I guess ideal writers for me, with the assumptions that it's Moffat's swansong, Harness is writing one and Gatiss is writing one...

Steven Moffat
Peter Harness
Catherine Tregenna
Steven Moffat
Toby Whithouse
Toby Whithouse
New Writer
Jamie Mathieson or Tom McRae
Steven Moffat (Doctor-lite episode, with McGann as the lead)
Mark Gatiss
Steven Moffat
Steven Moffat

A series where modern day earth is in the first episode and maybe features in the last story a bit but for the rest of the series they travel through time and space and actually have note worthy adventures on other planets with other races. Its amazing for a show that talks about the whole universe and other planets how little they actually go and see it, they are always on earth, why, they have this amazing opportunity to explore and they stonk around earth for most of the time, what's the point. This is my bugbear with DW, love the program just wish it would actually live up to its all of time and space slogan and actually go into the far reaches of space where there are no humans.

No Daleks
No Cybermen
No dropping Clara off every other episode and picking her up again the next.

Just 12 adventures (or maybe a two parter in the first half of the series) where each week it's something different. Other than that, it will be new episodes of Doctor bloody Who, how couldn't I be happy with that?

The doctor to be the focus more so than Clara in all episodes. Not saying Clara should be completely shoved into the shadows, just that the doctor feels more prominent and the authority. Rose and Donna were both gobby and opinionated yet it never felt like they could tell 10 what to do. He felt like the authority. That shows you can have both a strong companion and give the doctor the importance he deserves

Since were stuck with Clara for the time being, at least make her a constant traveller with occasional visits home, in the same way Rose and Donna and Amy pond for most of her time was. The picking up and dropping off and convincing her to come with him scenes do nothing but waste time.

13 episodes plus Christmas special once again. We are told the show is now more successful and hence profitable than ever yet we got an episode less this year. How can that be justified. Makes it look like the show is doing badly if anything.

A reinstatement of the set up between 1 and 2 parters as in was in series 1-5, as that was a good mix.

A series finale set in space/on another planet and prefferably in the future so there is not even a chance of seeing modern day earth. Series 1 managed this but since then we've had 6 finales set primarily on modern day earth and one set partially on earth(series 7, ok we didn't see much of modern day earth but we still saw it, and we saw a lot more of victorian earth which is another time period way overused). I would actually like it if they could go further than series 1 even and actually set it on an alien planet where the inhabitants are all of an alien race.


And any past doctors making an appearance would be great. Don't see why they feel they can only do this sort of thing when it's an anniversary or special occasion. Would be amazing if you could sit down to a normal mid series episode and find that the tenth doctor for example suddenly pop's up and helps 12 to save the day. obviously it wouldn't work if they did it all the time, but as a surprise in a random episode every 2-3 years or so would be cool. Would be even better than bringing them back for anniversary because if they did all studio filming for the past doctor scenes then it would be a complete surprise, unlike an anniversary where the return is hyped to ridiculous levels and as a result you get ridiculously high expectations of there return before you've even watched a single scene.

To be fair, a significant amount of time was spent back on the Powell Estate in The Parting of the Ways so we saw contemporary Earth then as well.

I do agree though, maybe a less Earth-oriented finale is way overdue. There's so much scope for interesting stories that don't necessarily jeopardise the whole of humanity.

I definitely agree that a less earth-based finale is in order.

However, the problem being that series finales are usually conclusions or massive turning points in the character arcs of the companion, and while that would not be a problem if the companions were human-resembling aliens or humans from a different point in time, RTD and Moffat have insisted on their companions being young females from 21st century earth, which necessitates the finale being brought back to 21st century earth.

Now, if they introduced a companion from a different planet, then we may not have to see 21st century earth at all in the finales.

I think the set-up with Clara as a companion allows lee-way for fewer Earth stories now. She admittedly gets picked up and dropped off regularly enough (although we have yet to see if that will be the case in Series 9) but this allows contemporary scenes within non-contemporary episodes.

