Occasionally I am asked why I don't review Doctor Who on the blog. The answer is pretty simple: I do not regard Doctor Who as a serious SF drama. I enjoy watching the show, especially with my girlfriend's son, but usually as a way of switching my brain off and just having fun without having to worry about analysis. If I did try to analyse the new show and review it with its myriad plot holes (which at this point are so numerous as to make the show resemble Swiss cheese) and often very ropey writing, I would probably go mad.
It was not always so. I grew up with Peter Davison, Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy as the Doctor, although I didn't count myself a fan until Remembrance of the Daleks and the final two seasons of the original show. I spent most of the first half of the 1990s collecting large numbers of Doctor Who stories on VHS. A few years back I revisited some of the more classic stories, like The Caves of Androzani and The Ark in Space, and found (dodgy effects and being filmed on video aside) that they still stood up quite well. The new series has had some very good moments, such as The Doctor's Wife, Blink, The Girl in the Fireplace and, most recently, Cold War, but generally speaking it has been mostly incoherent and confused.
There has been much discussion in fan circles of why this is so, with some going as far as saying they are going to 'break up' with the show. Some have cited the decision to move the show to mostly self-contained 45-minute episodes (rather than the 25-minute, three-to-seven part serials of the old series), which severely curtails the time available for plot setup, resolution and characterisation. There may be something to this, as Doctor Who does not have a regular cast outside of the two or three central figures and each story needs to establish its own cast, location and threats, which is a tall order in just a few minutes. This is the inverse of most shows, where the cast and location are fixed and a small number of guest cast come in every week who can be set up quite quickly. However, I don't think it's the whole story, especially as most of the two-parters (which are roughly the length of the old four-parters) suffer from the same issues.
More convincing is the argument that the show has become way too dependent on season-spanning story arcs: Bad Wolf, Torchwood, Mr. Saxon, the disappearing planets, the crack in time/exploding TARDIS, the 'death' of the Doctor and now the mystery of Clara Oswald. In contrast, the old show had exactly two season-spanning story arcs in twenty-six years (three, if you count the much looser 'E-space' trilogy in Tom Baker's final season). Doing a season-spanning epic story arc is great if you have a really compelling storyline for it. At the moment it feels like the story arcs are there simply because it's 2013, and almost every series has a big story arc of some kind, so Doctor Who needs to do one as well. Doctor Who has never been a trend-follower, so it's not entirely clear why it has to be one now.
However, I have also been pondering if one of the problems with the new series has been that it puts way too much work on the shoulders of a single person: the showrunner/head writer. Since 2005, Doctor Who has been run by just two people: Russell T. Davies (2005-10) and Steven Moffat (2010-present). Davies and Moffat have both been in charge of the show and have also been the head writers, each penning several episodes per season in addition to handling rewrites on other writers' scripts as well. There have been other producers (a veritable revolving door of them, in fact) but their roles on the show seem to have been more like facilitators and enablers rather than having a strong say in the creative process.
Going back to the original series, there is a stark difference in how the creative workload was handled. Going right back to 1963, the first showrunner, Verity Lambert, was not a writer. She made business decisions and had a strong say in the creative process, but the creative direction was handled by her script editor, David Whitaker, and the individual writers. An associate producer, Mervyn Pinfield, was also present to help with production issues, although in reality Pinfield was actually only present due to BBC concerns that Lambert, who was only 28, might be too inexperienced to handle the whole show; this criticism was withdrawn after Lambert overruled the BBC executives who didn't want to include the Daleks in the series and was shown to be right, with a massive boom to the show's profile and popularity following their introduction.
Throughout most of the show's history this pattern was repeated: a strong producer focusing on the big picture but rarely actually writing episodes, with a script editor who handled the creative direction of the show. The show's most creative and interesting periods were usually the result of an excellent producer and a good script editor working in concert: Barry Letts and Terrance Dicks during most of the Jon Pertwee era and Philip Hinchliffe and Robert Holmes during the early Tom Barker period are the most notable examples of this. Later partnerships were more troubled but also successful on occasions: the pairing of Graham Williams as producer and Douglas Adams (yes, that Douglas Adams) as script editor resulted in one of the very best Doctor Who stories of all time (City of Death) but also several of the very worst. John Nathan-Turner's controversial, long period in charge of the show in the 1980s was marked by bursts of creativity led by strong script editors, most notably Eric Saward in the late Davison and Colin Baker years, and Andrew Cartmel at the end of the original run.
