Doctor Who: 10 Things Series 8 Must Do To Be The Best Yet

9. Stop Drawing Attention To Special Effects

This is not a public service announcement from luddites; effects are a vital and beloved part of science fiction and fantasy, and everyone can appreciate what Doctor Who has achieved as it pushes modern technology to its best, year after year. It would be absurd to do away with the wonders of present-day technology; no one is exactly pining for wobbly Styrofoam of days gone by. Even Midnight, one of the stories that seems sparse with special effects, needed those glistening shots of the diamond city to get the most out of that story. Doctor Who is, was, and will be, a sort of television time capsule, as much a cinematographic artefact as a cultural one. That said the last series itself was an attempt to showcase that very range: the best the CGI crew and the pyrotechnics team and everyone else had to offer. What changed recently was that discussion about effects made that especially clear. Series seven speculation was bogged down with terms like "epic" and "Hollywood-style blockbuster" which resulted in such a focus on special effects that the result onscreen could not live up to the hype. Take the promotional poster for Bells of Saint John above. The actual motorbike scene looks less impressive with the image in mind. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OKvobPKN3Q The FX teams at Doctor Who do truly amazing work, but have been recently over-scrunitised compared to the rest of Modern Who. It is critical that series eight returns to putting the stories and performances first allowing visual effects to support, not dominate, world building.