What I'd like next series...

iMax

One storyline. Many episodes. Run through the entire series. Bring all the previous recurring characters (Captain Jack etc) back in and out at various points leading to a climactic finale. The doctor against a decent foe.

A nod to the 30's & 40s "folly-n-uppers" if you will.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

i want to see the doctor travel to the planet of the planet of the wild dildos where he meets jenny, who is all tied up in the grand dildo lair. Then the doctor leaves, and the camera stays with jenny for 13 episodes.

Doctor DooM

Mordances with wolves wrote: »

i want to see the doctor travel to the planet of the planet of the wild dildos where he meets jenny, who is all tied up in the grand dildo lair. Then the doctor leaves, and the camera stays with jenny for 13 episodes.

Getting unhealthy with that obsession there, lessdanceswithdoggies!

pixelburp

I have to admit, I have had enough of RTD. I always had a patience for the man's eccentricities when it came to the tone & direction of New Who, but now it's beginning to jar & feel predictable. I always enjoyed his own material, up to a point, but I think even he is tiring of his own work & is just churning out the "wacky" episodes on auto-pilot.

So for the 5th series and onwards, I want to see a new direction & attitude in the show. Whether that requires Steven Moffat to take over, or somebody else, there should be a new man at the helm.

Doctor DooM

pixelburp wrote: »

I have to admit, I have had enough of RTD. I always had a patience for the man's eccentricities when it came to the tone & direction of New Who, but now it's beginning to jar & feel predictable. I always enjoyed his own material, up to a point, but I think even he is tiring of his own work & is just churning out the "wacky" episodes on auto-pilot.

So for the 5th series and onwards, I want to see a new direction & attitude in the show. Whether that requires Steven Moffat to take over, or somebody else, there should be a new man at the helm.

Totally agreed, although I will always be thankful to RTD for bringing back one of my favourite tv shows from my youth. I await Doctor Who vs the Transformers (something which very nearly happened in the uk marvel comics, believe it or not) with baited breath.

popebenny16

Mordances with wolves wrote: »

i want to see the doctor travel to the planet of the planet of the wild dildos where he meets jenny, who is all tied up in the grand dildo lair. Then the doctor leaves, and the camera stays with jenny for 13 episodes.

Jenny is just a standard blonde sort I'd rather it was Martha and Donna myself.

ixoy

RTD to go. He can take away some of his writing staff too like the risible Greenhorn. Hopefully it'll remove the childish element to the show (you can be a family drama without needing to have "gags" like farting).

Far less Earth bound stories - Grrr! It's not Season 7! Move away from Earth in its timelines. There's a whole universe out there that the show never brings us to. Hell reuse the quarries if you need to but give us more alien life and places. It's one of the most glaring issues with the show currently.

More maturity - the show needs to stop focusing on the idea that "it's for the kids!". It's a family drama and kids can be treated with more respect. Now we do get that with writers like Cornell and Moffat but we should get more of it throughout the show whilst still retaining its humanity.

Less over-bearing music. Keep the orchestral swells down a bit, let the action on screen dictate the emotion more than the brash musical accompanient.

More from Moffat and Paul Cornell. Bring in Lance Parkin too and a few other writers from the BBC Books series who've shown how well they can write.

I'd also like to see more intelligent resolutions to problems too. This will mean destroying the sonic screwdriver as it's currently just a crap deus ex machina for every bloody thing. Also gone is the psychic paper. The Doctor used to have to use his wits and charm and ingeunity to get past people - now all he does is flash the paper or run through a door pointing the bloody sonic screw driver. It's lazy lazy writing.

Far less running - the Doctor uses his brains to solve problems. Tone down the shouting too, especially about how humans are amazing. It's embarassing - we know the Doctor likes Earth but there's no need for him to waffle on about it all the time. A bit more about him going on about stupid apes would be nice.

Stop having the TARDIS console explode and rock from side to side. It's old. And no more of the Doctor going "What? What?!" It's hardly a catchphrase of "Oh my giddy aunt" quality

No mention of Rose ever again. No harkening back to any other of RTD's creations other than his current companion. We need freshness - not to be mired down in RTD's leftovers.

