To be fair, so has RTD outside of the SCI-FI genre.

We are ALWAYS behind the drag curve on technology in this country
Stereo radio & NICAM stereo on TV all arrived here much later than the USA

Are you sure about the major network thing? I know it's been decades since a British show was shown by a US network during prime time, but don't they have things like Saturday mornings to fill and, with the shift to HD, less incentive to rest on archive material rather than buy something cheap from abroad? I don't know, just speculating. It's not a sector I've ever worked in or a country I've ever visited...

I'll wager that kicking off in SD was for budget reasons. The huge success that the show has been was never assured, especially if you look at the otherwise moribund state of Saturday evening drama in 2004 and the bad taste left by the fag end of 80s' Who.

EDIT: after a quick check, Scrubs has always been shot onto Super16 film, with shots that are suitable for widescreen viewing. So it could probably be remastered to proper HD quite easily, though I guess it depends on what they did during editing.

I'll take your word for it, I don't think I've ever seen anything else he's ever written. But the quality of the writing in shows like Moffat's Coupling is streets ahead of any RTD script I've yet seen, or of about 75% of current TV for that matter.

Right, but the US market stuck with 4:3 until HD came along, and famously took years to take to texting.

RTD has Queer as folk under his belt which although not appealing to everyone, has been given due credit.

Yep, that's what I meant - that Doctor Who hasn't been shown on a big network in the US and that being in SD from 2005 made any such sale a tall order.

Hence why, if they want any chance of popularising the new series around the world, now that it is filmed in HD, they'll have to cut ties with close references to better their chances. It's also good for the brand for a whole - I don't think I'd have personally committed to a new series with RTD as the exec.

The BBC was very restricted on the budget for the first series of DW. Back then HD CGI and set design costs would have been a huge risk without knowing how well or not the show would fair. If you want to blame anyone, start with the public charter imposed budget cuts and the headliners who frequently blame the BBC in retrospect for spending our 'TV tax'. They'd have been out in full force if an initial high spending HD DW had received below average viewers.

Haha ridiculous!

If RTD was as insecure as some of fandom like to think, he probably wouldn't have left.

One of my favourite forum words!

The HD issue has been explained many times by RTD et al. It wouldn't have been possible to produce 13 episodes every year in HD, as all the effects would have taken so much longer to produce. It was possible with Torchwood as there were nowhere near as many effects per episode.

When Moffat's been on Confidential he's always seemed very keen on making sure that channel-hoppers can jump in mid-episode, never mind mid-series. I really don't think there's much risk of the show disappearing up its own backside. There'll always be some references to the past though - you need to reward faithful viewers a bit plus it can cut down on repetition (do we really want to have Daleks and regeneration explained to us every five years?).

The Angels certainly had an impact on my nephew who is now 6 and a half years old. Even now when we go into Newcastle City Centre on the bus, he insists on not blinking as we approach the Haymarket (there's a statue by the Metro Station with a huge angel at the top). Truthfully in my 43 years, I hadn't even noticed the statue until he pointed it out.

I was never a fan of the old Dr Who's, but have enjoyed the new stuff since it returned with CE. I loved DT as the Doctor and will miss him. My nephew said he will not watch the new MS Doctor as it's not DT.

I am looking forward to the new MS Doctor and I loved his line "I'm a girl" and his voice being high pitched when he said it.

My nephew is now looking forward to the MS Doctor after seeing the trailer. Just shows how quickly kids change their mind.

With SM at the helm, I'm sure we are in for a treat regardless of how RTD left off. I'm sure SM and RTD discussed the details previously.

It's been explained in the past that quotes for HD-quality CGI effects (from The Mill) in 2005 were more expensive than for SD. Likely, a typical negotiating strategy back then was "If you give us x budget, we'll give you HD, if you don't have that to play with, we'll do it for y in SD".

For HD quality set design, naturally, they would have required a bigger budget or less locations.

It would have been great to have a HD Doctor Who from the start, but when your main financial backer is the BBC, with the BBC trust making them cut budgets left right and centre, expectations are only go so far.

I got the impression that they could have gone HD a bit earlier but because they'd had such a hassle doing Torchwood in HD they decided to wait a bit. The specials were probably a good time to change over because making fewer episodes would have given them more time for training and such.