I've always believed that there is, for the most part, no bad idea for a story, just a poor way of telling it. I recently came across a series of posts on Tumblr by a person who seemed to have a similar train of thought and applied it to the game "Beyond: Two Souls", taking the basic premise of the game's story, changed a few things up as well as adding in their own ideas, and turning what was a brain cell killing story into something I would have honestly would have greatly enjoyed to play.

Doctor Who has had many stories, ask anyone and they'll give you stories that they think are perfect ("The Holy Terror" for me), and ones they think are some of the worst things ever written ("The Stolen Earth/Journey's End" is basically a canon fanfic).

What are some of your least favorite stories? Now, how could they be better? If you were to be handed the script of that story before filming, what kind of changes would you have made to it, in order to turn it from something just godawful, into something you wouldn't mind watching again, or hell, maybe something even good.?

Here are a few, just what I can think of at the moment. What are listed below are not my worst episodes, just those where I can identify coherently the changes I would personally make to improve them. To be honest most of my worst ones I would just write 'irredeemable' which is not really constructive for conversation so here are the ones that I can think of ways to improve.

End of time:
Would have had the timelords arrive much sooner, definitely by the end of part 1 at least, scrap the whole 'master race' thing and just go from doctor chasing master part at the start, to master finding the timelord 'whitepoint star' whilst in the wastelands then breaking into a lab or somewhere similar to hook it up to the technology needed to use it to bring the timelords through

Then when they are actually there, have them actually doing something rather than just standing in one spot like ornaments and then leaving again, instead have them running around possibly enslaving/attempting to wipe out humans so that they can claim earth as a new gallifrey (add line that whitepoint star link is too weak to bring the whole of gallifrey through).

From there keep last 30 mins or so the same. Doctor finds a way to send Timelords back to time war and then has to in some way sacrifice himself to save wilf. I would personally keep the 'goodbye tour' and subsequent regeneration the same as to me they are the best part of the episode as it currently is.


Time of angels/flesh and stone
Simply use something other than the crack to show the doctor defeating the angels. that way it becomes a self contained story and there aren't issues or possible confusion with the ep when at the end of the series the cracks are vanished yet river does the angels ep after that. I feel as it is the crack element tarnishes an otherwise great ep after you have watched the series finale.

Series 5 Finale
Include an explanation as to who blew up the TARDIS and have it so that when everything seems fine and done and Amy, Rory and the doctor are at the wedding, have that person burst in intending to kill the doctor outright after there plan is foiled, then have a final tense stand off between the doctor and villain. This way the series arc and finale itself is fully self contained and more satisfying.

I think the only one I genuinely didn't like of the New Who lot so far is Fear Her.

Immediately, the first thing I would do is cast a child who was capable of acting. I think that would certainly improve it no end.

As for story, I think it was a little wishy-washy with its atmosphere. It needed to focus more on the drabness of the non-descript middle-class street. Possibly including a couple of other characters who were written to be manically dull - with their lives and what they talk about being incredibly dull, but layered over bitter frustration. With this, I would probably take out an awful lot of the exposition from the creature channeling the child - it was a lot of unecessary gumf. Finally, the menace needed to be stronger - specifically the father in the cupboard.

I know this was a last minute episode, so none of this could have been changed in time. But I really wish we'd not had to settle for a very lacklustre episode.

Aliens of London/World War Three

I would get rid of the Slitheen and replace them with the Zygons. No need for zip up costumes (were we really supposed to believe a Slitheen was under those?) when you have a race capable of shape-shifting. There would have been no UFO crashing into Westminster Tower, no anthropomorphic pigs and above all no fart gags.

I would have the UFO crashing into somewhere more remote where it scarcely gets noticed. UNIT are almost immediately on the scene to cover it up. As a result a modern day Roswell is created on British soil. While the speculation begins the Zygons prepare to unleash their latest deadly plan and it is up to The Doctor and UNIT to put a stop to them once again.

