I'm a lot more forgiving of JNT now than I was at the time. Even then, I felt that he'd done some good for DW when he arrived, but had stayed too long. Now I know that he'd requested to be moved to another programme but his bosses had refused, and that they'd basically said they would cancel Doctor Who if he left, as they had no-one else willing/able to run it. In that situation, what would you have done?
Also, when not blaming JNT a lot of people blame Colin Baker or Sylvester McCoy. But it's interesting to note that the ratings for Colin's first year were virtually the same as the two previous years. The sudden and catastrophic drop in ratings happened when the show was taken off for 18 months -- which was of course not JNT's doing -- and they then stayed low for the next 4 years.
(They'd also fallen when JNT took over, but recovered a year later. But in both cases the drop happened immediately -- less people were watching the show from the very first episode of the series -- rather than a gradual decline as would be expected if people were losing interest in what they were seeing.)
So really, I think the way the show was treated was to blame. Given BBC interest, a showrunner who wanted to be there (and who was allowed to leave once he'd had enough) and good publicity, it could have still worked. And what do you know -- it has! :-)
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Also, when not blaming JNT a lot of people blame Colin Baker or Sylvester McCoy. But it's interesting to note that the ratings for Colin's first year were virtually the same as the two previous years. The sudden and catastrophic drop in ratings happened when the show was taken off for 18 months -- which was of course not JNT's doing -- and they then stayed low for the next 4 years.
(They'd also fallen when JNT took over, but recovered a year later. But in both cases the drop happened immediately -- less people were watching the show from the very first episode of the series -- rather than a gradual decline as would be expected if people were losing interest in what they were seeing.)
So really, I think the way the show was treated was to blame. Given BBC interest, a showrunner who wanted to be there (and who was allowed to leave once he'd had enough) and good publicity, it could have still worked. And what do you know -- it has! :-)