Few people would argue that The Rings of Akhaten was anything other than a future-set story, despite the fact it opened with scenes in the 80's and dropped Clara off at home at it's conclusion. Nightmare in Silver wasn't anything but a future-set story despite the closing scenes being back at home. Contemporary Earth is a bit of a hub or a grounding or a base, it's sometimes shoehorned in awkwardly with the 45 minute runtime, but when done well it fits in without the story having to necessarily revolve around that era.

It's the same about the Daleks - even if there is a contractual obligation for them to feature once a year, they've shown that they can be worked in like in The Waters of Mars and The Wedding of River Song without giving them a whole episode - few would suggest either of those examples were Dalek stories. For some reason though most series have indeed had fully fledged Dalek episodes.
Similarly, for some reason they'e opted for fully-fledged contemporary Earth stories time and time again, rather than trying their hand at something else.

They really do need to feature modern day earth less, actually even just earth.

My dream set up would be that the first episode of each series would feature modern day earth, then the rest of the series would be mostly away from earth with just one or two episodes set in the past as the companion is interested in seeing certain things. If a companion is leaving at the end of the series then they can be returned to earth near the conclusion of the last episode.

That's just what I want to see I'm sure there's lots of people who like the regular earth episodes but it just seems to me if the show is mainly earth orientated then it might as well be torchwood or some other kind of sci fi time travelling programme, the excitement of the Tardis is that it can take you anywhere and I don't think the show is living up to this idea very much.

Well, Pandorica and Name were the best finales IMO and none of them was set on present day Earth. So it is possible to make such finale even if companion is from 21st century.

Possible Companion layouts:
Psi, Saibra, Clara
Clara, Shona

A bold finale. Death in Heaven felt very safe by Moffat's standards - even just compared to Dark Water before it.

There's an interesting thread running on GB as to whether Moffat has compromised too much over the course of his era - and I agree. Between every series he has talked about how he's going to change it from last series instead of sticking to a formula he wants and running with it.

For now it sounds like Series 9 is going to build on Series 8 - so I hope this is a good opportunity to work on improvements as opposed to changes. With Brian Minchin kicking down doors

( Series 5 stuck with the RTD format with a bit of Moffat's signature timey-wimey thrown in. Series 6 changed the format and went all guns blazes with the timey-wimey. The arc was criticized to all hell so was drastically changed for Series 7 and the 'blockbuster of the week' came about - resulting in "it's never too long before more Who" to be reversed - before an abrupt return to wrap it all up in a much more Moffaty Time of The Doctor.... then Series 8 has pretty much gone back around to Series 5, but with a slightly different angle coming with a new Doctor)

That's interesting about compromising, I hope they don't take some of the complaints a few have had about the 12 doctor and change him to be more in line with the previous two doctors.

I don't think Moffat's changes have ever been about compromising, rather than about changing expectations for each series. It's good to do something different each time. We shouldn't ever settle into a pattern.

The comments on finales are interesting. Unfortunately, with the nature of scale being what it is, the biggest story needs the biggest stakes, and that's either personal (the Doctor or his companion being directly targeted), global (our own recognisable world, and the people we care about being targeted), or universal (the whole galaxy is at stake!) The global threat, at least, needs to take place on Earth for us, the viewers, to be engaged in the story.

I would like:

The Master to regenerate into a Delgado-type chap, perhaps as a result of being shot while saving the Doctor;

Clara to stay for the whole series;

Ian Chersterton to appear in an episode at Coal Hill;

perhaps the Paternoster Gang (with Strax!) and/or Captain Jack to appear in one episode;

a UNIT story, with the Doctor driving Bessie and Kate ordering fire at a chap with wings (a Weeping Angel, perhaps);

no more saving-the-whole-planet/galaxy/universe/creation episodes (all right, perhaps in the finale, but only then);

no returns for Amy, Rory, Rose, Donna, River, Martha or Micky;

and some more that I'll think of later.

I personally think him coming out to say he was throwing the arc lever in the other direction was in response to the reception. If Series 6 was better received, I sincerely doubt it would have changed pace so suddenly.

He praised the two-part format for it's scope and gravitas... then proceeded to ditch them altogether.


Whether his hand was forced is a different matter entirely. But hey, could be complete nonsense and he just wants his era to be inconsistent for creative purposes.