This set-up may also be more familiar from American television, which is often handled by two or more executive producers with a number of other writers working for them. Game of Thrones is handled by two showrunners, David Benioff and D.B. Weiss. Lost was handled by Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse. Battlestar Galactica was handled by Ronald D. Moore, who focused on the show's writing, and David 'not that one' Eick, who focused more on production. Babylon 5 divided its executive producer credits between head (and often the only) writer J. Michael Straczynski, business facilitator Doug Netter and on-set producer John Copeland. The Star Trek shows of the 1980s and 1990s may have been overseen by Rick Berman, but he devolved a lot of authority to individual showrunners, such as Michael Pillar, Ira Steven Behr, Brannon Braga, Jeri Taylor and Manny Coto, each of whom in turn was supported by other writers and producers. And so on. Running a TV show is a big job, and arguably requires more than one person in charge.
Russell T. Davies and Steven Moffat are interesting in that both are quite capable writers (the latter rather moreso than the former, to be frank) but in both cases their writing seems to have suffered when they had to handle production duties as well. Moffat wrote several of the very best episodes of the new run when he was working as just a jobbing writer under Davies, but since he became showrunner the quality of his scripts has nosedived. Even great concepts he created under Davies, such as River Song and the Weeping Angels, seem to have gone off the boil under his stewardship of the whole series. Arguably the role of the showrunner-producer should be more focused in one direction or the other. If Moffat wants to keep writing, he needs a strong production partner who can keep an eye on the show as a whole (and who perhaps can advise Moffat when, for example, he has incomprehensible and overly-confusing story arcs for two seasons in a row). If he wants to run the show in an oversight capacity, he needs a strong writing partner who can focus on the show's creative direction.
As it stands, the constant comings and goings of the sub-producers and the seeming lack of anyone equal in rank to Moffat as producer means that the show is way too dependent on just one person, which is definitely a recipe for disaster.
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One has to keep in mind that Doctor Who originally had a "Serial" format. With this format a long story arc is not required. With the 2005 restart, the show became more episodic, with only a loose connection between episodes. This format is simply typical of most episodic TV productions, like it or not.
The one thing that can't be denied about the 2005 restart is the much higher production value. Both the older run and the newer run equally suffer from both great and less than great writing. "Vincent and the Doctor" was not only an exceptional "episode" of Doctor Who, it was one of the finest examples of episodic television period.
On the other hand, I need only point to the failures of Voyager, and the success of Babylon 5, to show that a creative force of one is always superior to design by committee.
BABYLON 5 did not have "a creative force of one". Straczynski was the chief-and-only writer, but the show was primarily commissioned on the strength of Doug Netter's involvement (Netter was EXTREMELY well-respected in Hollywood, with a reputation of always bringing in shows under-budget and on-time) and on the basis of Ron Thornton's CGI reel. Without those things the show would never have happened.
JMS was also only able to write the show without interference because he had Netter doing the business deals on his behalf and he had Copeland to handle the physical production side of things (and Thornton's CGI skills and his company's willingness to work for peanuts). BABYLON 5 was an auteur scriptwriting project, but it certainly wasn't a one-man show.
VOYAGER was also not a financial failure: it lasted for seven seasons and was apparently profitable in foreign sales and VHS and later DVD sales. Certainly it was a creative failure, but that can be laid more at the door of Brannon Braga being a terrible writer and producer, and everyone who was involved in the project who was good bailing a couple of seasons in (like Jeri Taylor). DEEP SPACE NINE was produced in a very similar way with a larger number of producers and writers, and utterly wiped the floor with VOYAGER.
The simple fact is...is that Doctor Who has never been as popular as it has become since the 2005 relaunch. It has gone mainstream enough to earn it's first TV Guide cover. Rail about it as you want but the numbers don't lie... the new format WORKS.
This is actually incorrect. The original series got an all-time ratings high of 18 million viewers. It went through long periods of getting 11-14 million viewers every single week. The new series is currently getting around 7-8 million. That's still good considering how TV viewing has changed, but it's not quite as dominant as it was in the 1970s.
DOCTOR WHO is a UK show. It doing well in America is nice, but, due to the non-profit nature of the BBC, it doesn't actually help the show very much. What is important is the UK level of success, and that level is good, even impressive, but certainly not as big as it was back in the day.
As it was, the lackluster FOX movie almost killed the franchise here.
And in the UK it got almost 10 million viewers and played an important role in getting the BBC to resurrect the show: it would actually have been back a lot sooner, with Russell T. Davies making his first attempt to resurrect the show in 1999, except it got bogged down in BBC internal politics before a new head of drama gave it the okay in 2003.
Also BBC collects a healthy amount of scratch from all of the Dr. Who licensing, so the show's success in America, does mean that it raises revenue. No one's giving anything away for free here.
The BBC is a public-service broadcaster and is prohibited from making tons of profit off the back of its shows. In particular, the money that BBC Enterprises (the international rights-handling organisation) makes has to be cycled back into the BBC as a whole, not into the individual show that makes them the money (yes, this is idiotic).
