It’s not unusual these days for Doctor Who to have long gaps between series. There was a year between the 2015 (The Husbands of River Song) & 2016 (The Return of Doctor Mysterio) Christmas specials, making 16 months between Series 9 and Series 10; nearly a year from the 2017 Christmas special Twice Upon a Time (in which the Doctor regenerated) until the beginning of Series 11 (October 2018); a year between Resolution (New Year’s 2019) and Spyfall (New Year’s 2020); and another nearly-a-year between the end of Series 12 (March 2020) and the New Year’s 2021 special Revolution of the Daleks.

Thanks to COVID, of course, production is not exactly what one would call “snappy” these days. Various reports around the internet indicate there was some filming on Series 13 done in April 2021. If that was the beginning of the filming block, then given how these things usually run, we probably won’t see the next series until spring of 2022 at the earliest (though I’d be surprised if they didn’t manage to throw another “festive / holiday” special in there again).

That’s a reaaaaaally long dry spell. If all we have is one—possibly two—New Year’s specials (and some scandals) to tide us over during a two year span between Series 12 and 13, I suppose there’s little wonder that my enthusiasm for writing regularly about the show is waning.

And yet I don’t want to give up entirely. I still enjoy talking about Doctor Who with other fans, analyzing stories and thinking about details I hadn’t considered before. Every time a new episode does come out, I love sharing my own take on what’s good, bad, or ugly about it. So what’s a no-longer-so-Neo-Whovian to do?

Regular readers have undoubtedly noticed that the rate (and enthusiasm) at which I post here has dropped off in recent years compared to when I started out. Everything was so fresh and new when I launched the blog. I had so much to share!

Going into my eleventh year of blogging, though, and with only myself to draw upon (unlike most podcasts, for example, where multiple hosts can bounce off each other for new ideas and deeper conversations), I’ve begun to feel like I don’t have a lot left to say. That’s especially true when there aren’t new episodes on the air to delve into.

But recently I was challenged to dig into a favorite Classic story and find a new way of looking at it. What else could I possibly say? I wondered, after my first attempts turned out to be well-trodden ground. It took some effort—and yes, engaging with someone else to test my ideas—but in the end, I found a new perspective that is not yet a dead horse.

There is no getting around the fact that this last year-plus has been rough on everyone. Some folks have lost loved ones and/or livelihoods, others have seen entire ways of life shift and change, and all of us have just been under constant mental stress even if we can count ourselves among the “lucky ones” these days.

That’s why I have opted out of watching certain things that I might have previously chosen to watch to challenge myself. It’s not that I don’t want an intellectual challenge; I’ve done more language learning in the past year than almost any other time of my life. But right now I need an escape, not something that’s going to force me to take a hard look at myself.

None of that is to say that there is not work that needs to be done (I know that as a white American, for example, I have internalized plenty of racist ideology that needs confronting), or that I will never return to it. However, every person has to decide for themself when and how to do that work, and for me—for now—that is not while watching visual media. Instead, much like the folks on the Verity! podcast this year, I’ve decided lately that if I’m going to watch something, it should be just plain enjoyable, for pity’s sake.

After ten years of blogging, I don’t feel like I have a whole lot left to say—at least not in a broad, general sense—to the fandom community at large. For the most part, I’ve said my piece. When new episodes come out or there’s a new kerfuffle somewhere, I’ll be happy to add my 2¢, but overall, I don’t have a lot of rants left in me.

Unless we start talking about the quality of a given story, especially in absolute terms. Then I’m going to have An Opinion™.

All of this came to mind recently when I saw a screenshot of a piece of some sort of interview with perennial self-important bellyacher Ian Levine. In the context of TV he hates, he ranted again about “the woman Doctor Who. Chris Chibnall has ruined it.”

Recently I scrolled past a similar social media conversation talking about Steven Moffat. Several people said they’d started out liking some of Moffat’s work (like Sherlock), but as things continued, they found they couldn’t stand it anymore. I’m almost certain more than one person said something very similar to Levine, along the lines of “Moffat ruined Doctor Who for me.”

Yet I came out of that conversation with a completely different feeling than I get any time Levine spouts off. Even though some of the points made were completely valid, and I harbor many of the same opinions those friends expressed, that isn’t the point. The difference is Levine’s absolutism. (And his sexism. But I’m not even getting into that.)