Furthermore, they need a hero that we can relate to and so they need a future that we can comprehend. I think that it is fair to say that any realistic idea of the technology of the year 5 billion would simply look like magic to viewers, as any sufficiently advanced science will. So in what I’m going to call a twist of irony (though it is a dangerous word to use) The Doctor, a Time Lord, is trapped in a world stunted by the imagination of 50 years ago.

Although I have to admit that I find a certain charm when the elements obviously taken out of the original run show turn up in the new seasons. Just personal preference.

RE using time as a weapon…
The reason provided by the show that we don’t see this is that the doctor is highly opposed to using any kind of weapon. He almost always fights the bad guy by turning their own evil plot around. He does, however, reference the fact that both the Time Lords and the Dalecks used time as a weapon during the Time War – creating paradoxes and time loops and the like.

Some of the second doctor. Almost all of the third through the fifth doctor and I have watched a lot of three of the five years of the latest run.

The thing is that they want sweeping stories but have to leave it at a personal mostly mano a mano conflict with the Doctor. Thus the big enemy the Dalecks are somewhat hardened rolling trash cans (now they can fly).

Also, the Doctor virtually never uses time travel itself as a weapon – ala Back to the Future.

It is like teleporters in Star Trek – mainly a story device to get to the desired place for the story.

I cannot think of much fiction where there was any real effort put in by the writer to consider a society that had human equivalent or better AI, full use of nuclear fusion, full molecular nanotechnology and space travel. Full molecular nanotechnology also provides immunity from aging. A society that had all that with a dynamic economy and enabled progress. Usually when a writer has all that the human or alien society ends up being static. At that level and not changing much.