How Should Doctor Who Evolve?

Guest contributor Nick Ahrens offers some suggestions.

Whatever side of the Russell T. Davies/ Steven Moffat divide you’re on, or if you’re one of those pleased with the work of both men, I think every Whovian should be excited that Mr. Moffat has set out to change the direction of Doctor Who, particularly with his work over the past two series. And it isn’t merely Gallifrey’s return, and all the potential storylines that event could create. We had a younger, charming, easily accessible Doctor replaced by an older, darker, slightly mad Doctor, and the entire show took a turn in a darker, more serious direction as a result.

The Master has returned, and it seems that steps are being taken to re-establish that character as a true arch villain, the Doctor’s Moriarty, if you will. UNIT has also returned – in full force – and appears to be becoming a fixture on the show once more. Even if one sees these things as merely taking Doctor Who back to its roots, they are undoubtedly going to produce different sorts of stories moving forward.

And I applaud that. But is it enough? Here are my suggestions of a few areas I’d like to see further advances in.

Solidify the Writing Staff

One of the few, occasional, issues I have with the new Who is how some of the stories themselves are constructed, and I think having a more stable group of writers would go a long way towards solving this. What would this change do? It would provide them with more time, for one thing, and a more coherent approach to the episodes, for another.

I’d wager that even the fans who are firmly in the Russell T. Davies camp were still intrigued by who Missy might be, and what she was up to. Or just what those cracks in time and space meant. I love the story arcs that Moffat has introduced to the show. They’re nice little mysteries that keep us intrigued, and tuning in week after week. The main problem with them? Only Moffat himself deals with the arcs, by and large. A more well-tuned staff could solve that problem. I absolutely love the episode The Lodger, for example, but how much more enjoyable would that one have been if we all knew that the danger in it was related to the Silence, instead of (sort of) finding that out weeks later, in a vague, off-hand way?

There are other issues. I felt series seven’s The Crimson Horror cried out to be a two-part episode. Perhaps The Power of Three, as well, or at least reworked so its ending (a vague explanation of the aliens involved, and the sonic screwdriver as a magic wand) wasn’t so frustrating. Series five’s The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood probably should have been a single episode.

I feel we do need more multi-part episodes overall, but we may be getting at least three in Series 9, so perhaps Moffat and company have seen the light on that one.

Get Away From “The Monster of the Week”

I fail to see why this approach is necessary anymore. Love it, hate it, or tolerate it, I think most will agree that the story of A Christmas Carol works, and works fairly well. No real monsters, just a spaceliner in danger, and a twisted, nasty old man. With a little revision, you could remove the deadly robot “angels” from Voyage of the Damned, and that episode would work just as well, or perhaps even better.

I’m certainly not advocating a monster-free Who, but we’ve reached the point where some of these creatures that appear feel obligatory, like the Skovox Blitzer in The Caretaker. Into the Dalek is an essentially monster-free episode, and it’s as enjoyable as most of the rest of the series. Can’t the Doctor, from time to time, simply prevent a space station from crashing into a moon? Or help the victims of a series of earthquakes on an alien world?

Don’t Be Afraid To Change Things Up

For a series about a time travelling Time Lord, very little focus is given to the wrinkles, and potential problems, of travelling in time. That’s why, to me, The Pandorica Opens/Big Bang is such a delight. There’s some wonderfully wibbly-wobbly stuff in there. Back to the Future mined three classic films from the basic premise of the complications of time travel, and probably could have went on for three more. Have the Doctor, or his companion, inadvertently change history in a dramatic way, and then have them spend the rest of the episode trying to sort it out. Have a multi-Doctor episode where the Doctor actually has to avoid his past self so as not to create a rip in time. The possibilities for this type of story aren’t endless, but they are numerous.

We haven’t had any so-called “Doctor lite” episodes for some time now. Which is odd when you consider the current showrunner penned what is arguably the best “Doctor lite” story of all in Blink. This type of episode needs revisited.

They also need to embrace stories with a smaller scale, even to the extent of allowing an entire season to be filled primarily with stories of this type. This struck me recently when I was watching the classic Who serial Robots of Death. It’s a small story, a murder mystery in many respects, but it’s very clever, and incredibly well done. Time Heist and Mummy on the Orient Express were both smaller scale type episodes last season, and to me, were two of the high points of the entire run. We’ve now had a decade of Who where the majority of the episodes lean towards the “end of the world/galaxy/universe” type. That, in itself, warrants at least a bit of change, in my opinion. You lessen the importance of saving the Earth when you’re doing it every week.

And why not have the Doctor travel alone again for a bit? Or have a whole squad of companions?

Don’t Be Afraid To Embrace The Past

This is, by far, my biggest beef with the Moffat era. It’s great to be moving forwards with new concepts and ideas… commendable, even. But to partially ignore the past of a show with as rich of a history as Doctor Who is not only doing its fans a disservice, but it’s taking away some potential for even more exceptional storytelling. Certainly, we’ve been treated to some things that I never thought I’d see again, like the Great Intelligence, and the Zygons. But is the Meddling Monk still out there somewhere? Is there a K-9 unit rattling around in some old closet in the TARDIS, and might the Doctor find a need to reactivate it some day?

Even the Davies era gets somewhat ignored. Might the Doctor, at some point, have to figure out a way to visit Rose in her parallel dimension, and save it from destruction? Does he still hang out with Wilfred Mott occasionally? Some of the goings on in The End of Time were unclear – could he meet up with Donna again? Where the heck is Captain Jack? Just what was The Nightmare Child anyway, and could it return?

If this all came off as a laundry list of complaints, I apologize. That was certainly not my intention when writing this article. I think it’s wonderful Mr. Moffat continues to shake up the show, but I think we’d all be better served if it’s shook up a bit more.