Was Doctor Who too ‘cosy’ last series?

Cosy fiction has become a quite a big thing in recent years, especially in genres like ‘cosy fantasy.’ It’s basically stories where everybody is like one big happy family and it’s designed to be heartwarming and act as a comfort read. However, this means that aside from defeating the bad guys there’s not much interpersonal conflict between characters we like. A lot of people like this sort of fiction but I’m really not a fan and I’m wondering if that’s why, although I love Ncuti and Millie’s performances, the most recent series didn’t really gel with me compared to RTD1.

There was an utter lack of personal conflict in any of the episodes. There was no episode like Father’s Day, Gridlock or Fires of Pompeii where there’s conflict between the Doctor and the companion (even though there was the perfect set up for this sort of episode with Ruby wanting to visit the day she was left outside the church and the Doctor saying they can never do that). There was no character like Jackie, Mickey, Francine or Sylvia that came into conflict with the Doctor; Carla was completely 100% supportive which is nice but not great for character growth and drama. There was no conflict between Ruby and Carla over Ruby looking for her ‘real mum’ and when she found her they instantly became one big happy family without any difficulty. UNIT went from an ambiguous military organisation the Doctor mistrusts in RTD1 to this happy band of misfits sort with some whacky almost comic-booky characters such as the Vlinx or Morris.

It just feels like a massive missed opportunity and makes the Doctor’s statement that Ruby made him start talking about family differently feel completely hollow! Maybe if there’d been an episode where they had a massive argument about family but by the end of the series Ruby had proved to the Doctor that it was right to go searching for your family, then I’d have believed that. The entire series just felt a bit too cosy for me and actually made me less invested in the Doctor and Ruby’s relationship than if they’d been through some conflict with each other and came out stronger on the other side.

Just wondering what everybody else thinks about this kinda cosy tone?