Doctor Who vs Andor: Craft or Content?
The Doctor Who finale on Saturday was… controversial. While fans cannibalise themselves, pointing fingers and throwing blame around, the real problem grows like rot under the surface:
The show is no longer drama - it’s content.
Without addressing that fundamental flaw, the days of Doctor Who will once again become numbered.
Drama Requires Consequence
What do I mean when I say it’s “content”, and not “drama”? Is there a difference?
Yes – an important one.
To anyone who’s reading this as their first exposure to the internet, “content” isn’t used here to mean a state of contentedness. Instead, I mean as a modern, internet-era noun frequently used to negatively describe the “stuff” that people create to be consumed. The article you’re currently reading is content. TikTok’s are content. They’re surface-level media with a singular goal to either educate or entertain. By this definition, content lacks substance.
Drama, however, is rooted in substance. It demands change and consequence. The protagonist goes on a journey - either inner, outer, or both - and is fundamentally changed by their victory or failure. Whether you’re a student of John Yorke, Robert McKee, Margaret Atwood, Dan Harmon, or any successful writer ever to grace page, stage, or screen, it’s a universally recognised truth.
In essence, content follows trends. Drama challenges them.
So, when media rides trends and cliches to inflate “exposure” and gain an audience - that’s content. When there’s a process of deep change that a character can never reverse? That’s drama.
The Urge to Treat Symptoms
When drama fails (or refuses) to let their characters change, audiences rightfully feel cheated. As human beings, they place the blame on what they understand which, without a proper education, isn’t a great deal.
That may seem patronising, but you wouldn’t walk into NASA and tell them how to put a man on Mars. It doesn’t matter how trivial you find a topic, or how passionate you are about a property, passion doesn’t equate to knowledge of the craft. At times like these, the most useful thing people can do is listen.
Now, those passions are not completely misplaced.
Sometimes the representation of women, BAME people, and the queer community is diabolical, but you’re only noticing it because of the deep story rot I mentioned earlier.
Have you ever looked back on a show or movie you loved at the time only to realise it’s deeply problematic? That’s because the storytelling craft was so effective at the time that you simply glossed over it. “It still holds up” is just an audience’s way to say the story craft was exceptional, even if the politics are outdated.
If you spend your life running around treating symptoms, you’ll never stop. More importantly, you’ll lose.
In the couple of days since Doctor Who aired, I’ve seen an abundance of these ‘symptom’ problems being thrown around:
Billie Piper (and most of this era) is nostalgia bait
Belinda and UNIT are ‘nothing’ characters that don’t need to be there.
The show has lost its ‘grit’
Disney’s fingerprints are all over it
The treatment of women is deeply problematic.
Some of those are arguably true, but not one of them outweighs the show’s deeper narrative issues.
And before I go any further, I’m going to again state that some of these issues are real, present, and need fixing. But fixing the role of women as a way to fix Doctor Who is going to have the same effect as using a pack of Kleenex tissues to treat someone coughing up blood.
Right, let’s talk about Andor.
Andor’s Abundant Consequence
I bloody love Andor. For the purposes of this article, it’s the perfect counterpoint to Doctor Who, and an exceptional masterclass in dramas and consequences. When the show was announced, it was not well received.
Who wants a spin-off series about a side character in a spin-off movie? Especially when we already know when and how he dies! And how can a prequel to a prequel be used as an example of “consequences”?
Easily, because drama is about the journey. It’s about struggle, conflict, and thematic consistency.
Andor had all of that in abundance. Tony Gilroy took a period of the Star Wars universe that was full of conflict, and then forced it onto a mind that threatened to buckle under its weight. In a time period that demanded action, he made Andor disenfranchised. This gave him a tight narrative journey that only grew more tragic with each episode.
In fact, Andor turned Rogue One into the consequence of Andor, and subsequently made Star Wars: A New Hope the consequence of Rogue One. Despite coming out in the exact wrong order, Tony Gilroy and Gareth Edwards (director of Rogue One) created a cohesive, impactful drama fuelled by the dramatic imperative of thematic change.
It’s Star Wars at its best.
Compare that to the Favreau / Filoni corner of the franchise, where the most meaningful change at the end of the Mandalorian series 02 was undone – and everything since feels like moving action figures from one room to another and giving them a dust.
I make the point because both approaches exist in one narrative universe. Change is possible without breaking the canon, it just takes courage.