I also would have used the opportunity to bring back The Brig in the main show. Perhaps he is pulled out of retirement at The Doctor's request after he fails to get any sense out of the modern day UNIT.

Paradise Towers

Yep, I could make changes galore to this story!

1) Cast someone with a more serious acting background as the Chief Caretaker. Nothing against Richard Briers, was fab in The Good Life and Ever Decreasing Circles, but he wasn't right for this role. With someone less comedic we could have had someone with serious menace in this role like Kane was in Dragonfire later in the Season

2) The Kangs- I would keep the different coloured kangs but dispose of the awful gang speak dialogue they were given. It is horrendous and almost spoken like a kid under ten. I hate it and I think it could have been better.

3) The Cannibalistic Old Ladies- Either I'd get shot of them completely or if I didn't I'd give them more serious dialogue and like the caretaker, really make them menacing. I'd still make them nice to begin with but change the dialogue and make them sweeter to make the change to cannibals more alarming.

4)The toys in the pool-yeah, supposedly deadly but like rubber ducks in a bath. I'd make them more invisible to add some terror to the pool!

5)Mel-Tone down her dialogue to make it theatrical or better still, get shot of her altogether!

6) Incidental music-Just plain awful! I'd bring back Dudley Simpson!

7)Pex-Again, change his dialogue to invoke more sympathy than the stupid lines he was lumbered with.

8) The set-I'd just totally redo it! Don't know how, but I would!

FEAR HER
The absolute epitome of dull. I'm sure he's a very nice man, but Matthew Graham as a writer seems to suck the life and soul out of any scenario and makes it duller than dishwater. Granted he didn't have much to work with here given that most of Series 2 was also set in contemporary suburban London, but there are just so few redeeming factors about this story...from the plot, to the acting, to the direction, right down to the music. The sad thing is that Graham's second story (The Rebel Flesh/The Almost People) was similarly dull despite being a fascinating premise. And then there's the irony that a never used script from Matthew Graham revolved around the concept of an alien artefact draining all the life and vibrance and colour out of the world - that concept sounds like what hes given us anyway. Fear Her is a rare example of an episode I feel is beyond help or redemption...I really dont know what could have been done with it.

JOURNEYS END
So The Stolen Earth was a bit of a fanfiction that made it to broadcast but frankly I didn't care... Seeing everyone come together was hugely rewarding, the Daleks were impressively menacing and it was all set up brilliantly - as a double crossover with the two spin-offs no less. But then the conclusion happened and it got all weird - returning to Bad Wolf Bay was dabbling into the fan fantasy too far and Roses exit was just that little bit too...odd. Given the emphasis of the Doctors allies in the story and Series 4, I'd have actually have had The Doctor absent for the majority, recovering from a genuine regeneration which could have been revealed at the episodes end (or not, it'd make an interesting cliffhanger). We could have used The Metacrisis Doctor to give Tennant a role alongside everyone else but give him the spectacular exit rather than a dragged out year off tedious Specials.

THE NEXT DOCTOR
The first twenty or so minutes of this were very good. A great reintroduction for the Cybermen with that eerie graveyard scene, a fascinating villain in Miss Hartigan and a fun and interesting mystery in the apparent future Doctor. Despite hints of quality later the story meanders until it becomes an overblown, explosive mess. It worked better as an intimate, small story and should have stayed that way. The Cyberking was the last straw and the whole episode was a mixture of pointless and boring...more so as it went on.

THE END OF TIME
Perhaps the biggest mess of all, in my opinion. The whole of Part 1 was pointless, Catherine Tate's comeback was nothing more than a frustrating tease, the mid-story cliffhanger was an unfunny joke and The Masters plot was just plain unnecessary. For all the promise, this story couldn't ever have hoped to live up to the hype surrounding it but what's worse is that it was generally a poor effort all round. As Tennant's final story especially.

FLESH AND STONE
This one is simple. Don't undermine the in-demand scary Weeping Angels by making them play second fiddle to a crack in the wall in their comeback story.

