On Confidential and the podcast, RTD talked a bit about BBC budget cuts and how the production team were under pressure to save money. It sounds like the Steven Moffat era will have a lot less money to spend per episode than the last few years.

Could we return to the terrible 80’s with cheap sets and special effects? That would ruin the show for me.

I dont think so and they also filmed in Croatia and changed the look of it aswell to look like the 19th century and RTD said on a Commentry that he was jealous of them and phoned up someone and asked why we couldnt go there he was slightly joking but i have seen pictures and there are clips of it in the trailer for series 5 and it looks good so i dont think they will have much trouble.

It would never return to the cheapness of the 1980s. But if the stories are strong enough they can get away with very few special effects. Look at the recent stories hailed as greats, 'Midnight', 'Blink'... they had relatively few effects. I would welcome some proper storytelling as opposed to overblown CGI, too much music and running around. But then I'm probably out of touch with the kids today.

As far as I'm concerned, the stories are the important thing, not the effects. I suspect that most of those who mock the 'cheapness' of the eighties weren't around in the eighties and are viewing those stories from a modern perspective, which is somewhat unfair.

Nah, I was watching from the 1970s and only slate the 1980s Doctor Who in comparison to the golden years of the mid 1970s.

i agree with this. when the dalek floated up the stairs in rememberance i was mezmorised lol

The opening shot of Trial of a Time Lord was one of the best pieces of FX work seen on TV at that point. It still looks great, today. If this sort of stuff hadn't been pioneered in the eighties, modern FX technology wouldn't exist.

I didn't read this myself, but someone said this when I expressed a similar opinion. Midnight was not the budget episode one might think. Not much CGI, but filming in such a confined space required a lot of takes to get the required angles and, unlike most episodes, required all the actors (except CT, of course) to be there for the whole time.