On the subject of two-parters and finales, do people still think that we need to have it set on contemporary Earth for it to resonate? The finales to Series 1 and Series 5 are often cited as being the strongest (not by everyone, but they crop up a lot - Series 1 remains my favourite as it happens), despite the fact that neither have a great deal of business with contemporary Earth. The Parting of the Ways tethers the story with a few scenes in the present, but is mostly set in the future. Similarly, if you count The Time of the Doctor as a finale of sorts then that too spends little time in the present - it seems a more divisive story, though not because of its time and place.

The problem seems to be that people like the 'disaster movie' element that the typical Doctor Who finale brings. They like seeing London landmarks that they're familiar with used in the show, they like seeing New York and Sydney beneath sweeping clouds of fire, and Daleks laying waste to innocent civilians. The show then seems to pull those punches in the finales as well as a few times throughout the series.

It's a hard job, but not impossible - you can write an effective non-contemporary finale. You need to raise the stakes, but in a way that concerns the main characters rather than the world they live in.

And there are plenty of two-parters with decent stories, as well as plenty of one-part stories that feel they needed more time. This has become more obvious since we've broken away from the Series 1-5 format.

Series 6 was a pacing nightmare. It opened with an epic 90+ minute two-part story, introducing a mystery that would span the series. It then built upon it with two episodes near the middle, seperated by a mid-series break. And it then decided to make the absolutely bizzare option to tie everything up in a standard one-part conclusion that was also busy trying to add even more into the mix.

Series 7 then went the opposite way, not giving many of its ideas enough time to become substantially developed. The one-part finale just about worked because it was able to lead into the 50th Anniversary, rather than having to tie up all the loose ends. But there were so many other episodes that felt rushed, particularly in their resolutions. It showed how the two-parters help pace the series.
The whole 'blockbuster-of-the-week' was a nice try at something new, but ultimately made Series 7 feel like a long line of barely linked 'specials'. It highlighted how two-parters also help to establish the identity of a series, and its themes - Series 3 for example, explored what it means to be human. The two-parters made this most obvious, with stories about the Daleks becoming human, the Doctor becoming human and then a finale where The Master took dominance over humanity, who also happened to save the day. It is the best example, and not an exclusive example, of how two-parters help define a series too - and this is something Series 7 lacked.

Series 8 improved upon that by having threads weaved through multiple episodes (i.e. Danny, Courtney, Clara's fall-out). It defined the series better, and then the two-parter at the end felt like a well paced conclusion (even if the story itself was a let down in the final part). But people seem divided about Series 8 as a whole, often dissatisfied with the stories it offered up and often feeling it was a bit disjointed. I feel a two-parter in the middle would have helped - relieving episodes from having to deliver something brand new each and every week, and helping pace it a bit better (there was a definite lull of some kind around The Caretaker/Kill the Moon where the series felt it was just going through the motions a little too comfortably).

But it was always going to be thus. Rather than being a case of 'this didn't work, we won't do it again', it was more a case of 'this was what that series was about, some people loved it, some people hated it, let's do the next one differently." It could be argued that Series 8 was somewhat a return to arc-ness.

Danny Pink to return as a permanent companion, along with Angie and Arty. The Kandyman to be the season big bad.

THe DAleks return.

Alien planets we,ve seen before

A story with the Autons, which have new weapons

Davros.

I just want River Song to come back and for her to have the most awkward three way conversation with Missy and the Doctor.
I would pay to see that.
And to see some development on the Gallifrey story arc obviously

My dream series 9 would be that, in the opening moments, Clara would wake up in the Tardis, just after the events of Deep Breath, but before we see Missy. Then she would say to Twelve that she has dreamt...basically the rest of the series. So the Master isn't a woman, and Danny doesn't die.

Obviously, more thinking would be needed if the Master turns out to NOT be a woman.

What do you think? Is it plausible?

Oh, and both Alex Kingston and John Barrowman should appear. Even if it's for one episode, only.

Not plausible, and as far as most fans are concerned (myself included), not desired.

I came up with a bunch of ideas on Gallifrey Base that I'd love to see as episodes for Series 9, keeping it within the realistic constraints of the show, what we know, treating it as Moffat's final year, and without too much returning stuff.

