5 Reasons Chibnall's Doctor Who Era Failed

Oh, to go back to the beginning of the revival of Doctor Who, where we could look forward to thirteen episodes per season and then a festive special as well! In recent years we’ve seen a dramatic reduction in episodes per season.

With the exception of season seven, which covered the fiftieth anniversary year and was split over two halves with extra specials thrown in the mix too, we’ve seen everything get a lot shorter. Moffat kicked off the trend by knocking it down from thirteen to twelve. One episode fewer wasn’t so bad because the seasons still gave us plenty to enjoy. However, Chibnall has gone a step further and slashed an extra two episodes, taking the count down to ten.

It makes sense that the production value has rocketed, and the show looks gorgeous. Obviously, money had to be saved somewhere, but Matt Smith and Capaldi’s eras looked fine, and they didn’t need to suffer half as much.

The worst thing is that season thirteen has been knocked down to eight episodes. What they didn’t tell us is that that must be including the specials due to air next year because recent articles confirmed that the run we’re about to get will only be six episodes long! SIX EPISODES! And we’ve waited eighteen months! Understandably, the pandemic didn’t help. But SIX episodes? Really?