Every day I read some variation on "Capaldi is great, he's just been let down by the writing". Are we watching the same show?

Every day I read some variation on "Capaldi's era was amazing, look at [list of episodes], why do people dislike it...". Are we watching the same show?

Do try to remember that if we believe everything that happened in the Moffat episodes of Series 9:

The Daleks could just be saying "I love you", the Doctor left Gallifrey not because he wanted to explore the joys of the universe and challenge injustice, but because he was scared of "The Hybrid", Clara is the most important companion, and the Master and the Doctor don't have a complicated relationship as the last members of their race, one a hero, the other a terrorist warlord - they're just "flirting".

I think the Capaldi era is going to age terribly, because the entire series is marred by a lack of fanboy discipline (think back to how they brought back the Brigadier's CORPSE as a character) and an over-reliance on the previous fifty years of story-telling. Yes, it has more references to the classic series, which some people like, but I really do think the creation of new lore and characters is more important - something which the series had to do back in 1963.

Oh, and before somebody brings up "But [showrunner/era] had bad episodes too!" - yes, they did (I'd argue the ratio is a lot worse when it comes to the last few years, but that's subjective). But when other eras tripped up or made a poor choice, it was relatively inoffensive; damage was limited to that tenure at most. When a Moffat era episode is poor, it often affects the entire show by extension - see again the Hybrid, and Clara being the reason the Doctor chose his TARDIS.

/r/gallifrey Thread