New Doctor Who Series Discussion *Spoilers*

You're just being greedy now, 8 parts like The Invasion was just right :lol

Yeah I saw the Ice Warrior photo too, my natural assumption was Sea Devils as, well, they live in the sea, if they're bringing back more classic monsters can we start the petition here for the Zygons!!! :thumbsup
 
Yes! I've wanted the Ice Warriors back for a while. Very creepy 2nd Doctor villains. :D

No! :)

I never got the ice warriors as a threat. Just watching them I kept thinking, why run away? Just walk - they couldn't even walk at a normal speed. I guess those suits were way to restrictive or something. Just go a few steps out and make a hard right and it'll take them 30-40 seconds to adjust :) Repeat one or two times and you've lost them - or you can get behind them for an easy take down shot :)
 
I wish they'd return to the old format of 4x25 minute episodes to a story, gives you a chance to actually build some tension and develop characters, but I'm just old fashioned and thats ok :lol

Absolutely not!

First of all, even the best four-parters from the classic series felt like they should have been edited down to about 35-40 minutes. There was a LOT of "filler" in those episodes and I didn't think it "built tension" nor did it "develop characters". Those episodes where a LOT slower and there was a lot of back-and-fourth re-covering old ground just to explain to the audience what they figured out 15 minutes into the first episode. Sneak onto the spaceship, escape the spaceship, get captured and re-brought onto the spaceship only to escape, then re-sneak back on for the final moments.

Second of all, a four-episode block is about equivalent to a 2-part modern episode (time wise) - and we all know how well they do with 2-parters. There's an occasional good 2-part episode, but most of them are single episodes stuffed with extras to increase their length. In the rare moments when there's a GOOD 2-part episode, the extra time usually means they take a nose-dive into some fan-wank territory.

To be perfectly honest, there are plenty of single-part episodes that feel too long.

Let's not even delve into the Tennant "movies"...

Maybe if they had a good season arc similar to "The Key to Time", they could make all 13 episodes seem like one long story, but they haven't had a really good season arc in the New Who - most of the arcs seem merely "tacked on".

Initially, my gut tells me to agree with Orange_Blend and call for 20-24 episodes, but I'm a little cautious about what we'd get. I would be worried that the quality would suffer and we'd have a higher ratio of "bad" episodes to "good" episodes. I know it's subjective, but, on average, we get 2-3 terrible episodes, 3-4 great episodes, and the rest fall somewhere between "decent" and "good". They would probably be safe upping the number of episodes to 16 though.

Editor's Note: A "bad" episode of Doctor Who is still better than "good" episodes of a lot of other TV shows. I don't want to make it sound like I'm implying the show is terrible, what I am talking about is all relative to Doctor Who itself, not the whole of TV.
 
Haha, I said 'I wish' don't panic its not going to actually happen, I only say it as I remember being genuinely excited as to what would happen in the next episode and I just don't get that anymore sadly, as soon as I hear the 'the doctors figured it all out' incidental music I know that's pretty much the end of that story.
 
(y)thumbsup:thumbsup

Biggest problem I'm having. The Doctor is all about saving the world without us ever knowing we were in peril. It's gotten a bit silly now with alien invasions becoming common place to see on the news.

We need UNIT in here to tighten **** up!

Didn't we have a few timey-wimey wobbly effects by now that made the public forget most of these events ever happened ?
 
Didn't we have a few timey-wimey wobbly effects by now that made the public forget most of these events ever happened ?

Yes. Sort of. It depends on the need of the story.

If the episode needs people to gasp in wonderment that aliens exist, then yes - timey-wimey things happened and "OMG! Aliens! This is the biggest discovery in the history of man!".

If the episode calls for people to remember, then "OMG! I remember the Daleks! They totally stole the whole planet!"
 
Haha, I said 'I wish' don't panic its not going to actually happen, I only say it as I remember being genuinely excited as to what would happen in the next episode and I just don't get that anymore sadly, as soon as I hear the 'the doctors figured it all out' incidental music I know that's pretty much the end of that story.

The sense of excitement likely came from the cliffhanger endings between shows. Doctor or companion in a vulnerable/about to hurt/killed spot, the final blow is in motion and .................... to be continued next week.

I agree with what's above. A lot of those old multiple parters were too long. Especially early on. Those 6-7 part shows only needed about 3 parts, but it was the transition to TV for them. You couldn't do stuff like show someone search a room on the radio, so in the show, they'd search a room for too long a time because they could. Things like that. Even when they got the pacing down for TV, there was still too much extra. What got me is that frequently, that extra time could have been much more well spent doing something else.
 
I don't recall anything so blatant at Big Ben getting smashed in the classic series... ;):lol

Cymbermen in the sewers? Dinosaurs running around? Shop Mannequins killing people?
That's just off the top of my head.

I don't think we need less of the big invasion/rampaging monster stories... it's just that they seem to always happen on Earth in the present day in nu-Who. I've been watching classic Who lately and (after the 1st Doc's pattern of historical one week and sci-fi the next) the Tardis crew could go months without seeing Earth and were lucky to see the present day at all.
We need more alien planets for the Doctor to be saving, get him away from the human race for a while.
 
Cymbermen in the sewers? Dinosaurs running around? Shop Mannequins killing people?
That's just off the top of my head.

Dang! I was going to mention the dinosaurs! As I recall, the Daleks didn't make quite the show they did in the New Who, but they didn't hide in the shadows either.
 
Cymbermen in the sewers? Dinosaurs running around? Shop Mannequins killing people?
That's just off the top of my head.

Cybermen in the sewers were concealed, Dino's could be explained through science, Shop Mannequins were localized.

I'm talking about an alien spaceship smashing into London's most prominent landmark in broad daylight to the terror of millions worldwide. ;)

I don't think we need less of the big invasion/rampaging monster stories... it's just that they seem to always happen on Earth in the present day in nu-Who. I've been watching classic Who lately and (after the 1st Doc's pattern of historical one week and sci-fi the next) the Tardis crew could go months without seeing Earth and were lucky to see the present day at all.
We need more alien planets for the Doctor to be saving, get him away from the human race for a while.

Amen. If you're going to do the Earth invasion thing at least do it in the future. You get away with a lot more then.
 
Dang! I was going to mention the dinosaurs! As I recall, the Daleks didn't make quite the show they did in the New Who, but they didn't hide in the shadows either.

Ya, Dino's didn't involve aliens though. ;)

Daleks were very prominent but only in episodes that took place in the future IIRC. When it was present day they were hidden or at least very localized. That gives plausible deniability and UNIT can sweep up the mess.
 
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