10 Things The Doctor Who Reboot MUST Do

For its first four years, NuWho’s release schedule was incredibly consistent: a series of 13 episodes premiering around Easter weekend, with a Christmas special later in the year.

But basically ever since, it’s been a hot mess.

We’ve had spring seasons. Autumn seasons. Winter seasons. Spring seasons again. Gaps of a year between episodes. In 2016 and 2019 the only episode released was the festive special. And most startlingly of all, we're now in our longest gap between episodes since 2005.

RTD promised annual Doctor Who again for his second era, and he delivered to begin with… but then everything just crashed and burned. Whoever takes Doctor Who on needs to be realistic. And fans might need to temper our expectations.

In the current climate, there’s no way we’re getting 13 episodes per year, and even ten might be a stretch. So how about six hour-long episodes every year? Or ten episodes every two years, with a couple of specials (or a spinoff) spread throughout that intervening year?

There are so many ways the production of the show could be eased. RTD was onto something with filming well in advance, so that could be looked at again. The show is likely to have a smaller budget this time around and won't be lumped with Disney's exhaustive and expensive 4K upgrade requirements, which will allow episodes to be produced quicker. And going fully serialised to help spread around the cast, sets and locations a bit more feels inevitable.

Whatever the case, having some sort of consistent schedule is important. Erratic release patterns damage the hype and relevance of a show, and Doctor Who has been suffering with this problem for over a decade now.