in here.
Martha Jones- The rebound companion. The purpose of Martha Jones was to distract the doctor from Rose. That's the only purpose she ever serves. She doesn't grow as a character at all. She doesn't change in any significant way. In lot of ways she's essentially a reincarnation of Rose, just smarter and less incompetent. I don't abhor Martha Jones the way I do Rose, but I do feel bad for her as a companion. She'll never be important in the scheme of things. If you say, "my favorite companion is Martha," then I'll look at you weird because she's hardly developed as a character. Describe Martha's personality. If you can do this in vivid detail I'd be impressed. I can describe Rose pretty easily: idiotic, self compensating, naive. Donna is an incredibly rich character and can easily be described: homey, spunky, quaint, stubborn. But Martha Jones really just boils down to: smart, professional and young. I just don't understand why the writers of the show decided to have an entire season on how hung up the Doctor is about Rose. The only reason to do this would be: if Rose was truly that compelling of a character and the viewers, with the Doctor, needed this time to reflect and mourn the loss of the character or if you were bringing her back. Neither of these things happened, making the entire season feel like a giant blotch of filler.
Donna Noble: Donna is a companion done so right, that the writers had to reduce her into a one-dimensional box last minute and then completely blacklist her for the rest of the series. Donna fills both roles of the companion perfectly and instead of cementing her in Doctor Who lore, allowing for guest cameos and a proper send off, the writers decide to reduce her role in the last two episodes of season 5, by giving endless screen time to other, less important characters and then put that stupid memory block snafu, that makes it so that Donna could never play a meaningful role in the series again. Let me explain the magnificence of Donna Noble.
Donna starts off as the Naive valley girl, who feels she lacks all self worth and could never amount to anything. After her first encounter with the Doctor, she feels inspired to change her life, but when she tries the results aren't to her liking. So she changes from her passive gloomy state and seeks out the Doctor, finding him against all odds and then travelling with him. Donna changes from the "boring meaningless temp" to an incredible person, proving the old adage, that ordinary people can play extraordinary roles. This can be ascertained from Donna by the Pompeii episode. And instead of maintaining that integrity, the writers symbolically destroy it, in the disaster that I'll explain later. The point here is that Donna changes and we watch that change, which makes us like her more and feel more invested in her as a character (unlike Rose).
But to top it all off, Donna also makes significant change in the Doctor. Donna consistently serves as the "humane voice of reason". She serves as the bridge between the Doctor and human kind, taking away some of the burden of his decisions, while educating him in how misguided his morality could be. Again, this could be seen in the first episode, the episode in Pompeii and the episode about the Ood. Donna also serves as a stubborn voice of dissent, that the Doctor rarely receives. Rose and Martha were essentially passive and appeasing with the Doctor, nearly always attending to his requests. Donna challenges the Doctor, making for a good amount of tension. So, now that we've established that Donna is awesome, let's explain why she was completely butchered in the last few episodes of season 4.
As I said before the purpose of Donna's character arc, was the realization that she, an ordinary temporary worker, could play a remarkable role in the cosmos. She also served as the human touch, adding a humane flare to what the Doctor did. If this is the case, then why is it that Donna seems to completely regress in the last episode? She whines about how useless she is and then is forced to change her form to serve any purpose. To make matters worse, what makes her unique (her humanity), is what ends up being her death sentence. The symbolic message being put out from the ending of season 4 is that, "humans are only important, when seriously altered by an advanced race." Truthfully the series should have ended with Donna doing remarkable things and then coming to the realization, on her own, that she, like everyone else in the world, has an amazing role to play. The Doctor would realize the power of humanity and revel in it. Rose would never pop her ugly head in this because I mean, why is it she's all of a sudden allowed to jump through dimensions again? Donna I'm sorry the writers are idiots.
Other idiotic characters
Mickey-
Mickey goes from annoying whiner. To coward. To reckless idiot. To useless hero. He changes, but his overall demeanor and personality seems to stay the same. He only grows more courageous as he goes along. Also, his relationship with Rose seems like a complete sham, yet he continues to put his life in danger for her for no reason at all. The only hint we have that Rose and Mickey were close is from the fact that they were bf and gf, but that relationship was shown to be shaky when she decided to randomly leave everything behind without a second notice. Truthfully Mickey just doesn't make sense to me. Also why doesn't he go back to his alternate universe? He says his Grandma died. So what? Are you saying you developed no relationships at all living in that alternate Earth. Come on. Also, why is it that Rose and Mickey are all of a sudden masters at weaponry and other bad assery within months? The two seem hardly cut out for civic theater let alone actual battle.
Rose's Mom-
A useless character. Plays the role of whiner all the time. 1st season was the best because you hardly had to deal with her stupidity. She also comes with Mickey to "save her daughter"in season 4. Why? You're old. Stay back on the planet. Why isn't her "father" there instead? You know, your new husband. Maybe they broke up. I don't know, but seeing her again made me upset. Once I saw her I knew she's be captured and then force someone to use resources on her to save her. She is fine in small doses, but the writers decide to throw her into any plot that needed an extra mouth to save.
Doctors
Eccleston-
Eccleston, wasn't a bad Doctor. I seriously think people who whine about how bad he was are people who either wanted a horrible love fan fiction between Rose and the Doctor (and knew Eccleston looked too old for that to be viable) or don't like how eccentric he was (which is exactly how the Doctor should feel at first). Eccleston was all about the flashiness and the intelligence. He navigated situations calmly and never seemed to give up (expect when the Daleks came).The issue with Eccleston is we didn't spend enough time with him. Most of the first season wasn't centered on him, but instead on the Doctor Who universe. The writers, with good reason, was informing the viewers more on the show and less on the characters themselves. If Eccleston had another season, I feel it would have been very interesting to see how his relationship with Rose would have developed. Instead he's hastily killed off (off course at the actor's own request).
Tennant-
This Doctor is great, but there are a few things he starts doing that just doesn't make sense. First, he begins to be incredibly pessimistic about a bunch of situations. At first this was very compelling. It meant that even the go lucky, hopeful doctor had been discouraged. But eventually it devolved into a cheap tool, where the Doctor gave the death stare for every bad situation he was in. Also, the last four "extra episodes", while compelling and great, offer a lot of mixed messages. It begs questions about the role of a Time Lord and how fixed a Time Lord's duty is that is neither answered or contextualized later on. Even if the new seasons touch on these themes, having Tennant do it made the entire thing seem very out of place.
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