4 Reasons Why Doctor Who Should Stay Away From Serials

Earlier this week, my fellow WhatCulture contributor James Alexander Allen gave you four reasons why he believed that Doctor Who could benefit from returning to its pre-2005 serialised format. His opinions on the topic were valid to say the least, but it's always interesting to play devil's advocate, so that's exactly what I'm going to do here. Despite the potential benefits that the sci-fi drama programme could undergo from its re-serialisation, changing the format carries major risks and if anything idolises the classic era to the point of utter nostalgia and blindness. Perhaps one day an executive producer on Who will deem it the right decision to make to shift the formats, but I find that very unlikely given the success of the current format, and for the following reasons too...

1. Each Story Would Have Too Much Screen Time

James' first point regarding the idea of re-serialisation, whereby the programme would return to a format where each season consists of a handful of stories broken up into 5/6 25 minute instalments, was that this would allow writers further screentime to showcase their sci-fi narratives. It's easy to see where he's coming from, as criticisms were made towards the somewhat rushed endings of Asylum Of The Daleks and The Power Of Three in Series Seven Part One. While I concede that perhaps five more minutes would have served particularly the latter adventure a little better, if anything we should then just be aiming to have the BBC allow extended running times of 50-60 minutes on an irregular basis when they are needed. In this way, writers can continue to tell their stories without time restrictions, but not feel that they have to stretch things over two or more episodes. Indeed, split stories like Aliens In London/World War Three, The Rebel Flesh/The Almost People have often recently struggled with pacing, and though The War Games can undoubtedly be called a Troughton classic, it's fair to say that for me that its four-hour (ten part) running time seemed more than a little over-indulgent for a relatively simple yet effective send-off tale. That the issue of pacing went so far as to convince showrunner Steven Moffat that fourteen standalone instalments would work better for the seventh season just goes to show that the serial format would be a completely adverse turn events for Who, and although the standalone take has its minor downfalls, it's certainly worked brilliantly for this series so far.
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