Despite Its Flaws, 2025 Was the Best Year for Doctor Who Since 2017

2025 has been a disappointing year for Doctor Who, but it’s still been the strongest year the show has had since 2017. When Russell T. Davies returned to Doctor Who, now with a Disney budget to play with, anticipation was high. Unfortunately, his return hasn’t received the acclaim that had been hoped for – either from the critics or the fans. The revolutionary Doctor Who partnership between Disney and the BBC has now come to a disappointing conclusion, driven by low viewership.

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And yet, for all that’s the case, influential fans such as Tharries are beginning to realize that 2025 hasn’t actually been a bad year. To be sure, Doctor Who Season 15 came to an unsatisfying conclusion, but the spin-off The War Between the Land and the Sea was unexpectedly enjoyable, even earning a critic score of 80% on Rotten Tomatoes. In fact, looking back this has actually been the best year Doctor Who has had since 2017, when Peter Capaldi left the show in that year’s Christmas Special.

Doctor Who Has Had a Rough Few Years

New Showrunner Chris Chibnall was determined to make Doctor Who compete with high-budget streaming shows, which meant the world’s longest-running sci-fi TV series sat 2018 out. Jodie Whitaker’s Thirteenth Doctor didn’t make her proper debut until 2019’s Season 11, with Chibnall deliberately focusing on new monsters and new threats rather than playing to nostalgia, but this proved a mistake given few of the new enemies were particularly memorable; Tzim-Sha, who even returned in the season finale, was about as forgettable as it’s possible to be.

Even at this stage, though, there were occasional stand-outs. Season 11’s best episode was “Rosa,” an unusual historical adventure that felt like a pitch for the kind of story Chibnall intended to tell, steeped in social commentary despite lackluster villains and thus possessing remarkable impact. As promising as “Rosa” may have been, though, Chibnall never properly returned to that format. He pivoted hard for the New Year’s Special and Season 12, abandoning it in favor of nostalgia and deep lore.

The Chibnall era became defined by the Timeless Child, an odd retcon that rewrote the show’s history and lore in a way that somehow felt important and yet inconsequential at the same time. It could have worked if it had been built upon, but Doctor Who Season 13 – disrupted by the COVID pandemic – failed to make the most of it, and the Chibnall era came to an end in three unsatisfying specials. There were high points – Jo Martin’s Fugitive Doctor and Sacha Dhawan’s Master – but they weren’t enough.

Davies returned in style in for 2023 in three anniversary specials that were great fun but overplayed the nostalgia card (the exception being “Wild Blue Yonder,” a high point of the last decade). He cast the phenomenal Ncuti Gatwa as the next Doctor, but Season 14 just didn’t quite come together; it says everything that the internet is full of alternate viewing orders that actually do improve the character arcs. Worse still, Davies’ Season finale was just as disjointed as anything from the last few years, with classic villain Sutekh returning as yet another nostalgia play. The last few years really haven’t been kind to Doctor Who.

2025 has Been Better than you Think

This is the context of 2025’s Doctor Who Season 15, which comes at the tail end of a troubled time for the BBC’s flagship show. It’s had some major missteps – “The Interstellar Song Contest” is utterly tone-deaf – but there have also been some delightful episodes. “The Story & the Engine” is wonderfully creative, “The Well” is deeply enjoyable, and “Lux” is genuinely a contender for the best Doctor Who story of the decade. The problem, again, lay in a disappointing finale that drowned out the fandom’s good memories.

This year has also seen the launch of the first Doctor Who spinoff since 2017, The War Between the Land and the Sea. Focusing on the relationship between humanity and the Sea Devils (now renamed Homo Aqua), this didn’t get everything right; the romance plot felt strangely handled, and Gugu Mbatha-Raw’s Salt lacked consistent characterization. But it was consistently the best Doctor Who we’ve had in years, ending with major changes for long-standing characters. Oddly, like Chibnall’s “Rosa,” it feels like a pitch for a Who that was not to be.

What this does mean, though, is that 2025 has been far from the disastrous year some viewers would have you believe. The show hasn’t been everything it could be, and it certainly hasn’t lived up to its potential, but this has nonetheless been a year with some real stand-outs and bold experiments. Hopefully the BBC will learn from what actually went well, rather than just forget this year and move on.

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