10 Doctor Who Changes That Were Completely Justified

One of the biggest changes in Doctor Who has been an overhaul of how stories are structured, and it's a change that's difficult to argue with.

Classic Who was heavily serialised, with stories running over many weeks comprising four or six parts, but sometimes stretching to as many as twelve. Granted, the episodes were shorter, but the show famously had a problem with over-padding scripts.

Things tightened up as we entered the latter classic years, with the introduction of the 45-minute episode in 1984's Resurrection of the Daleks, and reduced episode counts in the McCoy era. In 2005, we transitioned into a modern format, with more stories per series spread out across fewer episodes, each with a longer runtime. This also put the pacing issues to bed, forcing writers to submit scripts that were contained within 45 minutes, which thankfully resulted in a bit less fluff.

Though this gradual shift to less and less episodes per year is a frustrating one (14 in 2005 versus nine in 2024), it has correlated with an increase in production value. It's expensive to make good-looking TV these days and for Doctor Who to compete, quality over quantity is ultimately the best approach.