Posted in: BBC, TV, TV, YouTube | Tagged: ai, doctor who

Here's Why Those Doctor Who AI Videos Suck Across All of Time & Space

After watching the fanbase debate (and rip them apart) on social media, we have some not-so-positive thoughts on those Doctor Who AI videos.

Published Thu, 10 Sep 2026 07:37:10 -0500

by Ray Flook

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Here's how I see AI working. One morning, I wake up and say, "You know what? I want to create a brand new car." From there, a bunch of cobbler elves head out and steal various pieces from other people's cars. Once that's done, they work until all of the pieces fit, throw me the keys (before downing all of the water in my fridge), and jet. Meanwhile, I get to say, "Wow! I just created a brand new car all by myself." But what I've got kinda looks and kinda acts like a car – except for that occasional fifth wheel or how the horn sounds like a scream every third time you use it. Oh, and it looks like it wants to kill me. With that in mind, I wanted to turn my attention to this week's ramblings about some Doctor Who AI videos that were being passed around and debated, with more than a few featuring David Tennant's Fourteenth Doctor. Setting aside the fact that this kind of work is creatively corrupt at its core and nothing more than high-tech stealing, we have a series of thoughts on the matter that we needed to share:

The Future of "Doctor Who" Is AI… If You Like Seeing Soulless, Heartless, and Impotent Third-Rate Fanfic Frankenstein'd to Life: Seriously, people. What the f**k? Did we run out of Big Finish audio dramas, comic books, novels – and did I mention, 60 years' worth of episodes to rewatch – that we would need to resort to this? If this is the "future" of Doctor Who, then I pray that the show stays out to tender until our society goes extinct and the planet's new tenants offer up some common sense. The nicest thing I can say about what I've screened was that one of them looked like a cross between a religious training-recruitment video, Adult Swim's Xavier: Renegade Angel, and those Coca-Cola holiday ads (speaking of AI that looks like it wants to kill you). One version of Tennant's Doctor looked like he stepped off the set of the horror movie Smile, and another version of the Doctor looked like Dos Equis' The World's Most Interesting Man stole a TARDIS and just got a whole lot more interesting.

"Doctor Who" AI Videos Not Exactly Screaming with Diversity: Far be it from me to make this a "race thing," so I will simply say that a whole lot of them seem really into the idea of having a middle-aged white guy back as the lead. I'm not saying there aren't AI videos out there that work outside that demographic; I am saying that it doesn't seem like there are many of them. In the Doctor Who AI universe, a diverse Doctor means choosing between a middle-aged and an old white guy.

AI "Doctor Who" Does Have a Silver Lining: After watching "The Whoniverse" rip itself apart over the past year or so, over everything from ex-showrunner Russell T. Davies and "The Reality War" to how the whole Christmas Special/tender process was handled, it was nice to see a whole lot of folks come together for a good cause. Because nothing warms the cockles of my heart more than seeing two people who couldn't agree less on anything Doctor Who-related, only to find a common bond in the enjoyment that came from ripping an AI video a new one. Also, one of the longest-running debates has finally come to an end. The next time someone asks what the worst Doctor Who thing was that I ever saw, I can now answer with confidence and pride. Because the only thing that could be worse than this would be if a TARDIS-set snuff film somehow surfaced. And to think that it wasn't that long ago when the BBC ran into its own bit of AI controversy.

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