What are the elements you think would be needed to make the new episodes as good as the Classics?

Time...

Make it memorable. For example:

The Daleks 1963.

When the sink plunger was coming towards Barbara, she let out a scream.

And in those days, you really did need to see the next episode to find out.

-Multi-part stories that give them time to flesh out
-Distinct and memorable settings that really grab the interest and make you want to find out more
-Scary monsters without needing CGI
-Creative and bizarre ideas
-Less soap opera, more plot
-Doctor's who are intelligent, alien, bizarre, fascinating
-Wobbly walls. Lots and lots of wobbly walls

I agree with all of this.

And I will add: More Doctor, less companion. (I.E. No more Clara Who.)

Kill the romance.

They tried to hint at romance in the classic series in School Reunion, which suggested that SJS had romantic feelings for either 3 or 4 which irritated me.

Stop returning the companion home every other story, it completely dilutes to actual final departure.

Cliffhangers, bring them back. You could do this by ending each episode with the beginning of the next one, introducing the peril before the sting. Stop doing 'next time' scenes at the end of each episode.

All of the above, plus "monsters chasing dollybirds down corridors".

I wouldn't want to.

I love classic Who.

I love new Who.

But the more new Who resembles classic Who, the less I enjoy it.

This too. It's a time machine, not a snog box.

It's all Who to me, basically.

All 35, and counting, Seasons/Series have had their brilliant/good/average/poor moments...it's just certain Doctors/eras/stories have appealed to me more than others. I've honestly never yet watched a whole series and thought "Well, that was a complete waste of my time, wish I hadn't bothered." I mean, there's a few *stories* I wouldn't be in a rush to see again but heck, hardly surprising considering how many there've been!

Completely agree. The show has felt more inward facing, fan only accessible and generally less fresh, more and more, as Moffat has seemed to try and more and more make it a tribute to Classic who. Even a lot of the Classic who fans don't seem too impressed with it - no one on here at the time seemed to be particularly impressed with 'cyber-brig' for example, which was pretty cringeworthy.

The show of today should be how RTD started the revival- a show which remembers and respects the structure of what has already been, whilst still making it a show for today's viewers and one which has stories accessible to all. it's why during those RTD years I feel the show overall was at least equal in quality to the period of Classic who.

The odd light reference or two sprinkled into episodes can be fun, but the show should be mostly in the here and now, not heavily back referencing the past just to then meddle with it, which only serves to annoy long term fans and completely confuse or bore casual viewers.

Julie Gardner, Russell T Davies and David Tennant?

Dragon moon eggs, wooden forest fire-protection, Telly Tubby Daleks and insufferable public rhetoric from people who belong behind the camera, not so much...

Series 1 pitched it just right as it was basically The Daleks who returned, but (an observation rather than a criticism) in subsequent series we saw the Cybermen, The Sontarans, Sarah, K9, The Master, Davros and The Timelords, including Rassilon, all return during the RTD era! And admit I was a bit baffled with what was going on in the last two examples.

(Oh, and the Macra. )

But yeah, Chibbers should be aiming to create his own Ood, Judoon, Weeping Angels, Silence, etc. IMO Who got way too caught up in itself and it's past in the Mid 80's, and as he was there at the time having a pop at the writers on BBC1, no less, am sure Chibbers knows what's what and the challenges ahead.

Big shoes. No pressure, mate.

Agree with a lot of this.

Much as I love Classic Who, the show does have to keep moving on but I think a balance has to be struck between being fresh and inventive and at the same time recognising the show has a history and every now and again just have a gentle reminder that Classic Who was there.

To a certain extent the new series has done that but I have found more recently that the constant messing with The Doctor's personal history a pain in the butt.

If I had to choose one thing to bring back from the old series, it's that most stories should be simply about the characters and the story within that story and a little less time faffing about with the Doctor himself.

Forcing through a new life cycle of regenerations, messing with the original back story of The Doctor leaving Gallifrey, an extra Doctor; just totally unnecessary in my view.

It should be just about a situation, the Doctor turning up, getting into trouble and saving the day. Simple as.

Some good points in this thread.

I wonder if Chibnall reads this forum. Lets hope so.

I would be very concerned if today's show was essentially the same as when RTD brought it back in 2005. Moffat has, rightly, changed the direction of the show since he took over, just as I'd hope Chibnall would too. The RTD formula worked brilliantly in 2005 and the early years, it doesn't mean it would now.

I really love the idea of cliff hangers again. They need to be placed at strategic points perhaps not every story but I remember the thrill of seeing the Master at the end of Utopia and the 10th regenerate in Stolen Earth. Oh and the huge John Hurt. There needs to be real stakes and possible consequences though not a reversal like Clara's "death"

I agree, I loved the Uptopia cliffhanger too.

