Doctor Who’s Former Star Confesses Even He Isn’t Watching The Show Anymore

Season 13 of Doctor Who has been experiencing extremely low ratings. Is anyone watching Doctor Who anymore?

By Faith McKay | Published

This article is more than 2 years old

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It’s been a while since Matt Smith played The Doctor. These days, he’s doing press interviews for his latest movie with Anya Taylor-Joy, Last Night In Soho, but he’s being asked for his thoughts on the show. After all, Doctor Who is in an interesting place. A new lead is going to take over soon, with a former showrunner returning to helm the BBC series once again. While activity behind the scenes is making it look like the franchise is about to grow into a major cinematic universe, the show appears to be suffering. Season 13 of Doctor Who has been experiencing extremely low ratings. Is anyone watching Doctor Who anymore? While Matt Smith had a very friendly response when asked about the show, he hasn’t actually seen it.

Matt Smith was asked by Looper what he thought about Jodie Whittaker’s performance as the lead character on the latest season of Doctor Who. He was also asked what he thinks should happen next on the series as a new Doctor takes over. His response was polite and supportive, and he says everyone’s doing a great job, but that’s hard to judge since he started off by saying he hasn’t watched the show.

I must confess, I haven’t seen a lot of Doctor Who of late, so I’m not really equipped to talk about that really. But in terms of the new direction…I think it’s exciting for the show that Russell Davies is back. I think Chris Chibnall and Jodie did a wonderful job, but now it’s exciting to look forward to a new era under Russell, who I think is a phenomenal writer and particularly brilliant at delivering that show. I think he totally gets what it is, and I’m sure they’ll just choose a really exciting new Doctor. It’s always exciting to think that there’s a new Doctor coming.

Matt Smith
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Matt Smith played The Doctor between 2010 and 2014, so it’s been a while since he was the lead for Doctor Who. These days, he has roles in several movies and is working on a new Game of Thrones prequel called House Of The Dragon. He is playing one of the lead characters, Daemon Targaryen. Certainly, these projects have kept him busy enough that he has an excuse for not watching the series. However, it was a huge part of his life. It’s something he gets asked about regularly. And still, he hasn’t seen it. As ratings continue to drop on the show, it seems like audiences are no longer making Doctor Who a priority when they’re choosing what to watch.

It’s unknown if that’s because they don’t enjoy Chris Chrisnall’s direction for the show right now, if they’re unhappy with Jodie Whittaker, or if they’ll return when the new lead and showrunner take over. It would have been interesting to hear whether Matt Smith will be watching Doctor Who once Russell T. Davies takes back control of the series.

With Russell T. Davies has come another huge change for the next season of Doctor Who. The series has previously been produced by BBC. The next season is transferring creative control over to Bad Wolf. This means that creative decisions aren’t in the hands of BBC. It also means that BBC won’t be earning as much from the show. It’s been estimated that BBC will lose over $53 million USD for every ten episodes of the series. Not much is known about the details behind this decision or what it will mean for the upcoming season. It does seem like the show is about to turn a huge corner. The big question is whether it will be enough to save the ratings.