10 Ways Doctor Who Is Now Completely Unrecognisable

4. Faster Pace

In the good old days, the Doctor and his companions would arrive on a planet, meet the locals, mess around for a while and eventually get into trouble. They could do this over four, six or even ten episodes. Nowadays, most stories are told in 45 minutes, with the emphasis on getting in and out of the story as quickly as possible. In some cases, this is a brilliant device. Gone are the days of the Doctor & Co getting captured and then escaping on multiple occasions. Gone are the days of obvious filler such as the ridiculous and unnecessary sword fight - replete with the bizarre moment where the Doctor eats a sandwich - in The Sea Devils. Now our hero gets in and gets on with his work. It's brilliant, it's breathless, it's exciting. But at the same time, this can lead to some underdeveloped episodes, where ideas and adventures whiz by so quickly that the conclusions can seem rushed and ill thought through, The trade off is clear, but it has lead to many compact and exciting stories, such as Blink, Mummy on the Orient Express, Father's Day and The Eleventh Hour.