A male companion - yes there has definitely been more female companion throughout the show but there's no reason we can't have a male companion too. No more "I love you" Doctor type companions either - Donna's the right step in this regard.

Show the TARDIS interior - we've never seen beyond the console room. We saw a good bit more in its first run so why hold back now with your bigger budget? Show Donna's room perhaps or one of the many many other areas. We've never been shown just how big the TARDIS is.

Better science - I know it's a family drama but the lack of science in the show is depressing mostly.

Better SFX - I know they're expensive and all but the show often looks terribly shoddy when put up against the outputs from other US shows like BSG.

.. So a small list of wants

pixelburp

ixoy wrote: »

More from Moffat and Paul Cornell. Bring in Lance Parkin too and a few other writers from the BBC Books series who've shown how well they can write.

This puzzles me greatly; Parkin has been a strong writer for the books range, yet has not been involved at all with the new TV show. I can only imagine that either he simply doesn't want to write for it, or else doesn't have enough TV experience that he can be put forward as a writer for the show. Shame.

ixoy wrote: »

A male companion - yes there has definitely been more female companion throughout the show but there's no reason we can't have a male companion too. No more "I love you" Doctor type companions either - Donna's the right step in this regard.

I disagree about the need for a 3rd companion - anytime there's more than one companion, in New or Old Who, 1 inevitably gets sidelined & does feck all (or to put it another way, Turlough climbing through vent shafts). Look at Martha in last week's debacle. She did nothing useful.

ixoy wrote: »

Better science - I know it's a family drama but the lack of science in the show is depressing mostly.

I think this ties in with the point about the Deus Ex Machina endings; with the knowledge that the episode is going to be 45 minutes, you tend to get pretend science that can pull off the "with one bound they were free" style resolution. Sloppy for sure.

Though having said that, I DON'T DON'T DON'T want so-called "hard" science like the style we had in season 18/19; basically along the lines of Chris Bidmead.

ixoy wrote: »

Better SFX - I know they're expensive and all but the show often looks terribly shoddy when put up against the outputs from other US shows like BSG.

I disagree; I think this season the SFX have been rather good. I think part of the problem is that on many occassions, the backdrop SFX doesn't match the close up, so the joins are all the more obvious (like when the Doc faced off against the Devil, it was obvious with the "film" SFX jarring against the TV camera shots of Tennant). The answer is to use film cameras for Who.

ixoy wrote: »

.. So a small list of wants

You forgot to mention "needs more Jenny"

ixoy

pixelburp wrote: »

This puzzles me greatly; Parkin has been a strong writer for the books range, yet has not been involved at all with the new TV show. I can only imagine that either he simply doesn't want to write for it, or else doesn't have enough TV experience that he can be put forward as a writer for the show. Shame.

He's written for TV though - admittedly it was for "Emmerdale" but he has experience writing scenes and working with a restrictive timeline. It makes this all the more puzzling - maybe he's jus not interested anymore?

I disagree about the need for a 3rd companion - anytime there's more than one companion, in New or Old Who, 1 inevitably gets sidelined & does feck all (or to put it another way, Turlough climbing through vent shafts). Look at Martha in last week's debacle. She did nothing useful.

That's a fair point mostly but I always thought Ian and Barbara worked well together as a pairing - maybe something like that? Not Mickey/Rickey of course but someone intelligent who I don't want to throw into the temporal void.

Though having said that, I DON'T DON'T DON'T want so-called "hard" science like the style we had in season 18/19; basically along the lines of Chris Bidmead.

Is that because bad hard science is worse than not trying? The level of science in something even like Stargate would work in the show - just a bit of effort.

You forgot to mention "needs more Jenny"

Not to my taste

Oh and bring back a Brigadier if we see UNIT again! Winifred Bambera even.

pixelburp

ixoy wrote: »

He's written for TV though - admittedly it was for "Emmerdale" but he has experience writing scenes and working with a restrictive timeline. It makes this all the more puzzling - maybe he's jus not interested anymore?