You can see this through how DOCTOR WHO's viewing figures in the UK are decent (though still down on the Davies years) and how its DVD sales are good and its popularity in America has never been higher, but the show has still had to undergo significant budget cuts in the last three years and will only get 6 episodes on screen this year (plus the special), with the worrying rumour that we might only be getting 6 episodes a year from now on (which really would be stupid).
On the other hand, unless you've got some credentials to back your opinion up, a poster here saying he doesn't like the show doesn't prove that it's backslid in quality.
What credentials would be helpful? I'm a Hugo-longlisted SFF fan writer, that good enough? Or perhaps the fact that the direction DOCTOR WHO has taken under Moffat has been thoroughly criticised by multiple TV critics, WHO fansites and numerous websites would be enough?
WHO still produces the odd good episode, but it would take willful obtuseness not to admit that the show is not in the best health at the moment.
Chief Technical Officer
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Some have cited the decision to move the show to mostly self-contained 45-minute episodes (rather than the 25-minute, three-to-seven part serials of the old series), which severely curtails the time available for plot setup, resolution and characterisation.
I'd argue that nearly every one of the classic serials was longer than they needed to be—especially when the number of episodes was greater than 4. Sure, dramatic pacing was different then, but there was still a *lot* of filler.
And having to work in a cliffhanger every 23 minutes wasn't the greatest thing for plot design.
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Werthead, I vehemently disagree that Doctor Who is not serious science fiction. The show holds, in the both the 20th and 21st centuries, the top 5 best characters and plots ever.
Or perhaps the fact that the direction DOCTOR WHO has taken under Moffat has been thoroughly criticised by multiple TV critics, WHO fansites and numerous websites would be enough?
I wouldn't know about any of that. All I know is that I prefer pretty much all of Moffat's era to much of the latter half of Davies's (beginning with Rose's initial departure; everything before that was pretty good, most of Martha's run was meh, a lot of Donna's stuff was great until Rose came back again).
Frankly I personally couldn't care less what critics have to say.
I miss the cliffhangers/multi episodes and dramatic pauses. There were a lot more scares and you really felt that companions were in real danger. I thought some of the Baker eipsodes such as Talons of Weng Chiang were great scripts and good directors. They did a lot with a little back then. I can only imagine what those episodes would have been like with the budgets/technology of today. Problem was different directors/writers for different episode arcs.
I also blame the viewers attention spans for the lack of cliffhangers. HBO/showtime does a great job of cliffhangers with Game of Thones, Homeland, etc. There are so many times you think one of the characters will die and sometimes they do. Walking Dead does a great job at this!
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The Eccleston through Tennant years were led dually, by a showrunner/head writer/producer, Russell T. Davies, and a primary producer and executive producer, Julie Gardner. While RTD as head writer was paid greater attention to than Julie Gardner, she still contributed majorly to the show's direction. (There is a lovely tribute to the important role BOTH people played in forming the new Doctor Who series, here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giaMRyn47Xg, performed by three people who should look vaguely familiar.)
The Smith years, these roles are filled by Stephen Moffat and Caroline Skinner, respectively.
I point this out because whether you dislike or love the new series, these ladies deserve at least some credit for a lot of what you love or hate, whether the focus is on them or not. :)
The difference is simply that the head writer has now been given more credit/authority. It's now head writer>producer, where it used to be producer>script editor. The real question, then, is which do you think works better?
My own answer to that is, I really don't know. I think it depends upon WHO it is and how well they do. It also depends upon their skill at hiring other creative folks to round out their team. In the case of all teams discussed, they all have their strengths and weaknesses. They have done things I've loved, and things I've hated (for old who, I particularly am NOT much of a fan of Eric Saward, even though I generally love the 5th Doctor era, but I more preferred the more philosophical elements in episodes like "Kinda" and "Enlightenment" which Eric Saward had less influence on, IIRC).
I do think you need a team of people, but as Doctor Who has always had that and as far as I can tell, always will, so that's well and good.
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Chief Technical Officer
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The Eccleston through Tennant years were led dually, by a showrunner/head writer/producer, Russell T. Davies, and a primary producer and executive producer, Julie Gardner. While RTD as head writer was paid greater attention to than Julie Gardner, she still contributed majorly to the show's direction. (There is a lovely tribute to the important role BOTH people played in forming the new Doctor Who series, here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giaMRyn47Xg, performed by three people who should look vaguely familiar.)
The Smith years, these roles are filled by Stephen Moffat and Caroline Skinner, respectively.
Good point. There was also Mal Young alongside Julie on Series 1, and Piers Wenger and Beth Willis in between Julie and Caroline. Also, Phil Collinson, a producer under Russell and Julie, was credited as Executive Producer for some of the episodes he didn't directly produce, and I gather he had about as big a role as Julie or anyone else apart from Russell.
