4. No More Extreme Genre Shifts
One of the great strengths and keys to Who's success is that it's pretty much the only show on TV that it's normalized changing the lead actor and supporting cast once every five or so years. This switching leads to distinct flavours to each Doctor's tenure, such as the earth-bound, adventure serial style of the Third Doctor, or the more extreme descent of the Tenth Doctor into angst and madness. However, it was in this last series that it got turned up to (dare I say it?) eleven, with Moffat declaring each episode had to be like "a movie poster." Asylum of the Daleks - horror. Dinosaurs on a Spaceship - sci-fi romp. A Town Called Mercy - western. And so on, continued through to The Rings of Akhaten as an Indiana Jones esque adventure. The Crimson Horror was a tribute to schlocky B-Horror (yeah, now Mr Sweet makes sense, doesn't he?). These tributes lead to the season feeling disjointed and jumpy, with little feeling of continuity between episodes. It also alienates the audience how many school-age kids do you know wholl get the references to the B-Horror films Mark Gatiss enjoys emulating in The Crimson Horror, as well as all the references (starting with the casting) to the 1960s TV show the Avengers? A little bit of a referencing and broad parody is all well and good but when the show runs on aping genres, it can get very tiresome, very quickly.