I don't expect the new series to be a replica of the classic series but it would be nice if it resembled it more. The classic series had unspoken rules that the Doctor didnt fall in love and companions personal lives aren't important or secondary to the story. The new series has flouted these rules since it came back on television.

Now I'm not against character development in Doctor Who but there is character development and there is soap opera mundainity which typified a lot of Russell T Davis' writing and latterly the relationship between the impossibly bland girl Clara and the deeply dull Danny Pink. Forgive me but I thought Doctor Who was about escaping from all the normal and everyday things like relationships?

When a companion sets foot inside the TARDIS they should be leaving their problems behind but the new series insists on taking all that baggage with them. It'd be nice just to watch well told stories full of suspense and atmosphere which don't revolve around the companions love lives with each other or even worse with the Doctor. It'd be refreshing to see a story where the companions were incidental to the story and not the other way round.

For all the divide between Davis and Moffat fans I don't see much difference between their respective era's. Both of them seem to lay the sentimentality on quite heavily but perhaps Doctor Who has to be full of sentimentality these days to be accessible to the audience?

The Classic series is often incredibly good. It's stories are sometimes immense and when its at its very best it still stands up as some of the best science fiction ever made.

But It's lack of anything resembling real and genuine and truthful relationships now looks utterly risible. Going backwards would be excactly that. A step back to a simpler but no longer relevant time.

No one would watch it. The majority of the audience need a degree of humanity and relateable situations to buy into the fantastical moments. RTD got this. He got this so well. Thats why he managed to take the show out of the comic convention and the nerds basement and make it the biggest show on British TV.

Moffat has found the balance between populist drama and science fiction. Anything further would just turn it into somethring tedious and alien like Star Trek. No thanks. The audience has grown up. They demand more. Quite right to.

Emotionally coercing the audience isn't progression in my mind. Russell T Davis may have popularised the series but his overblown soap opera interpretation lacked a true sense of otherworldliness I expect from a show like Doctor Who. Worst of all Davis obscenely humanised the Doctor during his tenth regeneration. Also his taste for trashy reality television and modern culture in general which seeped into the show will hopefully make it look very dated in a few years.

Also nothing wrong with Star Trek and I would have preferred if Doctor Who had of been revived in the same way as Star Trek TNG was then some primetime ratings fodder. I know the classic series was a primetime show as well but back then it didn't have to be as attention grabbing and could just be a genre show.

We get it. You want it to go back to being a minority show, just for geeks.

It was hugely popular right from the start, though decades later lost a lot of audience when moved to weekdays up against Coronation Street but it was never a 'minority' show.

I watched Spearhead from Space over the weekend - I was bored within the first ten minutes.

"Classic" Who would not survive in today's world: the stories plod along and there's a lot of padding in the scripts - a four episode story could easily have been done in two.

Don't agree with what you say, but the programme could do with having the same approach of varied stories throughout time and space (third doctors era aside) rather than having so many earth stories. Also how the adventures are (mostly) random with no arc as a programme that can go anywhere at anytime promotes.

The show is more popular now and every year since 2005 than it ever was when it was the classic series. Back then it was just seen as a niche show for geeks, but now it is a prime time hit with mainstream appeal.

In fact I think actually trying to make it more like the classic series actually harms it, as I feel that is what Moffat often tries to do and his era is, for me, not as strong as the RTD era. That's not to say the Classic series is bad, just that it's style and execution of the show was good for it's time, but not for this day and age.

I love Classic Who much as the next person but the show needs to move with the times and what worked back then just wouldn't work now.

I watched it too and loved and saw zero padding
it was quite a change in direction for the series with a more gadgety and action doctor

I like that the companions lives are important but Id didn't like RTD's style of nu-who

Watched logopolis this morning and it got the balance of personal lives and story exactly like Nyssa with her dad and Tegan with her Aunt
I enjoy the cliff-hangers too

Thea audience was watched by over double it gets now. It wasn' just geeks that watched. It was families.

I couldn't disagree more. Spearhead From Space is a classic piece of TV sci-fi. It has pace, wit and intelligence. It establishes a new Doctor, creates a classic enemy and gives us arguably the most chilling moment in the show's history when the shopwindow mannequins come to life. There is nary an ounce of fat or padding in any of the four episodes.

If every new Doctor Who story was as good as Spearhead From Space, there'd be a damned sight less bitching on DS.

I have nothing more to add except Classic Who would never be made in this day and age.

It is your choice to either accept New Who for what it is or move on. The way it is now is how it will stay. It is very popular worldwide with a more diversified fan-base. Getting more Classic would be a step backwards in my opinion.

