Doctor Who Series 8 - A Wishlist

Doctor Who Series 8 - A Wishlist 

I find this almost impossible to believe, but there were parts of Series 7 of Doctor Who that I was unhappy about. There, I said it. It's out in the open now. We can all try to move on. Or can we? Everytime there's a new series or a new Doctor in particular, people want to see the things they love remain, and the bits they're dissatisfied with disappear, so here are my hopes and wishes for Series 8 of Doctor Who, just to help tide over the next few months until the 50th Anniversary special and beyond.

No mid-season break

Out of all the changes that have occurred over the last few years, I cannot think of a single one that I hate as much as the mid-season break. To me, it completely disrupts the flow of the season, and instead of thinking 'great, I get more Doctor Who sooner than otherwise', I think 'I only get 6 or 7 episodes at a time, italics great'. I can sort of see how you can put a cliffhanger in there and make it exciting, but you can do that with a two part episode - look at one of the two greatest cliffhangers the show has produced, with The Doctor on the verge of regenerating, which occurred in the penultimate episode of Series 4. Speaking of two part episodes...

Some two part episodes 

I understand that the plan was to make each episode a standalone blockbuster in Series 7, but some of the greatest episodes since Series 1 have been two parters. Look at The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances, Army of Ghosts/Doomsday, Human Nature/Family of Blood and so on. There's at least one classic two- or even three-parter in every series. A two parter gives so much extra scope for telling a story, and feels like the series is more connected as a whole, although admittedly the resolution of the cliffhanger hasn't always been received as well as the cliffhanger itself (looking at you, regenerating Doctor using his hand to stop it). At the end of Series 3, we had three episodes running which tied directly into each other, as The Master was revealed, regenerated and elected Prime Minister. Which brings me onto...

Series-wide arc

In Series 6, we had a season long mystery of who killed The Doctor in the opening twenty minutes, which left us scratching our heads for the entire season, and gave it a focal point. In Series 7, whilst you could argue that Amy and Rory leaving was the storyline of the opening half, and the mystery of Clara the storyline for the second half, particularly in the case of Amy and Rory this just wasn't strong enough to count as a full arc. Part of the problem with the Clara mystery was that, although we knew there was a mystery with her, we weren't teased with any answers until the very end, which brings us nicely to my next wish...

Teasing answers throughout the series

I felt growing frustration with the Clara storyline that we were just as clueless as The Doctor all the way through about who Clara really was. In Series 6, we had jaw dropping moments like the little girl regenerating to give us extra mysteries and clues about who was behind The Doctor's death. In Series 3 we had teasers about 'Vote Saxon!' and the last three episodes bringing the end of the story to a nice close. In Series 4 we saw glimpses of Rose and heard about various things (bees, planets) disappearing all the way up until the final two-parter. When I think back to my favourite memories from the last seven series, a lot of them involve involve these answers being teased to us over whole series.

Knowing I've got 13 episodes to luck forward to in one go delights me more than being disappointed about the fact 6 episodes will be over and done with very quickly. Knowing that I'll get to see a fantastic story spread over two weeks with 7 days of feverish discussion in between fills me with excitement. And knowing that I'll spend the entire series puzzling over a central mystery, with little clues being revealed along the way, is my favourite type of season, whether it's a blatant mystery like The Doctor being shot, or little mysteries cropping up everywhere like 'Vote Saxon!' or Rose's face appearing on a TV behind The Doctor.

I enjoyed Series 7, I really did. It had a hell of a tear-jerking ending to our time with Amy and Rory, it gave us a great new companion in Clara, and it was funny, exciting and emotional all the way through. And it had THAT ending. That incredible, exciting, out of the blue (if you ignore any media outlet) ending that had us debating furiously. It almost makes me forget the problems I had with Series 7.

ALMOST.

I've had a couple of months to calm down now and think about it in more detail. Imagine if we could have a series with a central mystery, that teases us with little clues and reveals every few episodes, where all episodes tie into the mystery, with a couple of two-parters in there, particularly at the finale. How amazing would that be?