Posted in: BBC, Doctor Who, TV | Tagged: bbc, doctor who, philip hinchcliffe, tom baker

Doctor Who Producer Hinchcliffe Prefers Longer, Multi-Episode Stories

Legendary Doctor Who producer Philip Hinchcliffe makes the case for the classic format of feature-length stories told over several episodes.

What runtime or format should Doctor Who have? Legendary producer Philip Hinchcliffe recently weighed in on what he would like to see with the series, namely a return to a feature-length story told in segments, which was the classic format of the show when he was running it. Hinchcliffe is a highly respected producer who oversaw the show at the peak of its popularity and ratings, namely the Tom Baker era in the 1970s. Hinchcliffe ran a tight ship with popular stories now considered classics, often taking ideas from classic horror movies and putting the Doctor Who spin on them.

During the BFI Southbank event to mark the release of the Doctor Who: The Collection – Season 13 Blu-ray box set, Hinchcliffe expressed his preference for the 100-minute story broken into four 25-minute segments.

"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."

"To try and tell an interesting story in 50 minutes is very difficult." Hinchcliffe continued. "I would want it to be of that length (100 minutes), because if you're watching something, you want to invest in the supporting characters, not just the Doctor – it gives you room to tell the story, so that would be my main point that I think would benefit it." Many fans of the classic series would agree.

Runtime and format have been a hotly debated topic ever since Russell T Davies revived the series in 2005 and updated it to 44-minute self-contained episodes that went through stories that normally took four to six half-hour episodes to get through. Those 44-minute episodes brought the show in line with American hour-long dramas, which have 42 minutes of content with the rest of the hour devoted to ad breaks. The BBC doesn't have ad breaks during shows, but when its dramas are sold overseas, those stations can insert their ad breaks during the hour. Some old schools didn't like the switch to the hour-long format because it rushed through the story too quickly without room to breathe or get to know the secondary guest cast properly. The last two series in the Disney+ era have shortened the season length to eight episodes in keeping with TV seasons in the streaming era.

As Steven Moffat said, Doctor Who hasn't even evolved into its final form yet. It can go through other permutations even beyond our lifetimes. Four-part feature-length stories split into half-hour segments? Feature-length stories are split into two 45-minute segments. Self-contained 45-minute episodes with series-long B plot arcs?

Whatever form the next season of Doctor Who will take, it will be in keeping with the demands of current television formats. Even if Billie Piper turns out to be the next Doctor…

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