I personally think that the show has been the most successful, creatively speaking, when the main producer is also an experienced writer... (With Verity Lambert being an exception...)
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Good point. There was also Mal Young alongside Julie on Series 1, and Piers Wenger and Beth Willis in between Julie and Caroline. Also, Phil Collinson, a producer under Russell and Julie, was credited as Executive Producer for some of the episodes he didn't directly produce, and I gather he had about as big a role as Julie or anyone else apart from Russell.
I personally think that the show has been the most successful, creatively speaking, when the main producer is also an experienced writer... (With Verity Lambert being an exception...)
Thanks, I knew there were some others with somewhat briefer tenures, but the crew list I was looking at was confusing so I pulled out the key players. And yes, Phil Collinson was a huge part of getting the new series going, I forgot about him so thanks for bringing him up.
I think the thing about Verity Lambert was that she might not have been a writer per se, but she was a creative person with strong vision who was able to push her way past the BBC's tendency to nix anything nonstandard. It's a quality shared with those who also tend to make good writers.
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That is a very interesting write up. I want to disagree with one part of your post about story arcs. I get the feeling you think story arcs are a trend or fad. I think they are an evolution of modern television. I think the differences have a lot to do with how we consume product now versus decades ago. Tivo, DVR, on demand, Netflix, all allow people to watch what they want when they want. This makes story arcs more accessible then the episodic nature of television of yesterday.
There is still bad writing out there, but I think story arcs have done nothing but improve the average. Sopranos was a favorite of mine. It started out with a showrunner in the beginning. Later on the series adopted a committee approach and the quality suffered. Probably not helpful though since its a very different show. I agree that the Dr Who showrunner may have too much on their plate.
I still very much enjoy classic Dr.who. However, when I watch it I notice that there is a bit of inconsistency between serials. The modern Dr who doesn't have that variance except during Dr changes. Is it possible this showrunner/era just sucks for you?
I'd argue that nearly every one of the classic serials was longer than they needed to be—especially when the number of episodes was greater than 4. Sure, dramatic pacing was different then, but there was still a *lot* of filler.And having to work in a cliffhanger every 23 minutes wasn't the greatest thing for plot design.
Indeed. That's why I said the same thing :) And the new show does have stories the length of the old 4-parters (any two-part story) and even once an old 6-parter (the three-part Master arc) and often face the same issues.
Werthead, I vehemently disagree that Doctor Who is not serious science fiction. The show holds, in the both the 20th and 21st centuries, the top 5 best characters and plots ever.
But it isn't 'serious' science fiction. That's not damning by itself. Neither is FARSCAPE and it's still fun. BSG started out being serious SF (Newtonian physics, not sticking your command centre on top of the ship like a hood ornament) and ended up being some mystical claptrap, but it was still good for quite a while.
My main complaint is that it often isn't a 'serious' show which adheres to its own rules and features well-rounded characters and coherent storylines. Things that are true in one episode are not in others (so messing up the past causes flying demons to appear, but then lots of people mess up the past and they don't appear). There's a lack of coherence to the show.
There was also Mal Young alongside Julie on Series 1, and Piers Wenger and Beth Willis in between Julie and Caroline. Also, Phil Collinson, a producer under Russell and Julie
Yes, that would be the revolving door problem I was talking about before :) You need someone who's going to be there for a while and act as a strong personality and force the equal of Davies or Moffat. Moffat himself has said (in the latest issue of DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE, amongst others) that people would discuss ideas with Davies, and Davies would listen and nod, and then would lay out exactly how things were going to be: his way.
The main problem is that the other prodcuers have pretty much all been jobbing producers working for the BBC appointed to the show, whilst Moffat and Davies are outside appointments. The other producers tend to move on the second a promotion is available or a better-paying job shows up. This has been more of a problem for Moffat, who's gone through quite a few secondary producers (and the strong rumour behind the scenes was that Wenger and Willis couldn't handle the strain of the show and were quickly moved on when the budget started ballooning), whilst Davies I think benefitted a little from having a more regular team under his leadership.
Actually, from what I've read, Julie Gardner was actually the driving force behind getting Doctor Who back on the air. Davies wasn't brought onto the project until it was already definitively going to happen.
Not entirely accurate. After the huge success of the TV movie in 1996 (in the UK, anyway) the BBC started looking seriously at bringing the show back. Russell T. Davies, after making QUEER AS FOLK (complete with its DOCTOR WHO-quoting protagonist) a big hit in 1999, entered talks quite early on and there was a big push to bring the show back in 2000, which was shot down by infighting at the BBC. In 2003 a new BBC executive, Jane Tranter, commissioned Gardner and Davies to develop the new series. It was Tranter's first decision in her new job, so she's certainly the person who deserves the most credit.
