{"id":165815,"date":"2025-09-28T11:08:18","date_gmt":"2025-09-28T11:08:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/165815\/"},"modified":"2025-09-28T11:08:18","modified_gmt":"2025-09-28T11:08:18","slug":"doctor-who-legend-reveals-what-hed-change-if-he-returned-to-the-show","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/165815\/","title":{"rendered":"Doctor Who legend reveals what he’d change if he returned to the show"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hinchcliffe presided over one of the show’s most popular eras, delivering classic stories such as The Seeds of Doom<\/a> and Pyramids of Mars<\/a> that remain fan favourites to this day.<\/p>\n

Though he insisted he’d “never be asked” to return to Doctor Who as a creative consultant, Hinchcliffe suggested that the series should return to its classic format of each story spanning 100 minutes, or four x 25-minute episodes.<\/p>\n

“That’s a very good time for a movie or a television story to be told, in 100 minutes,” he said.<\/p>\n

“That gives you room to introduce characters, to unravel an inciting event of the story \u2013 the mystery, and what’s going wrong \u2013 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.”<\/p>\n

\"Tom<\/p>\n

Elisabeth Sladen and Tom Baker in Doctor Who: The Seeds of Doom\u00a0BBC<\/p>\n

He continued: “To try and tell an interesting story in 50 minutes is very difficult.<\/p>\n

“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 \u2013 it gives you room to tell the story, so that would be my main point that I think would benefit it.”<\/p>\n

The most recent season of Doctor Who wrapped up in May, with Ncuti Gatwa\u2019s Fifteenth Doctor regenerating into none other than Billie Piper<\/a> \u2013 though whether she is truly the next incarnation of the Time Lord remains to be seen.<\/p>\n

Fans are still processing that jaw-dropping finale, while also waiting for clarity on when the series will return. Producer Jane Tranter has confirmed that Disney \u2013 which co-produces the show with the BBC \u2013 does not have to decide on further seasons<\/a> until after the upcoming spin-off, The War Between the Land and the Sea<\/a>, has aired in 2026.<\/p>\n

Still, BBC executives have stressed that the series is safe no matter what \u2013 chief content officer Kate Phillips reassured viewers at the Edinburgh TV Festival that Doctor Who is “going nowhere”, adding that it will remain on the BBC “with or without Disney”.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, repeats of Matt Smith\u2019s debut season<\/a> will begin airing on BBC Three this autumn, keeping Whovians entertained until fresh episodes arrive.<\/p>\n

Doctor Who: The Collection – Season 13 is available to pre-order now<\/a> and is set to be released on 20th October.<\/p>\n

Add Doctor Who to your watchlist on the Radio Times: What to Watch app<\/a> \u2013 download now for daily TV recommendations, features and more.<\/p>\n

Check out more of our Sci-fi<\/a> coverage or visit our TV Guide<\/a> and Streaming Guide<\/a> to find out what’s on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hinchcliffe presided over one of the show’s most popular eras, delivering classic stories such as The Seeds of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":165816,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[96,391,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-165815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-tv","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165815\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}