3. Fewer Budgetary Commitments Endorses Less Innovation
Moving onto James' point, my fellow contributor then went onto predict that by restricting the settings and stories of Doctor Who through a serial format, the Mill would end up having to make less budgetary commitments in new season. Quite seriously, though, how much of a detrimental effect can we see the varied CGI elements were having on Series Seven Part One? Asylum, Dinosaurs, Mercy, Power and Angels all looked great in no small part thanks to both the blockbuster-esque direction and the fantastic effects highlighting their battles, explosions and aliens. Doctor Who has had its fair share of shabby effects in the past, from the Yeti to the Scribble Monsters of Fear Her (sorry for the mention, I know that most of us are trying to put that shambles behind us), and in many ways that fact is just part of the quirkiness and innovation which we should be celebrating rather than lamenting come the 50th Anniversary. The CGI on this run was miles ahead of anything that the classic era provided us with, and certainly there was nothing weak enough to compare to The Long Game, Tooth And Claw, The Idiot's Lantern, The Lazarus Experiment or other effects duds that have graced us since the show's return in 2005. Furthermore, the lack of varied stories would if anything simply encourage the Mill to be less inventive in their creation of special effects, and the last thing we want is predictable monsters and adventures to be the death of the show.