I get the feeling you think story arcs are a trend or fad. I think they are an evolution of modern television.
Yes and no. Box sets, timeshifting, downloading and binge-watching have certainly made story arcs much more accessible than back in the day, when the requirement for syndication stations to be able to show episodes in any order without dense continuity tended to dial them back. However, I also think this has leaned too far the other way and made story arcs almost mandatory.
In the case of DOCTOR WHO, the show has no real need for story arcs. The Doctor travels from one place/time to another week after week, and the odds of events in one place being affected by another are fairly slim. The beauty of the show's format and design is that if you come up with a cracking idea for a story arc, you can do it, and if you haven't got one, you can just do stand-alones. With modern WHO, it feels like every season has to have a story arc regardless of whether the producer has had a really good idea or not.
Or as I said earlier, new WHO feels constrained by structure and format, when it really has no need to be outside of the Doctor, the TARDIS and the companion. Other than that it should be free to do whatever it wants. Yet it feels like the story arc structure, which was one intriguing, is now holding it back.
Is it possible this showrunner/era just sucks for you?
I never said it sucked (and in fact, despite the issues, I much prefer Moffat as a producer to Davies), I just said it was difficult to take seriously. The lack of plot coherence, the sometimes-ropey dialogue and the juvenile tone are annoyances, but ones they I bear for the occasional really good episodes. The main problem I have is that the new show has adopted the same tone since its return in 2005, that of being a kid's show so things like logic and consistenty are not adhered to. The old series usually changed things around every 3-4 years or so and took on different tones and ideas, even appealing to different age groups (sometimes even being an adult drama which kids could also enjoy). The new show I think would benefit from that, but I think there is a creative fear of doing anything that would damage ratings, ignoring the fact that ratings have come down since the RTD era anyway.
I'd argue that nearly every one of the classic serials was longer than they needed to be—especially when the number of episodes was greater than 4. Sure, dramatic pacing was different then, but there was still a *lot* of filler.
I strongly disagree.
For years and years now, my children have demanded that I tell them stories on a practically daily basis. I've gone through a great many stories this way, including dozens and dozens of classic "Doctor Who" stories. In relating these, I've felt very much aware of how much filler these stories have, and how much actual substance. I'm made aware of this matter when I find myself finished with the story in minutes, or when I find myself going on and on explaining the points necessary to follow the story.
Yes, SOME of those "Doctor Who" stories had a lot of filler, but I can tell you with conviction a lot of them - including a great many 6- and 7-parters - made good use of every episode.
It's true that, as LazarX said, a lot of the "Classic Who" shows were questionable at best. No way could any series of reasonable length have ONLY gems. But I thought that a remarkable number of gems were there.
Actually, from what I've read, Julie Gardner was actually the driving force behind getting Doctor Who back on the air. Davies wasn't brought onto the project until it was already definitively going to happen.
The Youtube link I posted earlier also suggests that, but more musically. ;)
Regarding the discussion of serial and episode length
The thing about the serials is that if you watch them all in one lump sum as a 21st century viewer, yes, they are too long.
If you watch one half hour episode a week, they way they were actually viewed during broadcast, they feel a little better. The pacing is still slow, but the repetitiveness there often is becomes the reminder it needs to be after a week's elapsing between episodes.
British TV also evolved, influentially speaking, from radio and theatre. This meant especially in earlier days things got over explained (including overly lengthy exposition via dialogue) and despite it being a visual medium, they didn't always rely enough on small or brief visual details to tell a story (and well, far enough back, the TV picture wasn't refined enough to ensure that). This contributes to the slow pace, amongst other things. It worked for the time it was created.
Then there's also differences in production schedules and cast and crew vacations. There were stories in Doctor Who where William Hartnell or another cast member went on vacation in the middle of filming (because filming itself went on a longer time), so the stories were written to accommodate these absences. For example, in "The Keys of Marinus," where William Hartnell was absent for something like three of the 5-6 episodes). Rather than write a whole Doctorless story, which would be hard to sell, they wrote a much longer story where each of the regular cast could get an episode to do something, so his absence would be less notable.
I do think occasionally there was some actual fluff or filler in the episodes, but for the most part I think they wrote the length they felt the serials need to be at that time. I do think sometimes they misjudged how long a given story needed to be, but that's just that, a mistake. And just like now, I actually agree with Kthulhu that some of the stories we see now would do better to be two parters (I wouldn't want to see much longer than that, though--but a 90 minute entire story--that's actually inline with most later episodes of classic DW, which were for awhile in fact two 45-minute episodes to a story). In recent memory, the Long Invasion episode comes to mind... they set up a wonderful premise, but then suddenly they seem to run out of time and do a "wizard/sonic screwdriver did it" resolution, with barely any proper rising action to the climax. Had they paced that out to a two-parter it may have been a much better story with a much better endgame confrontation, climax, and denouement. It wasn't awful as it was, but I think it was obviously rather chopped up. In fact, I often hear that the crew struggles with episodes running long, which suggests maybe a few more of them should be two parters and given the time they deserve to be told properly.