A GOOD MAN GOES TO WAR
Also simple. Don't hype a major story like this that sees The Doctors "darkest hour" and then surround him with characters we've never seen before but are expected to care about because we're told The Doctor HAS seen them before. You either go the effort of writing in new characters, or go to the effort of getting back old actors. You can't have neither way.

THE WEDDING OF RIVER SONG
Yet again very simple. Don't tease a story arc across a whole series (and half a year!) and then deviate around a solution until you come up with the most disappointing rubbish you can think of. Don't give us a 90 minute opener, a 90 minute middle and then only 45 minutes to wrap it all up.

THE DOCTOR, THE WIDOW ETC.
I should first point out that we begin with a Doctor who has recently said he has gotten too noisy and needs to quieten down...so naturally here we're blowing up a Spaceship above late Thirties Earth in explosive fashion. No proper companion, pathetic attempts to tie in with CS Lewis that only convolutes the plot, wasted guest stars and a dull and inconsequential story. Like Fear Her, I'm not sure there's a way to make this good - it's an episode that just shouldn't have happened.

DINOSAURS ON A SPACESHIP
I like a good laugh but this was more annoying than funny...mainly because it just wasn't funny. More problematic still is that we are again made to accept that The Doctor just knows the people in his "gang". Once again the writer gets to make unfunny jokes about golf balls and stupid games of fetch with a Triceratops and wrongly call the flying reptiles Pterodactyls...but he doesn't have to bother actually introducing characters.

THE POWER OF THREE
Aside from being quite dull, the resolution to this episode is its major failing. A mix of nonsensical, rushed and failing to live up to expectation it wonderfully represents a lot of Series 7. The problem is that there isn't really anything that feels it should be cut down...there is just too much here for 45 minutes. Though there isn't enough for 90 minutes either.

THE BELLS OF SAINT JOHN
Described as an urban thriller? Well aside from the plane scene there was very little in the way of action about it. But to make this better I think the confrontation between The Doctor and his foe should last a bit longer than 30 seconds. Rushed and disappointing once again.

JOURNEY TO THE CENTRE OF THE TARDIS
Aside from yet another awful spoof title, this is just something I dont feel should be done. Not because they will necessarily always be done quite this badly but because some things are just better left a mystery.

NIGHTMARE IN SILVER
My problem with this aside from the annoying kids was the Cybermen. Theres no sense of plot or wonder when the Cybermen are just capable of upgrading to manage anything. Set some parameters and boundaries, and for the love of god give the lovely Jenna Coleman a consistent character to work with!

THE DAY OF THE DOCTOR
A controversial one I'm sure, but when you have all the infinite potential of time travel why the hell resign yourself to a multi-Doc special that rewrites the established order and only sees one Doctor properly come back. This just disappointed me on every level.

Yes, Dudley Simpson's music in DW was excellent!

I've just started watching series 4 of Blake's 7 on dvd, having watched the other three before that. I've never seen series 4 before, but I've been told that the ending is a shocker.

Dudley Simpson does the music on that, even the theme tune. I'm onto episode 5 later tonight, so I'm almost half-way through.

I thought, when watching it last night, that the music sounds a lot like the music from DW during the Leela and Romana days in the late 70s.

I think Paddy Kingsland's piece during Tom's Doctor's regeneration was composed well, too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_WSezfjs9o

THE TIME OF THE DOCTOR
Time of the Doctor was a decent enough story, IMO, but I feel Matt Smith deserved a slightly better send off.
First and foremost, I'd have gotten rid of the multitude of enemies; Daleks, Cybermen, Sontarans and Weeping Angels and replaced them with one enemy. Deciding who this enemy would be is actually quite difficult. The Daleks seem the sensible option as they played the biggest role, but there's something about the Daleks being in two unrelated episodes in a row which doesn't sit well with me. Regardless, I think having only one enemy as opposed to many is better as it allows for more development of that enemy. Perhaps a new villain would have worked just as well.


