And how I was so looking forward to seeing Jodie Whittaker take on the role of the 13th Doctor. While I've really taken to Jodie, I'm not impressed with how showrunner Chris Chibnall is handling many aspects of the show. And neither are a lot of fans. Many have stopped watching altogether...and a #NotMyDoctor hashtag has been set up on Twitter.
I did think a few old die-hard fans who were weaned on Classic Who may have reservations about Jodie...but I thought there'd be unanimous support from a new range of younger fans, particularly teenage girls who'd see her as a role model.
But a number of younger fans are highly critical of Jodie on several counts.
I'm known on Twitter for respecting everyone's opinion on any subject...even those diametrically opposed to mine. So when I was discussing Doctor Who on Twitter with Alex Whitestone, and discovered her daughter is one of those young fans who doesn't like Jodie, I offered to publish her daughter's views here, entirely unedited.
Alex says: "My daughter, Jeanne (11) is a typical fan of DW. Loves sci-fi, math, astronomy. She is a rising star of aikido, she won Cup of Artek. Writes poems and tries to write fanfiction. Let's listen to Jeanne."
But the main problem is the main character. I can't call her The Doctor because she isn't The Doctor for me. She is completely out of character. For example, she uses the word "team" for her companions, but The Doctor didn't like this word and chose "the gang" instead.
The Doctor is aikidoka, an 8th-dan master, but 13th's tries to show some aikido techniques are completely wrong. It's obvious that she has no experience in any military operations. But The Doctor was one of the best CIA operatives and he knew very well how to act in combat.
Also, he didn't offered fair play to any monsters. He chose the effective solutions, including lie, cheating, hacks and manipulation. After all, The Doctor is a man, and I can't understand any reason for him to become such a stupid girl.
Her appearance is awful, I don't like it. Her trousers look like a very short hakama (very wide training pants which aikido masters wear) and it looks very stupid for me. Her boots aren't laced properly, no soldier does that.
Also, I can't understand how she had got a makeup on her face and her hair bleached just after regeneration.
Yet another strange thing is her new abilities. She couldn't survive the fall from the clouds and not to regenerate. She reprogrammed a smartphone by looking at it.
The Terminatrix (T-X) could do this, but there are no clues that timelords could. The Doctor is a good hacker, but he needs tools to do this. But we didn't see Doctor's native telepathic abilities in action. There were some clues in canon that he can do some telekinesis.
It'll be better to see some Jedi-style action than those strange things.
Even TARDIS don't like 13th. The timeship ejected her like an unwanted passenger. Even when 13th broke into TARDIS, the ship doesn't want to obey her. Her companions see that she can't control the ship.
But 11th and 12th Doctors didn't experience such problems with control of TARDIS, despite the fact that all the systems were new too.
Please, please, let the 10th Doctor return. He was so real, so alive. Sometimes happy, sometimes suffering, sometimes dark and scary, sometimes silly. A genius, a warrior, a fighter - a true man. But 13th is unnatural. She is a lifeless doll, a poor fake of the real Doctor.