As for "story arcs" -- this isn't a new thing from my point of view, to me it's just a contemporary take on the fact that Doctor Who prior was in fact a serial. A story told over 3-12 episodes--really not much different than is done now, just a difference in timing and formatting. In a given season of Doctor Who, you'd see 1-4 or so (depending on the era, more or less) stories. Early on they even called each episode by separate names, they weren't broken into "the Title of the Story, Part X" format until later, and new stories were often introduced at the end of the old one--it was a continuous flow of one long story. There were fewer long term THEMES and full season stories, yes---with some notable exceptions of the Dalek Master Plan, the War Games, the Key to Time, the Black Guardian Saga, and the Trial of a Time Lord--than there are now, but especially in the Moffat era I personally don't feel like the connective themes and long term quests (like the mystery of Clara) are too overbearing. I'm pretty sure this is a "your mileage may vary" matter, however.
The thing about the serials is that if you watch them all in one lump sum as a 21st century viewer, yes, they are too long.
Excellent point. If you told the writers of a serial in 1968 or 1974 that people forty years hence would be sitting down and watching their entire story in one afteroon on a 42" screen, they'd look at you like you were bonkers. Shows like BABYLON 5 - and certainly everything since - have been at least partially designed with the idea of 'box set binges' in mind, or at least the show being stripped 5 episodes a week on some cable channel. But DOCTOR WHO did use some of its length for the purposes of reminding people just what the hell was going on.
Also, budgets were an issue. Modern WHO has actually had some budgetary issues having to build new sets and hire a whole new secondary cast every single week, whilst the classic series would only have to build five or six groups of sets and hire five or six groups of actors, even to get through a 26-episode season. That's why the modern show does have a liking for stories set on modern-day Earth, as it saves them a lot of money in having to make stuff up.
There were stories in Doctor Who where William Hartnell or another cast member went on vacation in the middle of filming
The new series doesn't quite do that, but there's sometimes a 'Doctor-lite' episode which either gives the actor playing the Doctor a 2-3 week break halfway through filming each season or allows the producers to make two episodes simultaneously, shortening the overall filming schedule. 'Blink' was such an episode, for example (as were 'Love and Monsters' and 'Turn Left'). The new series films between 9 and 10 months a year, so it's a pretty full-on schedule.
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Chief Technical Officer
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Some have cited the decision to move the show to mostly self-contained 45-minute episodes (rather than the 25-minute, three-to-seven part serials of the old series), which severely curtails the time available for plot setup, resolution and characterisation. There may be something to this, as Doctor Who does not have a regular cast outside of the two or three central figures and each story needs to establish its own cast, location and threats, which is a tall order in just a few minutes. This is the inverse of most shows, where the cast and location are fixed and a small number of guest cast come in every week who can be set up quite quickly. However, I don't think it's the whole story, especially as most of the two-parters (which are roughly the length of the old four-parters) suffer from the same issues.
After further rumination, I'm going to go further than "not the whole story" and just discount that argument entirely. In most seasons, The Twilight Zone had less than half an hour for establishing setting, introducing characters, and delivering a complete story, and they didn't have the benefit of *any* returning cast (apart from the host). That proves to me that a good screenwriter can do a phenomenal job in 25 minutes, so "can't do it well in 50 minutes" is rubbish. (And modern editing lets you offer many more shots and a little more dialogue than they could work in back then.)
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Yes and no. Box sets, timeshifting, downloading and binge-watching have certainly made story arcs much more accessible than back in the day, when the requirement for syndication stations to be able to show episodes in any order without dense continuity tended to dial them back. However, I also think this has leaned too far the other way and made story arcs almost mandatory.In the case of DOCTOR WHO, the show has no real need for story arcs. The Doctor travels from one place/time to another week after week, and the odds of events in one place being affected by another are fairly slim. The beauty of the show's format and design is that if you come up with a cracking idea for a story arc, you can do it, and if you haven't got one, you can just do stand-alones. With modern WHO, it feels like every season has to have a story arc regardless of whether the producer has had a really good idea or not.
Or as I said earlier, new WHO feels constrained by structure and format, when it really has no need to be outside of the Doctor, the TARDIS and the companion. Other than that it should be free to do whatever it wants. Yet it feels like the story arc structure, which was one intriguing, is now holding it back.