I wouldn't have made Trenzalore a quaint Christmas themed village. I'd have made Trenzalore a lot more impressive and imposing; somewhere you could easily imagine being the site of great battle and the Doctor's grave. If I were to still keep the Christmas theme, I'd have made it look more steam-punk; sort along the lines of the planet from A Christmas Carol.

I think I'd keep Tasha Lem and the church, and they'd play a similar role as ended up playing in the actual episode, complete with explanation of the Kovarian sect for the sake of completeness. I'm not sure how I'd handle the actual Silent creatures. I liked the idea of the Doctor fighting alongside the Silence as allies, but I think if I were to keep them in the story, I'd have to have an idea to make them a lot less pointless than they ended up being.

I'd also keep the plot points concerning the truth field, Gallifrey behind the crack, and the question.

However, the thing which annoys me most about this episode is that we are expected to believe that the Doctor spend hundreds of years on one planet which amounts to almost half his life. I'd not do this. Instead I'd have the Doctor send Clara away just as he did in the actual episode. However, instead of returning hundreds of years later, only a year or two would pass before she returned. By this stage the truce is breaking down and Trenzalore is heading for all-out war. The Doctor can see no solution to the problem; if he answers the question, the Time War begins again but he can't bear to see Trenzalore destroyed so he chooses to fight to the death. Instead of dying of old age, I'd have some event which kills him. Perhaps this could happen in Clara's absence so by the time Clara returns, the Doctor can reveal to her that his time is running out and that he can no longer regenerate. The Doctor tries to send Clara home again, but she manages to stay and plead with the Time Lords who then give the Doctor a new regeneration cycle, just as it happened in the actual episode. Receiving his new regenerations reinvigorates the Doctor and he decides to fight his destiny, change the future and save Trenzalore. He comes up with a new plan to defeat his foes, gives one of his trademark speeches and defeats them without using huge blasts of regeneration energy (perhaps the crack could be involved with Clara pleading with the Time Lords providing the inspiration for this plan).
The episode would end with Clara returning to the TARDIS and The Eleventh Doctor's final scenes unfolding much as they actually did. The regeneration however would be much more like Eccleston's, Hurt's and Tennant's; slower, more gradual and with significantly better CGI than the crap we actually got
Finally I'd end by giving Capaldi a little bit more time to make an impression.

Definitely a very rough outline of how I'd have improved this episode, but the general ideas are all there.

I don't think there's a single episode that's truly bad - even my least favourite episodes have a lot of good in them - but there's a few episodes I really like that I think should have been classics in a parallel universe.

I think S6 needed a little more symmetry. I'd have completely up-ended Closing Time. The Lodger was brilliant, and Craig was a revelation, but Closing Time ended up as a bit of a diminishing return, in my eyes. The Doctor fights Cybermen with Craig is a stopgap - the Doctor fights Cybermen with Canton feels a bit more essential, and with his ties to The Impossible Astronaut it'd give a chance to lay in some story stuff. Not too thick, but just to take some of the pressure off The Wedding of River Song, and give the illusion of a two-parter.

There's a great story to be told about an Astronaut that Would Not Stop for Death, and the clever way the Doctor tricks it, but The Wedding of River Song had too much to cram in. I'd make it so that the spacesuit runs off Time Lord energy, and it's gradually killing River. Oh, it helps to have a pliant pilot, but the spacesuit just needs her to be alive, she's ultimately just a battery, and it'll cripple her if it keeps going. She can't stop, she can't give up - so the Doctor, seeing her suffering, gives himself up. The Doctor is dead, the Silence free River, mission accomplished, and she realises - he's done her a favour! The silly man she'd been brought up to hate has saved her from the Silence, twice, now, and the Silence would have killed her. Everything she'd been brought up to believe was wrong, etc. etc., then - "Hello, sweetie." The Doctor, he survived, Teselecta, kerboom.

