Ex-Doctor Who producer criticizes current episode runtimes

A former Doctor Who producer is speaking out about the length of modern-day episodes of the show. Philip Hinchcliffe, who worked on the series from 1974-1977, favors shorter serialized episodes instead of the longer 45-minute episodes that run today.

Speaking with RadioTimes to promote his new Doctor Who audio drama The God of Phantoms from Big Finish, Hinchcliffe noted that classic Doctor Who “was a serial” that allowed for big cliffhangers and quick resolution. “So the whole idea was that every week, there’s an episode with a cliffhanger, and the audience talked about it during the week, and then they came back. Four half-hours, or four 25 minutes, is pretty much the length of a movie. And so that was the ideal story arc, over four half-hours.”

Doctor Who worked well with shorter episodes

When you look back at classic science fiction series of days gone by, hour-long episodes were a rarity. The original Star Trek series was one of the outliers; in many ways the longer episodes helped that show “boldly go where no man has gone before” by allowing time to explore alien planets and stories.

Hinchclifffe recalled a conversation with current Doctor Who showrunner Chris Chibnall, who explained that he was trying to recreate the serialized cliffhangers within a longer episode. “Chris Chibnall and I talked about this when I met him a couple of years ago — we had our natural cliffhangers. He said that he’s trying to construct within his story structures to have ‘cliffhanger moments’, if you know what I mean, go through. But it all happens much faster, at a much faster pace.”

In a shorter, serialized episode, the story can play out with more detail, raising the stakes because there’s no easy fix or miracle revelation that arrives in time to save the day. Hinchcliffe said that he received some great advice from his predecessors, producer Barry Letts and script editor Terrance Dicks, when he took over Doctor Who in 1974. “[They said to me], ‘We’ve got this thing called the sonic screwdriver, but we ration how much we use it, otherwise it’s one bound, and the Doctor’s free.’ And I think that’s a danger with modern storytelling.”

In recent years, Doctor Who episodes have switched between multipart and standalone stories, some of which often play into a season-long arc. At times, the payoff for many of these episodes does indeed feel rushed or too contrived, or simply too easy. There’s something to be said about the value of shorter episodes with higher stakes that play out over time, but sadly it’s unlikely that Doctor Who will ever return to a shorter run-time to explore the format again.

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