Should Doctor Who Return to a Multi-Episode Story Format?

In the wake of Doctor Who’s controversial (and, largely, critically panned) season 15 finale, everyone has thoughts about what went wrong and how the show can turn things around in its next era. And to be fair, there’s a lot to consider, from thoughts on the identity of the next Doctor, the meaning behind Billie Piper’s surprise appearance in “The Reality War’s” closing moments, and what kind of stories the show should tell in the franchise’s next era. But should we be thinking about how the show does so?

After all, Doctor Who has experimented with multiple formats over the course of its 60-plus-year run, from 40-minute weekly installments to feature-length specials and even a TV movie. The series’ classic era mixed serialized adventures with multi-episode installments, crafting self-contained stories spread across anywhere from two to as many as 13 25-minute installments. And according to legendary series producer Philip Hinchcliffe, it’s time for the show to get back to those roots. 

A respected producer during the Tom Baker era in the 1970s, Hinchcliffe helped oversee the show when it produced many stories that are now considered franchise classics like “The Ark in Space,” “Genesis of the Daleks,” and “Pyramids of Mars.” Speaking at a recent BFI Southbank event to mark the release of the Doctor Who: The Collection – Season 13 Blu-ray box set, he advocated for a return to four-part serials, claiming that such stories allow more time for necessary plot and character depth. 

“That’s a very good time for a movie or a television story to be told, in 100 minutes,” he said. “That gives you room to introduce characters, to unravel an inciting event of the story – the mystery, and what’s going wrong – and you’ve got the time to get to know the characters, to invest emotionally with the characters, not just the heroes, and there can be plot reversals, and suspense… it doesn’t have to be action all the time.”

Now, to be fair, Hinchcliffe has a point. When the series was revived in 2005, showrunner Russell T. Davies updated its format to 13 44-minute single-episode stories, bringing the show in line with most modern American dramas (at least in terms of timing) and essentially condensing narratives that would have previously been told over something like four to six half-hour episodes.

In the Disney+ era, the show’s length has been shortened yet again, and now a season comprises just eight episodes. That’s a big decrease, and it’s certainly possible to argue that the show’s ability to do things like properly worldbuild or fully flesh out supporting characters has been more limited as a result. After all, one of the biggest complaints about the series’ most recent outing was that it wasted much of the potential of Varada Sethu’s new companion, Belinda Chandra, whose story started at the center of the season’s plot and ultimately fizzled into little more than a background character. 

But it’s also fair to consider whether there’s a place for the classic, serial-based format in our modern-day streaming world. Viewers’ attention spans are already notoriously brief, serialized storytelling isn’t particularly popular outside of things like Andor, and it can occasionally seem as though even two-part adventures are starting to feel like dinosaurs in our current entertainment landscape.

Could a shorter time commitment each week and the opportunity to further ground themselves in the series’ world pique fans’ interest? Sure. And it would certainly give stories like the finale two-parter “Wish World” and “The Reality War” more time to breathe—or at least accurately explain their stakes in a way that makes their twists feel meaningful (and hopefully make sense). But would the BBC (and Disney+ or whoever steps up to partner on the show) be willing to take the risk that is shifting the show’s format fifteen years into its current run? Given the general up-in-the-air vibes about everything concerning Doctor Who at the moment, maybe it wouldn’t be the worst time to try.