That's just an example - pure fanfiction! I do love the Wedding of River Song we got, I think it's a really fun episode for what it is and way more of a classic than what I've suggested, but I think there's a lot of potential in the S6 arc that never quite got realised. A lot of stories that could have been. I think a slower burning plot could work better than the breakneck chaos, and I think giving Closing Time to Canton would allow them to lay a lot of the groundwork without necessarily making the finale into a proper two-parter.

Yeah, because you're a better writer than Steven Moffat...

To be more than fair they never said that at all. People are entitled to give their opinions on how they would improve an episode if it were up to them, and the likes of Moffat are not perfect anyway. I've thought about many episodes and how I would have improved elements of them, it doesn't mean I'm having a particular dig at a writer, especially if I've done it in an appropriate thread...now where's that roll eyes smiley

I never said I was.
I thought I could enter into the spirit of this thread and answer the question the OP made without getting abuse from other forum members.
Guess I was wrong. Never doing that again.

Oh, don't let the likes of Tom Tit put you off. He's, well, let's say, exceptional.

Admittedly, the title of the thread is a little confrontational (getting into what is 'good' or 'bad' will always bring out the contrary), but it's still an interesting 'what if?' experiment. It also brings out interesting elements of why things were written that way in the first place.

I can certainly see why you feel the way you do about the elements in Matt's swansong that you'd change - I too initially felt that the Doctor spending as long on Trenzalore as all the life we've seen until now was a bit cheap - but I can kind of see why they went down that route. Given that it was his 'last' regeneration, which monster would you give that honour to? It would truly be a deus ex machina - one of his sworn enemies finally succeeds in killing him for good, and the Time Lords swoop in and undo it.

Instead, we got the Doctor choosing death on his own terms - dying in his success (at protecting the town) rather than his failure. The Doctor has lost battles before, but he should never lose the war. I also like the idea of the last few series introducing the idea of the Doctor becoming comfortable with the idea of having a home, and having a family, and re-accepting his people, given ultimate expression in choosing to stop running.

I often find watching Blake 7 is like watching the Graham Williams Era of Doctor Who. The sets, the music, the actors, all very samey. Won't say much about the ending but yes, it sure is dramatic.

I said about changing the incidental music for Paradise Towers, I'd change it for all the stories in the McCoy Era except possibly Ghost Light and Survival where for once it wasn't overblown and so intrusive. I would have kept the earlier incidental composers of Davison's Era, they didn't do a bad job.

Just a note on Time and The Doctor. I, too, would have changed that ending so we had a decent regeneration. It wasn't an awful story by any means but it's impact was completely lost by the sudden changeover. I would follow Matt Smith's brilliant last speech with a fully seen changeover similar to the Tennant one previously. That would have been an ideal way to end that story.

The End Of Time itself I would change too. Shorten it by 15 minutes, speed it up to give it a sense of being a Swansong and then add the regeneration on after The Doctor has had his dose of radiation. I'd definitely get rid of the goodbye tour but would keep Donna's wedding in as that was a nice touch to end her storyline with.

Yep - I don't like the title at all, and I still slightly regret participating under that header, but the fun of rwebsterring up some Doctor Who episodes won out. I think Steven Moffat and Gareth Roberts are brilliant, but I also think, as long as you're not too cocky about it, it's a fun way of engaging with a text. Everyone would do something differently.

Well, I was an arse in this case and I'll apologize. Thesilentfez did nothing more than participate in the thread as it was presented. When you read a certain amount of online commentary you do get to the point where you grow tired of untested amateurs of dubious talent picking apart other people's work, but that's my problem, no-one is making me read it, and I'm sure I've done it as much as anybody.

For the sake of fairness, I will address the thread topic too. I always felt more could have been done with 'The Girl Who Waited'. Now, I do actually like the episode but it did strike me that it could have been a really interesting 'high concept' episode. I didn't have a problem with the script itself; it was a very good 45 minutes in the Doctor Who formula and the twist of having the Doctor deceive the Ponds and lock old Amy out of the TARDIS was a brave one. But I could kind of see a different Doctor Who episode there, in potential, that could have been a very moving, hard Sci-Fi story. I don't know how exactly I would have written it; I couldn't really get a handle on that unless I actually sat down and undertook the task. That's how I work through my ideas usually, by simply doing it. But I could see a different story grown from the same idea of Amy being trapped in a zone with time moving at different speeds.

