10 Things That Must NEVER Happen In Doctor Who
Hide these ideas behind a diamond wall for 4.5 billion years, we say!
Change is sown into the very fabric of Doctor Who, and has been ever since William Hartnell regenerated into Patrick Troughton way back in 1966. And yet, Doctor Who fans can often be quite resistant to change.
The show's midnight release was the latest big shuffle to enrage the fandom, and no doubt there will be more controversies in the years to come. Every Doctor Who fan has their line in the sand when it comes to what the show cannot do, and every Doctor Who showrunner since 2005 has gleefully stepped over some of those lines with varying degrees of success.
Chris Chibnall's first female Doctor? Great! Steven Moffat introducing the Doctor to Adolf Hitler? Not so great!
But hopefully, even those pesky Doctor Who showrunners are aware that there are some elements of the show that must never, ever be tampered with. Red lines that, once crossed, could turn Doctor Who from this weird little science-fiction show into something *gasp* ordinary.
Or, y'know, just ruin it altogether.
10. Release An Entire Season At Once
Season 1's midnight release strategy was controversial to fans who either didn't want to have to stay up late just to avoid spoilers, or who felt that the show's UK audience was being treated like second-class citizens.
But look on the bright side. Imagine the whole season dropped on iPlayer and Disney+ in one go?!
While the binge-watch strategy works really well for sitcoms and miniseries, it just doesn't work for Doctor Who. Every episode is a unique adventure, taking place in a completely new location with an almost entirely new cast. Each episode of Doctor Who is a mini-movie, an event to be savoured.
If we got Doctor Who as one chunk of eight episodes, the temptation would be to skip the "filler" episodes and go straight to the finale, just so we could get back on Twitter a bit sooner.
Midnight releases of single episodes wasn't the most ideal change, but it at least ensured that everyone was on the same page week-to-week, and gave people the chance to watch the episode at a time that suited them.
Releasing a whole season in one go, however, would be a disaster for the show, and would only serve to make Doctor Who feel like throwaway 'content' rather than the huge event it deserves to be.