Hopefully the writing will be better this time around. Both Peter Capaldi and Jodie Whittaker had some truly awful material to work with, despite being great actors.
I think this is it in a nutshell. Especially since Jodie Whittaker, we've had obviously badly written stories, stories that don't even seem to make any sense, multiple companions that lack any distinct personality, stories that take no account of Dr. Who history and most depressingly, stories where it's obvious that the writer has prioritised making political points over writing a good and consistent story - all of which must be difficult for any actor to deal with.
Having said that, I'm not sure I'd totally blame the bad writing: Chris Ecclestone, David Tennant and Matt Smith all managed in different ways through their styles, facial expressions, mannerisms, etc. to show very unique and exciting personalities over and above the material that, as far as I could tell, would have been in the script, and several of their companions did likewise - thinking particularly here of Billie Piper and Catherine Tate. I don't think either Jodie Whittaker or any of her companions have managed to do the same thing at all in the current Dr Who setup - the acting has seemed to me very bland - with the one exception of Sacha Dhawan as the Master, who's acted his part very well. I'm not sure why that is - whether they were all inhibited in some way by the writing/production, or whether they just weren't the right actors for those parts?
At any rate, I hope things improve - and Russell T Davies has a good history in that regard, so I'm optimistic now he's back running things.