I couldn't, in fairness, objectively say my story would have been 'better' as it would certainly have been less mainstream and quite possibly would have bored a lot of the casual audience, as it would not have been very action packed and would have had a lot of dialogue. It would have had a reflective, melancholy tone, and would have taken the audience through a lot of Amy Pond's life (including little Amelia and so on) simultaneously with her non-life in the quarantine chamber.

As briefly as I can describe it: Rory and the Doctor would periodically (from Amy's perspective) 'visit' her through the viewscreen, similarly to how they did in the actual episode, and they would tell Amy that they were working on freeing her. In actual fact though, Amy had lived and died within a space of about an hour in their time before the Doctor could solve the problem of freeing her, and was beyond rescue, being already long dead. Rory would be progressively older, but through some technology of the Doctor's he would always look the same age to Amy so that she did not suspect. Rory was in fact coming back to the chamber over and over, at incremental intervals every year of his life, perhaps on their wedding anniversary to talk with his, to him, dead wife. And every time he would pretend that the Doctor was working on a way to save her. She would believe that days were passing on Rory's side of the viewscreen, not years.

Of course, as in the episode, Amy would be ageing and throughout we would see flashbacks of her life, from early childhood, the crack, Rory, and the Doctor.

The theme of waiting would be strong, with Amy's only emotional strength coming from waiting on Rory's visits.

Finally, in an emotional speech, a now very old and dying Amy asks Rory that if the Doctor doesn't manage to rescue her (and it now seems unlikely), will he stay there with her, on his side of the viewscreen, to be with her when she dies. And for Rory to go on with his life afterwards. Crying as she does so, she is not looking at the screen. As she gets no response from Rory she looks up and sees Rory, still and silent. Rory, being in actuality very old himself by this point (although believed to be still young by Amy, who is aware of the differing passages of time but not quite aware of the true extent of it) has died, there with his wife.

The Doctor then appears on the viewscreen remorseful and saddened. No tears. He tells Amy that she waited for him again and he never came to her rescue. In tears, Amy tells him that no, he gave her the one thing she wanted: a lifetime spent with Rory, living and dying together. In a mirror of the scene in 'The Big Bang' the Doctor metaphorically sits by Amelia's bedside and reads her a story about 'The Girl Who Waited', narratively touching back upon the flashbacks we have earlier seen, a bedtime story, until Amy 'falls asleep', never to awaken. Tears forming in his eyes, but not weeping (to me, it's more powerful when the Doctor doesn't cry; I think a stiff upper lip suggests strength and is very moving), the Doctor kisses the viewscreen and bids Amelia goodnight and sweet dreams. He puts his hand on Rory's shoulder and says "Good work mate. In all my years traveling the breadth of spacetime you are the first man I have known to spend TWO lifetimes guarding the woman he loved" (or something to that effect). Then, he turns and walks back towards the TARDIS, turning and looking back just once, with his hand held out to turn off the viewscreen with his sonic screwdriver. The last shot we see is of the viewscreen, showing young Amelia Pond (Doctor's eye perspective?), just for a split second, and then it goes blank, turned off by the screwdriver.

This is a very brief encapsulation. I feel there needs to be another level at least to the story (maybe Amy has the robots act out recreations of the scenes from her life, which could be very surreal and lightly amusing and sad. There would be a lot of scenes with the robots like this, to act as emotional counterpoints and stop it from being relentlessly sad and tragic and heavy) and I haven't gone into any detail (as i said, I would need to actually write the thing to put all of the pieces together in my head) about the motifs and resonances but that is the gist of the story I see.

Now, I'm not really sure that would be a broadcastable episode of Doctor Who, and of course, it would see Amy and Rory written out of the show, but I think it could have been a really exceptional, stand out story. But, I do actually like the episode that was broadcast.