901 - The Magician's Apprentice - Steven Moffat
When the Andromeda Light (a sort of outer-space lighthouse) goes out for the first time in centuries, the entire local galaxy is threatened. But then the man in the magic box turns up, and the Tardis is set to be wired up as its replacement. Soon The Doctor is taking on fearsome space pirates, but Clara is set to win back The Doctor's vessel by challenging the smartest monster of eternity. Does The Doctor really choose his companions well?

902 - The Zygons - Tom MacRae
The Tardis locks on to a small Scottish village, where the Doctor and Clara find themselves at the mercy of some very peculiar villagers. Only they might not be the villagers at all.

903 - Whithouse Two-Parter - Toby Whithouse
Seems to be a possible suggestion there are aliens involved in the story, given the amount of time in make-up the actors are spending. I'd like to see this from Whithouse - he's not had much chance to focus on the 'alien' elements of his stories.

904 - Whithouse Two-Parter - Toby Whithouse
Same as above. A two-parter will be an interesting turn from him. I can't possibly know what to expect. Also, probably not the title but I'd heard it speculated somewhere.

905 - Death on Paternoster Row - Mark Gatiss
The Doctor and Clara enlist the help of Madame Vastra and Jenny when a contemporary seaside town falls under threat from a menace emerging from the ocean - the Sea Devils. But Victorian London is also under siege, as a fugitive division of Sontarans is building it's forces and threatens the city. At threat from all sides, the Paternosters are confronted with their final investigation - which one of them is destined to die?

906 - Home - Steven Moffat
The Doctor has a strong feeling he has found Gallifrey, and a heart-to-heart with Clara about a place she has been in her past leads him to try and navigate there. But when the navigation goes disastrously wrong, Clara finds herself displaced in time - and in the company of a very different Doctor. As she travels with the Eighth Doctor who works to get her back whilst dealing with a menace all his own, it is ultimately the Twelfth Doctor who alone must decide between getting his friend back and possibly finding his way home. Doctor-lite story, featuring Paul McGann and potential Eighth Doctor companion.

907 - The Birdmen - new writer
Do you need a Doctor? The Doctor and Clara find themselves in a time of infamous plague, but that's not what has the people most scared. Even in the deep rural reaches of Europe you're not safe. The plague doctors sweep silently through the night, leaving a black death wherever they go. They cannot be reasoned with, and seem plentiful in number. Are you scared of The Birdmen? You should be.

908 - Eye of the Storm - Peter Harness
What if when you look up at the sky, there are eyes looking back? What has been waiting in the clouds for us? As the clouds roll in and you grow weary and tired, the oncoming storm poses a threat like no other...

909 - Paper Tigers - Catherine Tregenna
"The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do". This is the lost story of Amelia Earhart and The Doctor...but probably not the one you were expecting!

910 - Eternity of the Daleks - Steven Thompson
What is the truth of the Eternal Dalek? Fallen through the cracks of time and space caused by the return of an old homeworld, the enemy has grasped a devastating weapon that has The Doctor running scared. When that weapon becomes operational again and is mutilated to their own design, the Doctor and Clara are forced to fight the Daleks within the ruins of their own homeworld, or face an eternity of chaos. Just what would the Daleks do with a mutilated but fully functional Tardis of their own?

911 - Angels and Demons - Steven Moffat
The greatest time travellers in the universe are forced to assemble against a threat of all-encompassing proportions. The Doctor, Clara, River, Captain Jack, Kate Stewart, retired time-travelling adventurer Sidra Soul (I envision being played by Farscape's Claudia Black), and various other allies band together when the universe falls into outcry. The Doctor has rewritten the fabric of reality, he has watched as time has been rewritten, and as he and his companions realise the trap they've fallen into he realises that the biggest threat to reality is that people can be rewritten as well...

912 - The Masters of Time - Steven Moffat
With his companions stranded across all of time, The Doctor seeks help from an unlikely ally. Meanwhile, the companions work to contact each other across history. As The Doctor begins playing the Angels at their own ferocious time game, the others begin to realise that The Doctor may have to pay a devastating price if he is to put things right again.

___

I'd then get Moffat to write another epilogue-esque Christmas special, bringing his era to a very well-rounded 70 episodes.