Clara and Paternoster Gang will save continuity in season 8 (and I am very happy for that), just like Rose, her family and the same TARDIS console saved continuity in season 2.

But in season 5, there was nobody to save continuity. Except maybe River, but she made appearance in one episode only during RTD era, so I don't count her.


Crossing eras is very important for me (although I think that we don't need eras at all, change should be progressive, not in some points)

I see where you're coming from, but what would you have done in Series 5? There was no current companion after Donna's departure. Personally just can't see Matt in the old console room, either. It went down in a blaze of glory...

Open to debate, but I guess it was probably the biggest change since Troughton to Pertwee, but I really like Series 5 and Season 7 so I was personally happy.

Edit. Well, Season 7 did have UNIT, of course. And looking at your previous post, I'm with you on the Daleks!

Yes but if you factor in timeshift and iplayer for episodes of RTD when it was available
the ratings are above that of series 5-7.

Ideal would be if Tennant stayed for season 5, but there were many other ways - Martha and Mickey; Doctor's Daughter Jenny; Jack (although I dislike him) were all characters that could return. With a good storyline (timey-wimey etc.), even Donna could return.
Also, enemies - there were many alien species and enemies (Simm's master, family of blood, cat-people, ood...)

And don't get me wrong, I also like seasons 5 and 7 (actually, my favorite seasons are 3, 5 and 7B), and I LOVE Moffat - he was much better writer than RTD, but it doesn't mean that we should renounce all good stuff that RTD wrote. Moffat is brilliant, but he made a huge mistake when he changed everything in one episode (Eleventh Hour)

I agree with a lot of this. Couple of two parters in a series is good. Have one in the middle somewhere then a two part finale. We want a few nail biting cliff hangers. Just to keep us goign untill the next episode. Plus keep it simple arc wise begining,middle,end. So far S8 is looking good. Only a few more weeks and it will be here.

Then the problem here is not the writing, but the availability of the cast. Besides, most of those character were given a specific ending in Russell's stories - it was RTD that gave them a send-off at the end of his last episode, not Moffat at the start of his first.

Ah, and the Ood have already appeared in Eleventh's time, along with the 9/10 Tardis - didn't anyone watch The Doctor's Wife?

It's pointless banging on about ratings, especially in these days of iplayers, catch up and online viewing.
Ratings statistics only give a small part of the picture anyway, and can easily be twisted to suit any argument.
Doctor Who's going down the pan - just look at the ratings!
Doctor Who's a whacking great success - just look at the ratings!

To paraphrase the wonderful Patrick Troughton - A statistic merely enables one to be wrong with authority.

Frequently.

Think this is really what I'm driving at. Doctor Who did not begin with RTD, and in Moffat's era, we've had plenty of call backs to that era, and both have had plenty of call backs to C20 Who....but the show has to keep looking forward as well.

Donna can return any time though. But I'm biased and I know her story had an end inTEOT too. Didn't like it, mind.

In terms of ratings:

1/ over all, they have been mostly consistent across all seven seasons
2/ there has bee a notable drop in overnights over the past three years as more viewers choose to watch the show on iPlayer in the week following its transmission
3/ the BBC is on record stating Doctor Who has the highest percentage of iPlayer/catch-up viewers of any of its shows

It will be interesting to see whether or not the falling overnights figures actually matters.

Simply not true.
I've even gone as far as doing a simple statistical test. I'm sure a trained statistician could carry out a better test, but using A-level Biology statistics, I applied a standard error with 95% confidence limits test to the viewing figures of the most recent series (Series 7) and Series 4.

The mean viewing figures (in millions) are given with their 95% confidence limits:

Series 4: 8.05 ± 0.61
Series 7: 7.44 ± 0.39

If those standard error values about the mean overlap then there is no statistically significant difference in the two mean values.
They do overlap so I can say with 95% confidence that there is no significant difference in the viewing figures between 2008 and now.

That's only Series 4, then. And timeshift is already included in the final figures. Fact of the matter is, everything is fine.

Look at everything on a year-by-year basis. These are the ratings for each years output, Christmas Specials, specials and regular series episodes of Doctor who from 2005 to 2013.

RTD:
2005 - (Series 1 + Christmas Invasion) - 8.05m

2006 - (Series 2 + Runaway Bride) - 7.78m

2007 - (Series 3 + Voyage of the Damned) - 7.96m

2008 - (Series 4 + The Next Doctor) - 8.41m

2009/10 - (Specials year - Planet of the Dead, Waters of Mars, End of Time 1&2) - 10.70m

Moffat:
2010 - (Series 5 + Christmas Carol) - 8.30m

2011- (Series 6 + Doctor, Widow, Wardrobe) - 7.75m

2012/13 - (Series 7 + The Snowmen, Day/Time of the Doctor) - 8.19m
(2012 - 8.28m, 2013 - 8.09m)

So, where's this massive decline?

If anything, Moffat's era on the whole is generally performing slightly stronger than RTD's first 3 series and is doing well to maintain that level of success. And that's backed up in the facts.

The issue is not one of the final figures, but the significant shift away from watching the show live (that is to say, when it is broadcast on Saturday evening) to watching the show days later on iPlayer.

If the show is to continue being the 'gateway' to BBC1's Saturday night schedule then it needs to deliver 6m-7m+ viewers at the beginning of the night. Otherwise, the BBC might just stick it anywhere.

My concern is that the show feels a bit tired and certainly isn't 'must see' telly any more. That's why viewers are becoming more relaxed (perhaps too relaxed) about when they watch each episode.

If I was granted one wish in this world it would be to take the helm of Who (and making it that much better, from what I believe could be improved upon).

