The current structure runs at 13 episodes including at least 1 two-parter + a Christmas special, mostly 45 minutes and extended for certain episodes.

Should this be rethought? Could we knock 15 minutes of the episodes and extend the run.

Could we have more two, three, four parters before moving on to a completely new story - taking out the need for the yearly story arc.
Soap opera fans are able to follow long series, why not whovians?

Personally, I like it the way it is. But that's just me.

Whovians can follow long series, but the general public won't necessarily.

Every series of NuWho to date has coantined 3-two parters not one, and sometimes the single episode before the finale two-parter links directly into the episode. which gives around 6-7 episodes out ouf the series which are part of mujltiple episodes, which equates to around half te series and i think this is a good balance throughout the series.

Also i belive half hour episodes would be too short for todays audience whou would seem to preffer hour episodes.

That's how it was before it disappeared. Television watching habits have changed. It wouldn't work in this day-and-age.

Besides, the format it's in appeals to kids (I'm not saying it's a kids show, but to have it classed as family viewing the kids need to be interested). With the style of other kids shows being the same, I doubt it would change any time soon. It's the format they have been brought up on, so it will stay that way.

Question is "Why?"

Is it because the viewing public couldn't cope? Or because it wouldn't suit the Networks?

The later I can accept. The former I would dispute.

I'm more concerned by the rather repetitive structure of the series', in particular the first few episodes. Almost every series since 2005 has begun with a story set on contemporary Earth, then in the next few weeks had one space based story, one historical, then a two parter; two filler episodes, then a two parter (usually the series' 'dar' story); another filler episode (usually the Doctor lite story), then a story that leads in to a two part finale. The structure never varies much, though the position of the token historical sometimes shifts back or forward an episode. Can't we have a bit more variety? Maybe start with a two parter for a change! Just something different!

It wouldn't draw the kids as much - they have been brought up on the current format of television, changing that dramatically (which it would be for them) would lessen their interest.

But I personally think it's more to do with the latter myself, too.


I second this! I'd love a two-parter starter. That could be feasible for the next series, as we have the same Doc/companion for the first time next year. Let's start the campaign...

I wouldnt mind 30 min episodes and 18 eps ayear with 9 2 parters

I agree with the above posts in that it'd be nice to have a different structure within the series itself. Think 45 mins is just about right. It is the standard time for series like Who. Merlin is the same as was Robin Hood. Like the idea the finales are longer. That is a good thing.

Apparently the idea of splitting the series in two was considered by the BBC this year.

If they did go that route in future you could end up with 2 seperate story arcs per year.

Although the basic time is 45 minutes, a couple of this series are going to have been longer, and many of the episodes have been largely tied up by the 35 minute mark.

I personally would be quite taken with the idea of 9 or 10 episodes of around 35 minutes from Easter each year, and a further 9 or 10 episodes of the same length in September, leading in to the Christmas special.

Whilst in theory the cost associated with more episodes might make this difficult, if you have more two parters, then really you're just splitting an episode of an hour into two, and there ought to be a cost saving.

I don't want to see DW as a soap, or on all year round, but I think for it to only be on TV for 25% of the year as one of the BBC's biggest brands is crazy. I also think it needs to be on at a fixed time, and not simply moved around the schedule on the basis that people will watch it whenever it turns up. My overall impression has been that this series has been marketed, once it started, pretty poorly, which is a shame.

How many think 'new who' would work under the old format of 4 x 25 min episodes and five or six seperate stories per series?

I don't think shorter episodes would work. For what I've seen on the episode threads more people seem to want longer episodes, to allow a little more characterisation and more explanation of plot points

No, i think it would be too difficult to follow one story over 4 weeks when most of your audience are casual saturday tea-time viewers.

I can think of no other programe which does that now-adays.

And yet those casual Saturday teatime viewers had no difficulty in following a story for six, eight or even twelve weeks forty years ago. Have our attention spans really become so short?

Those viewers wouldn't be enough to keep it going... 80's Who, anyone?

Nowadays the casual viewer really doesn't have that long an attention span. It's an 'I want it NOW!' world unfortunately...

But in the 80s the BBc were trying to kill it off with poor scheduling and poor-quality stories and plots. The second point in your post is,however,true unfortunately.

Agree about the timeslot, and if they had the budget of US shows, maybe they could do more episodes at the current length. But they don't. It's a trope - British Brevity.

Having watched a couple of kids watch weekly series (some by the BBC) I'd dispute that too. Kids are perfectly able to follow stories that take place across many weeks. indeed such stories may be ideally suited to them.

I think too much is made of the supposed short attention span of the console/internet generation. If they aren't given lengthier content we can't expect much from them can we?

No, but there are ten times the number of channels, five times the number of other types of media competing for attention, and most households have less regimented evening routines.

I think the structure is fine but I'd love for it to move back to the Autumn.

Interesting this debate as there is also a debate going on about whether DW is a children's show or not.
If you look at what I consider to be "real" children's shows, which are made just for children and generally transmitted in the traditional late afternoon "children's TV" time, it's extremely rare to find any programme more than 25 minutes long, which used to be the nominal length of DW episodes until the 1980s.
Children were reckoned not to have the attention span even for 30 minute shows, and the fact that they came around to considering that 45 minute episodes were OK for DW for me reinforces the idea that the programme planners didn't then consider it to be a show exclusively for children.

I like it as it is and definitely would not want the episodes to be shorter. I like the two parters and think some of the one parters needed longer than 45 minutes.

Yep. I remember those. I remember missing several episodes too. And we didn't have video recorders back then. It didn't matter because the same story was still being told when you watched the following week. Every episode ended in a cliffhanger. (Which was solved or escaped from within two minutes of the start of the next episode.) So missing an episode made no difference to my enjoyment back then.
The big problem was that it was over almost before it had begun. Taking title music and end credits into account and subtracting the first two minutes which were a repeat of the last two minutes of the previous week there was probably only about twenty minutes of new story a week in the earliest episodes.
These days I want more. Not less.