Interesting thoughts but I have to say bad writing is bad writing. I am not going to like story arc or episodic television if it isn't good. I think an episodic formula can be just as detrimental a structure as story arcing. I outright rejected ST:Voyager because the franchise returned to episodic television. If a show is too episodic it becomes difficult to immerse myself in the show. That is all subjective though and cant really be argued. My point is episodic can be bad structurally also.
In most seasons, The Twilight Zone had less than half an hour for establishing setting, introducing characters, and delivering a complete story, and they didn't have the benefit of *any* returning cast (apart from the host).
True. I wasn't in favour of the argument personally, but it's one I've heard from other fans.
If a show is too episodic it becomes difficult to immerse myself in the show.
To be clear, 'episodic' in this context should not be equated to 'reset button', which was the biggest problem on VOYAGER (and to a lesser extent TNG). Not the lack of a big over-arcing storyline, but the fact that what happened last week was immediately forgotten about. No show can get away with doing that any more, but that doesn't preclude not being able to do mostly self-contained episodes as long it has continuing character development.
And of course if they have a really great idea for an arc, they should go for it. As I said, at the moment it just feels like they 'need' to have an arc even if they haven't gotten a really good idea for it. My argument is if they don't have an idea for an arc, then don't have one for a few seasons and then come back strong with one when they have a great idea for it.
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Chief Technical Officer
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To be clear, 'episodic' in this context should not be equated to 'reset button', which was the biggest problem on VOYAGER (and to a lesser extent TNG). Not the lack of a big over-arcing storyline, but the fact that what happened last week was immediately forgotten about. No show can get away with doing that any more....
You've never seen The Simpsons?
You've never seen The Simpsons?
THE SIMPSONS doesn't really have a coherent canon at all. They've even lampshaded it a few times. Also, THE SIMPSONS began way back when the rule pretty much was that you never reference events that happened a week before.
Plus, y'know, the animated comedy thing :)
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IMHO at present the best "episodic" television is Arrow. Each episode not only advances the longer story arc, but includes valuable "back story" using "flash backs." The way Arrow is handling "episodic" TV almost has the feel of a "serial" format without being so. The pacing of each episode is near perfect. For me this is the fastest one hour of TV available. Doctor Who and other "episodic" TV shows could learn a lot from Arrow.
I personally can't stand the island sequences on Arrow, and really really really wish they'd stop them.
Think you meant to post this in the Arrow thread. :)
In the case of DOCTOR WHO, the show has no real need for story arcs. The Doctor travels from one place/time to another week after week, and the odds of events in one place being affected by another are fairly slim. The beauty of the show's format and design is that if you come up with a cracking idea for a story arc, you can do it, and if you haven't got one, you can just do stand-alones. With modern WHO, it feels like every season has to have a story arc regardless of whether the producer has had a really good idea or not.
Or as I said earlier, new WHO feels constrained by structure and format, when it really has no need to be outside of the Doctor, the TARDIS and the companion. Other than that it should be free to do whatever it wants. Yet it feels like the story arc structure, which was one intriguing, is now holding it back.
My theory is the length of the seasons. Or as I call it the 'Lazy lazy Brits' syndrome. I get my dvd sets of Supernatural, Smallville, Arrow, Buffy, Highlander, pretty much any american show and I get myself a solid 22 episodes. I get Doctor WHo.... and I get about 13.
(Yes, I know they do things different over there... I don't care. I want more Who!)
One of the issues I have with such a short season is its predicatbility. You have 13 episodes with about two Two-parters, a Dalek episode, a Cyberman episode, A River song episode, Meeting a new compaion, and episode to explain to them everything we've seen four or five times now... and a couple of the other classic tropes that old-time fans love to see.
It quite sadly doesn't leave much room for NEW things... As for the 'meta-plot' I thought RD's were brilliant. little easter eggs tossed in that were completly unnecessary by the end of the season. Bad Wolf? Torchwood? Saxon? If you missed the references... they didn't hurt the enjoyment of the show.
Moffets? I don't like his at all. There hasn't been enough payoff. Season 5 ended with the great mystery of 'HOW could someone cause the Tardis to explode??? THat can't HAPPEN!!!" Here in season 7, we still know nothing... and since it was 200 years ago for the doctor... I doubt he's still concerned about it >.<
NEVER end a season on a cliffhanger, unless you plan to deal with it the first or second episode of the NEXT season...
Frankly I want MORE standalone episodes, but it feels like we're getting less lately...
(Actually outside the 'who/what is clara' this season HAS been more stand alone..) But clara is REALLY taking up too much screen time/importance.
Point is, with 'full seasons' a meta-plot is a great way to solidify a season... but with only 13 episodes, there isn't ROOM for both meta-plot... and EPISODE plot.
My theory is the length of the seasons. Or as I call it the 'Lazy lazy Brits' syndrome. I get my dvd sets of Supernatural, Smallville, Arrow, Buffy, Highlander, pretty much any american show and I get myself a solid 22 episodes. I get Doctor WHo.... and I get about 13.