Here goes:
i) 2 parters -yes & for about 2/3's of the stories, They work that much better in that they allow just one, potentially great cliff hanger & also allow better pacing/ other characters to develop, (where stories could benefit from this). Old Who got into a regime of finishing season's with the longer story (a 6 parter). Avoid this. Keep the punters guessing (including what's coming up via the net).

ii) Keep it simple, stupid. So what was the peak of Who? Many including me would argue almost every story under Hinchcliffe -the 1st 3 seasons of the 4th Doctor, was just that. If you watch these stories, yes, they borrowed heavily from standard horror stories of the past, reshaped them, but kept them simple and straight forward. The best ones of NuWho, particularly the last 3 series have been the simple, light hearted, stories with no story arc.

iii) Get rid of a lot of the OTT musical accompaniment scores. They just get in the way, There's a wealth of examples from old Who where the music really works & it is not too excessive. e.g.: The Aztecs, The Web of Fear, The Silurians (parts of). Backings that could still work today.

iv) Lose the melodrama (please). The Doctor is more and more a human (and a big girls blouse to boot) with every passing season. I think he needs to get out more, not pick up so many young human girls, maybe go back to his own planet & maybe find another Romana I type. Or better still go and find Romana in E Space, maybe Romana 5 (Romana is only on 5 lives as she doesn't need to battle so many nasty characters via less inter-stella space travelling).

v) Introduce some real spooky "human-like" aliens. I actually think you don't have to spend a fortune to make someone look quite creepy, & often the more they are like us the more creepy. e.g. no hair, no eyebrows, slightly different cheek bones or forehead via very minor prosthetics & slightly different eyes via contact lenses.

vi) Bring back the Master (but avoid Simm at all costs).

I believe they are going to bring back The Master, so that's one, with the lose the melodrama, there's a fair chance there will be a lot less of that with Peter Capaldi (fingers crossed).

Follow the above & turn a good show into a great show.

no thanks

Is it? I would have thought that the evidence that there is something wrong with the show would be a decline in its popularity. Say... falling viewing figures? Lower AIs than usual? You know, the things that show up to be impartial to particular foibles.

What you mean is: you have issues with Doctor Who as it is now, so clearly there must be issues with the show. Those two clauses do not necessarily follow. And it seems that in this case they definitely don't.

While I'm all up for changing things up all the time, that is in itself a very Doctor Who thing to do, and is in no way indicative of any 'issues' be they perceived or not.

I think that this is a trend across all TV programming. Less and less people are watching 'live' and more and more are using catch up services. My teenage girls rarely watch anything when it's actually broadcast, yet they still watch a fair amount of TV - but it's on their laptops or via catch up.

It is but, for some reason, that trend is magnified amongst Doctor Who viewers.

There are still some TV dramas that buck the trend and my personal feeling is that, to protect itself, Doctor Who needs to learn lessons from those shows.

If a show is considered must-see TV then people will tune in when it's broadcast. I just don't think Doctor Who has that kind of edge at the moment.

The only "must see" drama that I can think of is something like Happy Valley, The Shadow Line, The Fall or Line of Duty, gripping dramas where the denouement is such that people want to watch live for fear of reading about it later in newspapers, on TV and websites.

Few dramas can come close to that level of writing, and in my experience require a running theme (a story arc if you like), with something that is wrapped up in the final episode. DW is mainly standalone episodes.

I think Who is a mix of stand-alone episodes with overarching storylines linking them throughout and driving towards a dramatic finale.

The problem, I think, is that the overarching storylines have become too complex and inaccessible and so haven't kept bums-on-seats for the initial broadcast, with people happy to watch each episode as a standalone at some point later in the week.

It's rather unfair to blame Moffat for changing everything when it was a situation that he inherited rather than one that he created. Moffat has said himself that it wasn't the ideal way to start his showrunning but when RTD left it was the end of an era. RTD and other key members of the production team left, Tennant left, and he had been without any regular companions for some time. RTD gave all of his characters closure and even destroyed the TARDIS on his way out. Moffat wanted Tennant to stay on so it wasn't through want of trying...

The "dramatic finale" simply does not (and maybe could not) have the same impact as those in the sorts of dramas that I have listed (especially allowing tor the fact that those dramas are adult drama, and DW is a family show).

I'm going to make lots of wild generalisations that I'll probably get shot down for but could it not simply be because the typical audience of Doctor Who is more tech-savy and into gadgets than, say, a viewer of Holby City, for example. So therefore more likely to have access to and the ability to operate catch up TV.

The arcs almost never drive individual plots, though. At least, until we get to the endgame. Even with arcs in place, you can jump into an episode in the middle of the series without being lost.

It's not like a soap, where you have to keep up with the plotlines, and every episode sets up half a dozen scenes to be continued in the next episode.

Lots of people watch Eastenders, but how many go back and re-watch episodes like they do on something like Who?


Or, alternatively, the overarching storylines are so easy to pick up and digest that people don't feel pressure to keep on top of them. You can make a case for whatever your own personal feeling is.

No, I think it's absolutely true. The Doctor Who audience tends to skew more tech-savvy than the average, and contains a notable subset of younger viewers. It's also the sort of 'spectacle' that invites repeat viewing, which is ideal for streaming services.

It's not a wild generalisation unless you say that all Doctor Who fans are gadget geeks...

Oh I entirely agree - and you could say that many a DW fan is more canny (aka intelligent ) in that they will use the technology available to them rather then being enslaved by the schedules. This seems to be something that the BBC have outwardly recognised. They know that the way that TV is consumed is changing, and will continue to change.