The great thing about Doctor Who is it’s done just about everything over the decades. Just about anyone can find something to like. And just about any era has fans.
But that glum crankiness just isn’t for me. The only versions I like less are William Hartnell and Colin Baker’s version on TV. I watch for the goof and the panto and the weirdness. Once it starts taking itself seriously I check out.
I was a moody, lonely, desperate-for-sci-fi 11 year old boy when I came across Series 18, and found its preoccupation with entropy and decay absolutely riveting and revelatory.
But Tom Baker hated that version of Doctor Who. And I like (i.e., desperately wanted to be) Adric. So judge accordingly.