It's more an issue of money than 'lazines'. DOCTOR WHO costs less-per-episode than almost any US SFF series, and stretching that money over more episodes would be impossible.
In addition, WHO takes between 9 and 10 months to film 13 episodes, so doing much more than that and allowing people to have a few weeks off between seasons is impossible. If you look at American TV, the 22-episode model is gradually being phased out anyway. It's exhausting making that many episodes and almost impossible to maintain quality. The cable model of making 10-16 episodes per season (GAME OF THRONES, THE WALKING DEAD etc) is definitely becoming a lot more attractive, as fewer episodes means they can put more resources, money and filming time into each episode and improve the quality of each.
My theory is the length of the seasons. Or as I call it the 'Lazy lazy Brits' syndrome. I get my dvd sets of Supernatural, Smallville, Arrow, Buffy, Highlander, pretty much any american show and I get myself a solid 22 episodes. I get Doctor WHo.... and I get about 13.It's more an issue of money than 'lazines'. DOCTOR WHO costs less-per-episode than almost any US SFF series, and stretching that money over more episodes would be impossible.
Ehhh... Sherlock only gets 3 episodes a season...
Downton Abbey (which I hear is very popular though I don't watch it myself) only gets 7-8
So it's really a habit with all the british shows I watched... And based on the old 'serial' format of the original series it's something that's been going on for a LONG time... (I remember being VERY disillusioned When my friend told me Dr. Who was actual in season... thirty... forty something. Only to find out the seasons consisted of a story or two...
I'm surprised They don't have more money for this show. Something must be mishandled somewhere... Doctor who is arguabley the popular thing coming out of England right now... I was flipping through BBCAmerica the other day, and EVERYTHING was Doctor who. Specials on the first, 3rd, fourth, the new episodes, then repeating... It looked like it was just the 'who-channel' O.o
The special effects are pretty good in the show... but its not the ONLY sci-fi show out there and they all have effects budgets. heck with the constant recycle of monsters (Daleks, Cybermen, etc.) Their cost should be lower then many others... The suits are in the back closet ;)
In addition, WHO takes between 9 and 10 months to film 13 episodes, so doing much more than that and allowing people to have a few weeks off between seasons is impossible. If you look at American TV, the 22-episode model is gradually being phased out anyway. It's exhausting making that many episodes and almost impossible to maintain quality. The cable model of making 10-16 episodes per season (GAME OF THRONES, THE WALKING DEAD etc) is definitely becoming a lot more attractive, as fewer episodes means they can put more resources, money and filming time into each episode and improve the quality of each.
Again, why does it take so long? Other sci-fi shows don't take that long.
The cable model sucks. I was very ticked off when Dexter was only 12 episodes, and that was the first time I saw that... We don't get 'Tv series' anymore... we get Mini-series' In fact, I have seen some 'mini-series from the 80's and 90's that had more meat to them then a few of the 'regular' series that get produced now :(
I figure this is based on two reasons. 1) What comic fans call 'Writing for the TPB' Instead of getting 2-3 issue stories we get them padded out so they can eventually sell them as a collected edition. That's the way TV feels nowdays. Lost was useless to watch weekly... Sitting down with a dvd season and watching it straight through was kind of awesome. Sadly with comics we paid for more comics with this philosphy but with tv, we get less. They have one story they want to tell and stretch it over 12-14 episodes. No point in stand alone 'filler' episode :(
2) No more reruns. Its very rare for me to catch 'reruns' anymore. In the old days everyone wanted to hit the '1-200 episode' mark for syndication... now with netflix and hulu and dvds... nobody bothers anymore.
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I'm surprised They don't have more money for this show. Something must be mishandled somewhere... Doctor who is arguabley the popular thing coming out of England right now... I was flipping through BBCAmerica the other day, and EVERYTHING was Doctor who. Specials on the first, 3rd, fourth, the new episodes, then repeating... It looked like it was just the 'who-channel' O.o
From my understanding of how the BBC's budget works, it really doesn't matter that the show is more popular. BBC shows get the same budget, regardless of popularity, merchandising, etc.
Ehhh... Sherlock only gets 3 episodes a season...
Correct, but that's because its two lead actors are two of the most famous and in-demand actors on the planet right now, so they can only film episodes when both Freeman and Cumberbatch are available. That limits what they can do.
Again, why does it take so long? Other sci-fi shows don't take that long.
DOCTOR WHO is different in that every episode takes place in its own locale, with its own location shooting, sets and guest cast. The only continuing set - the TARDIS - is normally not the focus of the show (one episode this season excepted, of course). Other shows use the same standing sets, the same locations, the same costumes etc which is a lot more cost and time-effective.