Doctor Who’s Shallow Consequences
The shallow consequences of the Filoni Star Wars series are also now abundantly clear in Doctor Who.
Look, I’m not getting into behind-the-scenes politics here. I’m here to talk about one symptom and one symptom alone:
Fighting a big CGI monstrosity for 5 minutes and calling it a “series finale”.
All storytelling gurus and experts can agree on a few fundamentals of structure. If Act 01 contains the ‘inciting incident’, where the adventure truly begins, then the Final Act resolves that adventure. If Doctor Who season 02’s inciting incident is Belinda not being able to return home, then the climax needs to put Belinda in a position where she has to choose whether or not to return. The Doctor fighting a CGI approximation of a classic villain does nothing to resolve that fundamental arc.
If you don’t believe me, consider how different ‘The Reality War’ would have been if Belinda was the one to use the Vindicator against Omega? An insect in the eyes of Omega taking up arms to destroy him and save the home she’s been trying to return to? Or sacrificing that home to save the World?
Drama.
“But the show is called Doctor Who!” I don’t care:
Rose killed the Daleks / Pulled the lever to send the Daleks & Cybermen to the Void
Martha reversed the Master’s parallel Earth
Donna stopped Davros
Amy and Rory broke the Time Lock in New York
Clara faced the Raven
Bill used the last of her humanity to save the Doctor.
The show only works when it adheres to the basic narrative principle that every companion has a reason to step into the TARDIS, and the end of their journey is their choice.
Instead, since 2023, we’ve had a series of what I’m calling “shallow consequences”. Doctor Who still presents the façade of drama, but all of the changes are surface level only:
Ruby finding her mum was lovely, but at no point did the audience truly feel she was “lacking” in a way that finding her birth mum would resolve.
The Sutekh reveal was dramatic, but not drama. Audiences had no idea there was a god hugging the TARDIS beyond a few groans heard since Wild Blue Yonder, and upon revealing himself, he was quickly dispatched and all his damage undone.
Similarly this year, the Rani created a whole wish world which was completely undone with no dramatic consequences beyond the loss of Poppy, a baby with a familiar face that received no narrative rationalising.
For two series in a row, the return of Susan Foreman has been teased and not followed-through on. An argument could be made for a multi-series arc for the reveal, but that argument doesn’t hold water. Everything in every story must first fuel THIS story, and then be a tease for something in the future.
If you’re still convinced that the problem lies elsewhere, let’s review the “symptom” list from earlier and I’ll present alternatives:
Billie Piper (and most of this era) is nostalgia bait
This era has lacked the fundamental and thematic changes that gives story its forward momentum. It’s okay to have villains return and have a reverence for what came before so long as it serves the story currently being told
Belinda and UNIT are ‘nothing’ characters that don’t need to be there
Doctor Who has always had ‘nothing’ characters that serve the central protagonist however needed (the Brigadier, for example), the issue is that there’s no central character or conflict for them to serve
The show has lost its ‘grit’
The show doesn’t need grit. The reason people think Doctor Who needs grit is because it represents an era where storytelling rules were adhered to with expert precision. It’s okay to have a great big cavernous TARDIS if it’s filled with enough story to match
Disney’s fingerprints are all over it
I have no counter to this one to be honest. Executives dictating and demanding the inclusion of popular references is an issue too big for this article
The treatment of women is deeply problematic
If you still think that fixing this will cure Doctor Who, I don’t know what to tell you…
Conclusion
Doctor Who is not alone in suffering the issues I’ve mentioned here, but after the most recent finale I had to get my thoughts written down. I know this won’t change the discourse and I’m screaming into the proverbial void, but if just one person reads this and begins to see behind the curtain of where TV and movies are going wrong, that seems worth it.
There’s plenty of blame to go around, but I won’t have any part in witch hunts and finger jabbing. It’s so ridiculously unhelpful and, honestly, tiring. I’d sooner take a bit of time, like I’ve done here, take stock of where we are, and look to the future. “We owe Moffat / Chibnall an apology” is just… content, and if that’s something you’re still thinking of engaging with, you’re in the wrong house my friend.
I love Doctor Who, and I think there are as many stories as there are stars in the sky. It’s no secret that I’d love to one day write for the show myself, but that day will never come if it continues to prioritise flash over good old-fashioned storytelling.