Ah ok, very mysterious so; maybe he's in the same camp as Lawrence Miles. The "all New Who is shít" camp that is.
Having said that, there's a lot of writers out there who I suspect would chew off several appendages to make a script for the show; I vaguely recall Neil Gaiman expressing an interest. Not to mention the issue with Stephen Fry's aborted script for series 3

ixoy wrote: »

That's a fair point mostly but I always thought Ian and Barbara worked well together as a pairing - maybe something like that? Not Mickey/Rickey of course but someone intelligent who I don't want to throw into the temporal void.

True, when the 2 companion combo worked, it worked really well. Ian / Barbara were great, though I always thought Sarah Jane / Harry Sullivan were better in that you had great spark & banter between the two of them. Sarah Jane's ballsy nature vs. Harry's Old-school pillock character. I think if they must bring along a male companion however, it should be Bernard Cribbens' character, he would be champion (plus there'd be less running)

ixoy wrote: »

Is that because bad hard science is worse than not trying? The level of science in something even like Stargate would work in the show - just a bit of effort.

Well the Bidmead era did stray into the territory of some serious technobabble ("logopolis" was unbelievable in that regard), which I do think is worse because it's pretentious & knowing, not to mention deeply alienating. I think what perhaps New Who is trying to convey is the "magic" of science

ixoy wrote: »

Not to my taste

Oh and bring back a Brigadier if we see UNIT again! Winifred Bambera even.

Well if we simply must stay on Earth so much, then I see no reason why the show can't go back to the UNIT years. We have the introduction, the capacity for decent characters & the chance to introduce a more tangible story arc.

popebenny16

Ahhhh.... block computations... brings me back....:D

We have seen the wardrobe room in the tardis, but it really is always stuck in the control room all the time, then again it is a massive and permanent set so they have to get their uses out of it.

Things will change, thats for sure, Julie Gardener is also standing down, not just RTD, so there will be a massive change of direction in many ways. I'm willing to firgive some aspects of the show, like the farting and stuff, as it was (was!!) a good hook to get the kids and the families in. That said, it does rather highlight the niether fish nor foul aspect to the sheduling of the show and who it is aimed at.

BBC starts evening schedules at 7.00pm. Up till this week, all the shows (6.20 to 6.45 starts) have technically been afternoon shows. BBC report that ratings prior to 7.pm are non-existant as people are still coming home from work/shopping ect. Gone are the days of Allo Allo and the like pulling in tens of millions at 5.30. Hence the move to seven pm. Problem, that audience is more than just for kids, and like it or lump it the shows are editied down that way. The first draft for the Sontarian Strategem was more like Apocalyse now and had to be re-written for family audiences which meant cater for the kidddies.

Four years in, though, that premise is wearing thin, esp when you see that it is the more daring and adult forwarding stories that resonate the most - even with the kids - Blink and Family of Blood being good examples. So, BBC have moved a programme steeped in a 5.20pm timeslot into a 7.pm one and have hoped that the audience is there. Maybe it is, god knows viewing figures of 8 million are not to be sniffed at (which put the likes of Star Trek, Stargate Lost et all well into the ha`penny place). The point being, those audiences dont desert the show when more adult stories are lined up, and, what relevence has The Master or Daleks got to anyone under 20 before the show started again? Who was the intended target if not adults????

Perhaps the new teams will grasp the nettle but, not too tight.

As for off-world adventures, RTD says that they attract the lowest viewing figures and dont warrent the expense. I dont buy into that at all or perhaps he changes the rules when his space story comes about (Utopia).

Anyway, we are groping in the dark a lot (not a Jenny reference).... there may not be a Who after 2009......

BuffyBot

I'm sure there will be. The BBC won't let this die anytime soon, no matter which staff/cast come and go.

I'd be quite happy if they did less bringing back old characters (Rose/Martha/Captain Jack) - it was a nice trick first time, and good when Sarah Jane arrived on the scene..but now it's getting repetitive and tiresome.

I'm waiting for RTD's sweaty palms to be removed from the helm too..