FWIW, everything that the show was under RTD can be traced back to Ace as a companion, and "Survival" in particular.


Yup. In a way that, say, the 2nd Doctor having a Beatles haircut hasn't.

Of course you want to make it for a modern audience. And of course years down the line that will look dated. So what? Give it a few more years and people will be loving the nostalgia.

I think the problem with Series 8 is that some of the ideas were badly executed and these badly executed ideas were the main emphasis in Series 8. Clara annoying some of the audience so that Missy can just say she paired the Doctor and a control freak on purpose. The scene at the end of Kill the Moon and the start of The Mummy on the Orient Express felt disjointed. Danny not having much personality (is he really considered an improvement compared to Ian and Barbara?).

I don't want a return to the Classic series but I think the people involved with Doctor Who should take on board some of the comments made during this series.

Let's see...stories featuring Earth:

First Doctor:

Series 1: 50%
Series 2: 66%
Series 3: 50%
Series 4: 100%

Second Doctor:

Series 4: 57%
Series 5: 72%
Series 6: 29%

Third Doctor:

Series 7: 100%
Series 8: 100%
Series 9: 100%
Series 10: 60%
Series 11: 60%

Fourth Doctor:

Series 12: 40%
Series 13: 66%
Series 14: 50%
Series 15: 33%
Series 16: 16%
Series 17: 20%
Series 18: 14%

Fifth Doctor:

Series 19: 57%
Series 20: 71%
Series 21: 50%

Sixth Doctor

Series 21: 0%
Series 22: 66%
Series 23: 25%

Seventh Doctor:

Series 24: 25%
Series 25: 50%
Series 26: 100%

Eighth Doctor:

TV Movie: 100%

Ninth Doctor:

Series 1: 90%

Tenth Doctor:

Series 2: 73%
Series 3: 82%
Series 4: 64%
Specials: 75%

Eleventh Doctor:

Series 5: 70%
Series 6: 50%
Series 7: 76%
Series 8: 82%

So the number of stories which feature Earth has increased (and please note that this is featuring Earth, not having it be in the episode in a meaningful way, so Danny being on the end of the phone in "Mummy On The Orient Express" counts), it's not the significant leap that it's often made out to be.

The classic series was not just for geeks. The ratings for the Hinchcliffe era showed that people who may not have been fans tuned in. The ratings got over 10m. The Pertwee era was also good for ratings. True, by the end of the McCoy era it was watched by hardcore fans.

Great analysis !

I've just done a little more. On average, the old series featured Earth in 53% of stories. On average, the new series features Earth in 73% of stories.

So, again, it's gone up, but not by as much as it's often made out, and I remind you that the figure for the new series counts things like the brief scene at the beginning of "Into The Dalek" where the Doctor fetches Clara.

You need to be careful when looking at classic who audience figures the lack of other channels (and even other modes of entertainment) distort the figures.

I think with new who, especially under rtd that was too much running around and playing music loud to replace excitement. I don't think we will ever go back to the old formula becuase what they have now is working.

What i do find strange is that i find most of new who stories to be instantly forgetable while i remember classic who.

RTD cutes Buffy as an influence
Ace and Survival was excellent and not like Nu-who
RTD wrote a novel with an excellent plot unlike the series and I would have been more impressed if he'd kept to that level instead of dropping to ignoring continuity and farting aliens and dad dancing

Ace was the first companion to be essentially on equal billing with the Doctor. Many of the stories were about her past, her inner demons, and her relationship (or lack thereof) with her family. Just like the modern companions.

"Survival" sees the series taking the companion back home to a council estate and interacting with her old life, and the people she knew before she became a time traveller. Like RTD's era did. There's even a character who can easily be read as a young Jackie Tyler.

All RTD's era is is a continuation of Ace in general, and "Survival" specifically.

i'd like the budget to be spread over a few more episodes so we can get a feel for the story as quite often before you've got to know an enemy its defeated and the credits are rolling, having it take 2-3-4 episodes would allow good definition of the characters, imagine trying to introduce the master now! he'd be so short of the required background in a 45 min episode no one would want him (her) back

There are parallels but Andrew Cartmel was a lot better with the arc and characters then RTD is.
RTD made it to soapy unlike Andrew Cartmel with his masrerplan plus I can watch the Seventh repeatedly and it reminds me why I loved that Doctor and Classic Who

I see we have occasionally dipped in to ratings discussion - never miss an opportunity

http://www.themindrobber.co.uk/ratings.html