However it has to be said, many of the cliffhangers of classic who were clumsy and forced. And they lose their value upon repeat viewings.

There wouldn't be a Doctor Who today if it was still essentially the same thing as it was in 2005, simple as that. Even RTD understood this and always planned to leave the show in other hands after four series. Moffat's managed to keep it going six years later and still kept it a largely successful show, with this recent season arguably being the most critically successful yet.

If it's going to keep going much longer, Chibnall needs to avoid his era feeling like RTD or Moffat and make it feel like his own.

Though I think you're right to a certain degree you have to remember that unlike today, every episode bar the stories conclusion(except in some stories) had a cliffhanger. So in a six parter that's five cliffhangers to create, must have been a nightmare for the writer or script editor to just suddenly stop the story and shoe horn a cliffhanger in!

Plus the amount of episodes per series that were cliffhangers as well, no wonder some were repetitive and forced!

To be fair, though, there were some damn good cliffhangers too. Especially during Hinchcliffe's time when he made that extra effort to make them good.

I actually love this idea. What would have been the pre-credit sequence of episode 2 is now the last 2 minutes of episode 1, etc. Each story leads directly into the next, even if they aren't really connected in any way, as soon as one adventure ends another begins. And the series ends with a "what? What? WHAT?" moment.

Bring back Clara.

And Amy.

Together they would be more scarier to the Doctor than an army of Dalek.
(Edit: and the viewers.)

The problem with this is that it literally closes every single gap in the story. No time will ever pass off-screen - this is particularly difficult for writers to work with at the best of times, but even more so when you've two protagonists who live very different lifespans.

One of the issues with the Doctor's age has been that his tenth incarnation was only around for about six years out of about 900. By comparison his eleventh incarnation lived for nearly a thousand years on Trenzalore. In contrast his ninth incarnation wasn't around long at all, and even dividing the other incarnations equally over the remaining years makes them nearly each a century old. I think Moffat has done the right thing by distancing us from the Doctor's "900-ish" age, raking it up to 2000 and now he and subsequent writers can keep it as vague and timeless as they wish. And this compliments the idea of telling stories that could happen at any time. Put more simply, if the Doctor's incarnations live for as long as they do it has to be the case that we're not going to be able to see the whole story. There has to be gaps.

Equally I appreciate a desire for stories to feel less inconsequential and less standalone. I like a sense of connection between the stories, and from time to time I think the show does an amazing job at depicting that still. But I personally wouldn't want each and every episode to be linked into the last. It risks becoming formulaic, alienates a mainstream viewer who doesn't have the freedom to dip in quite so easily, and is again a strain on the writers to ensure that absolutely all continuity is covered within the confines of what we see on screen.

-

In reference to the thread question though, I don't think that Who should aspire to be like something from decades ago. It continues on from it, it takes inspiration from it, but there's also a very good reason why we don't get in-depth flashbacks to scenes filmed in the 1970's - because they're very much a product of their time, just as RTD's and Moffat's Who should aspire to amount to something in their own time. Now and then the show bashes us over the head with a bit too much nostalgia - for me Series 9 just about made things work... it's doing something different with The Master so that return was welcome (and Michelle Gomez is superb), there was an obligatory Dalek story as always and it was one of the better ones, and whilst the Zygons appeared in the 50th I saw their Series 9 story as the 'returnee of the year' (akin to Daleks in S1, Cybermen in S2, Master in S3, Sontarans in S4, Silurians in S5). By the time we've dealt with the Gallifrey return that people were clambering for I'm still more or less satisfied in the hope that Series 10 and Series 11 are a bit more focused on new things. At no point does it really compare to Classic Who, even when borrowing from its rich back log of content. It's still trying to be its own thing, and does a more or less superb job at it in my opinion (for the record, I'd argue that with Daleks, Cybermen, Angels, Great Intelligence, token Silurians and Sontarans, River Song, Zygons and multiple Doctor's that the 50th anniversary year was the most like Classic Who in its celebratory retrospectiveness - personal opinion but Series 7 also happens to be my least favourite whilst I wasn't a fan of the anniversary episode either).

i really do not get why Moffat is doing this with all the companions, in the old days when a companion returned home that was it!
it makes no sense that the Doctor keeps swanning off then coming back to this one person.
We need someone who is actually going to travel with the Doctor!
I know Rose kept coming home but atleast that was WITH the doctor.

Ugh, this Classic vs. New Who pissing content is one of the things I've grown to despise with fandom.

I love Classic Who, I genuinely do but people need to stop acting like it was superior to New Who. It isn't. It has it's classics and it has it's duds and it has some fairly good and decent stories in there as well. Like New Who does.

Also, they're the same show. Just saying.