RDA Era Vs Moffat Era

[The Borgified Corpse]

^He does have less budget than RTD, I believe he said so before series 5 started but he hoped he could make it so no one would notice. I believe BBC America made up some of the difference this series though.

In Season 5, I can't tell the difference. Season 6 it feels a little more obvious. So many of the episodes are such claustraphobic scare-fests. That's great when it's one or two a season but an entire season of them is getting a bit old. But then, maybe those episodes are making up for the major expenses of location shooting in Utah for "The Impossible Astronaut," "Day of the Moon," & "The Wedding of River Song." Those episodes look like latter-season X-Files, when that show had more money than they knew what to do with.

As for making Doctor Who more accessible, I suppose it depends upon what kind of people you want to make it more accessible to. I think of my mother. She is not a sci-fi fan at all. She's never understood my love of Star Trek and will openly mock me when I'm watching Stargate SG-1. However, with judicious episode selection, I've made Doctor Who a surprise crossover hit with her. The trick is to only show her the episodes with a solid emotional through-line (or episodes that are intuitive enough to be fun). She has no patience for Daleks or any other episode that relies too thoroughly on sci-fi action/adventure conventions.

So what proportion of episodes have proven acceptable to her?

From the RTD era: "Rose," "The End of the World," "The Unquiet Dead," "Dalek," "Father's Day," "Tooth & Claw," "School Reunion," "The Girl in the Fireplace," "The Shakespeare Code," "Blink," "Partners in Crime," "The Fires of Pompeii," "The Unicorn & the Wasp," "Silence in the Library," "Forest of the Dead," and "Midnight."
(Plus episodes I've been meaning to show her but haven't gotten around to yet: "The Empty Child," "The Doctor Dances," "Bad Wolf," "The Parting of the Ways," "Smith & Jones," "Human Nature," "The Family of Blood," and "The Next Doctor.")

From the Moffatt era (Season 5 only): "The Eleventh Hour," "The Time of Angels," "Flesh & Stone," "The Vampires of Venice," "Amy's Choice," "Vincent & the Doctor," "The Lodger," "The Pandorica Opens," and "The Big Bang."

So we're looking at 24/59 (40.68%) for RTD vs. 9/13 (69.23%) for Moffatt. And that's not counting the episodes that I thought she might like that really backfired, like "Dalek."

In terms of doing stories that you don't already have to be a sci-fi fan to get, Moffatt gets the clear edge in my book.

 

[Savage Jaw]

^He does have less budget than RTD, I believe he said so before series 5 started but he hoped he could make it so no one would notice. I believe BBC America made up some of the difference this series though.

The filler episodes in apartment blocks and hotels is the only thing which says "budget cuts" to me. It is probably helped by the decision to start using more advanced HD cameras when Series 5 began production, and also the change to a more colder picture colour palette, which gives the show a bit more of a cinematic look, unlike during RTD's run where the colour palette was loud and bright.

I noticed on the credits for "Closing Time" that some of the visual effects for that episode were done by an in-house team at BBC Wales, rather than entirely by The Mill as is normal. I hope that the use of an in-house team will be restricted to filler episodes or relatively uncomplicated effects work in future, as I don't think that a BBC in-house team would be able to do justice to all the visual effects required for Doctor Who.

 

[Gepard]

^I guess in-house work explained those two CG Cybermat shots. Good lord it looked awful.