I was a nuwho fan for quite a while, I thought of the classic more highly but it was fun. Things when down hill with how Moffat wrote the Great Intelligence and snowballed from there.
I tried watching the earlier stuff again and even at it's best I just couldn't stomach it, kept seeing patters and problems that led to the current state of things, I also got bored with the stories as I found them too short.
After Twice Upon A Time I swore off nuwho, joined the hive as it was literally the only forum I could find that allowed you to openly dislike nuwho without making compromises or being called an istaphob, tried to watch Blink to see if I could change my mind, I didn't, started my first full watch through of the classic era about two years back, with a few breaks here and there and here I am happy as larry. Though married life may have more to do with that.
If anyone finds joy from nuwho, good for them. I just can't anymore. I've been burned and had franchises I loved ruined for me befor, I didn't want it to happen to Doctor Who to.
I utterly despised New Who during the Eccelston era. I genuinely couldn't believe that lifelong classic era fans were praising, soft cell in the year five billion, farting aliens, and the Doctor gurning "EVERYBODY LIVES" whilst making cringe inducing dance jokes about sex. "The human race goes out into space and you dance!" UGH. Like something Zapp Brannigan would say.
I started to warm to the revival as something in its own right during season 3. Freema Agyeman won me round I guess LOL. After that by Tennant's fourth series I was a big, big fan of New Who too, and I'd say the happiest time for me as a DW fan was the Matt Smith era.
At the point I was happy to include all of New Who and old who as being the same big story. Even more so after the 50th with the promise of a new older classic who style actor in the role, Gallifrey back. I had even reassessed the Eccelston era to some extent as just necessary birthing pains to bring the show back. (Though even then I always viewed his era as the low point and I still say that had it not been the first era back after a hiatus and therefore a lot of people's exposure to the show, I think more people would agree with me.)
However then Capaldi happened with the Hybrid retcon, Missy, Cyber Brig, gender bending time lords, the worst pandering, and Missy (I know I mentioned her twice, but that's only because she really was that shit.)
I did still try and struggle on, thinking that maybe these awful retcons could be undone, but by the end of his era it was obvious that the show was dead, and Jodie, plus sexual braggard Hartnell cosplayer allowed to me to decanonise New Who from the original once and for all.
These days I can still enjoy the first 7 seasons of New Who as a fun, cheesy show in it's own right and I am even doing a series with Henshin that emulates the style of early New Who too. It's not a series that I'll be premiering any time soon, as I've got other ones I'm doing right now, and we are both so busy we just work on it whenever we get the chance. Still the series is kind of a love letter not just to the early days of New Who, but to that generation of sci fi and fantasy shows.
New Who, Primeval, Merlin, Being Human, that was a definite wave of genre shows which had its own style and identity as much as any other era and I think at the very least you have to give New Who credit for being the one to kick that off.
There were also some things that New Who did better than the original too such as the following.
Better story arcs, in seasons 1-7 anyway. Classic Who never had much success with these. Key to Time is an okay season, but the story arc is very basic and the resolution to it was awful. Trial meanwhile was a mess, whilst others were very basic like Fenric and the Doctor being exiled that they aren't really story arcs at all. The Time War, the cult of Skaro, and the Cybus Cybermen were all not only stronger arcs, but all woven together quite well into one big narrative where everything seemed to matter, yet it all stood on its own.
Daleks were generally more threating in the Davies and even early Moff eras than they were in the later years of the classic era where they were kind of pushed into the background. RTD understood that in order to be the Doctors archenemies in the revival, they had to be shown to be. In the original the writers often felt their fame would be enough and didn't have them inflict suffering on the Doctor to the same extent. In Davies era they are responsible for all the main horrible things that happen to the Doctor, from losing his companions to the time war, and they kill a Doctor for the first time.
Companion exits. Whilst they have definitely been too overblown (and the end of Clara's story arc is one of the worst things ever LOL), at least they have always shown respect to the actors and never just dropped them off screen like Dodo, or paired them off with some guy they looked at once like Leela.
Better actors for the companions. Apart from Jodie's lot with Ryan the plank and Yaz the non entity and John Bishop who delivers every line like he is laughing. The actors for all the companions in New Who were really good. Old Who meanwhile had some great actors like Frazer Hines and Jacqueline Hill, but it also had some like Bonnie Langford (sorry Maxil) "THAT'S RIGHT DOC NOW WE'RE GETTING TO IT! ugh. Give me Freema Agyeman and Billie Piper any day. (Though Noel Clarke I hear is a bit of a bastard.)
Matt Smith and Peter Capaldi are honestly two of the best actors ever to play the role. Matt might actually be the perfect choice. He is weird enough to be a good choice for guys like me who want the character to be a bit weirder, but he had an appeal to the young crowd too. Capaldi meanwhile is every inch the perfect guy for the part. Eccentric, more striking visually and known for playing mad bad and dangerous to know villains, has an older professorial quality to him. Sadly both were let down by doing undoctorish things like in Matt's case slapping his companion on the bum! Still overall two amazing choices for the role.
So again not everything in New Who is terrible, but by and large it was still never a proper sequel to the original, and the original series ultimately trumps it in terms of sci fi concepts, ideas, monsters, villains and stories, and on top of that Classic Who evidently had more staying power hence why it didn't devour itself within about ten years and survived until it was sabotaged.
