We can have the showrunner on hand to check consistency of character but I would agree all they need to write is the opener & season finale. Sadly I don’t trust RTD to be able to take a more ‘hands off’ approach.
Maybe the showrunner model needs an overhaul.
I’d love a writer’s room! And while you do have a point about individual stories from showrunners, I would just love to see more fresh voices generally and think the approach monkeyshaver said would be my ideal in a non writers room world
I agree that the showrunner model needs rethinking. It’s too much for one person to carry, especially if that person isn’t that great at delegating.
Also, I’ll say this again, because I think it bears repetition: Reduce the episode length so as to increase the episode count. This would have story telling benefits as well as giving us new Doctor Who on more weeks of the year.
But if we look at two of the best rated Fifteenth Doctor stories:
Three out of the six of them are written or partially written by RTD. None of these are a season opener or a season finale. If RTD only wrote those, we would not have these great stories (did not look but I think it would be the same with other eras of the show). I agree that we need more voices writing for the show, and I think that season 2 was an improvement over season 1 and maybe one more could have been written by someone else. I would not like to limit it to only season openers or finales.
I agree with this part.
This is why the episode count has to go up. At least to ten. This would solve so many of the shows current problems.
Well I’m not a fan of this era so those ratings don’t play much of a part in my thought process, plus its a relatively small niche sample group. I’m thinking long term & the show in general. I know viewing figures aren’t seen as important these days & I don’t really get into all that but if the show was a huge success under the current regime then we wouldn’t be waiting for Disney to give the greenlight.
Yeah I agree that this would solve most issues.
Also why s41 fixed it, I am still annoyed at s40 having only new writers for one episode (even if yes most of the RTD episodes and the one Moffat episode were good)
I think that the amount of guest writers has played a very small part in whether this has worked or not. If the goal is to make the show as big of a success as possible, then it would probably be best to have the showrunners have even more power over all scripts because that is how the most successful shows do it. It is not how I want it, but that is how most successful shows do it.
The show has not been a huge success for over about 10 years and we might never reach that level of popularity again.
True, but by whatever metric you use to assess the shows standing in the TV market it is not doing well at all. It’s at its lowest in 20 years. 20 years is a good run, no show deserves to be around forever & its certainly hard to think of another sci-fi/fantasy show thats been around for so long. If the RTD2 approach had been a huge success it still wouldn’t be for me due to personal taste but thats fine, it doesn’t have to be.
But given where we are I would suggest the BBC take it back in-house & be bold & experimental, what have they got to lose?
I agree with this, the best RTD-written stories are the ones in the middle!
Look at his top rated stories, they contain gems like:
I actually think I’d like them to give somebody else the opening and finale, and keep RTD for his mid-season weird episodes that he’s very good at.
There are some good episodes here, many of them from years ago. But I don’t think many of them are particularly weird.
Really? I think they are all really interesting and unusual episodes. Much better than just the standard base under siege.
I also would accept this! As long as we get more opportunities for new writers and never get a situation where half or more of a series is written by the showrunner again 
Base under siege but with really creepy and interesting vibes, character drama and piece on the human condition
Alternate reality where the Doctor died, really fun stuff with Rose
Base under siege except the Doctor knows what happens and shouldn’t help. Sense of foreboding and hopelessness. Excellent ending
Base under siege except really amazing twist, great Jack and Ten stuff
Creepy base under siege with a cool puzzle behind it, two-hander
Base under siege with return of creepy monster with new powers, cool sign language twist
This one is just super weird, never been anything like it
Animated villain, this is definitely something new
Not that weird but just a cool concept of people being trapped in a traffic jam
All these are some of my favourite ever episodes.
By what metric are you saying that it is the lowest in 20 years?
Its pop cultural standing, no one seems to be really talking about it outside of fandom. It doesn’t seem to be a show high in the public consciousness. In fact it feels like the late 80s again. The ratings debate is not one I have a great interest in but at the end of the day it is an important factor from an industry standpoint. If it had been a really big success on Disney they would have already commissioned further seasons - I know success for them is different, streaming platforms treat shows as ‘content’ to drive up subscriber numbers. But even RTD has used the term ‘content’. Given how long the show has been around for some of this is understandable, its hard to sustain for 20 years or more, particularly how the tv landscape has changed. There are far more sci-fi/fantasy shows to watch now & far more different platforms on which to watch them. Viewing is more fragmented now
I’m certainly not one of these ripdoctorwho types but standing back a bit, looking at it as a tv show objectively, it doesn’t feel relavent anymore to a mainstream audience or maybe even the sci-fi/fantasy audience. I wonder if there still is a young audience for the show anymore? I think there’s a generation that just don’t watch tv shows, & I don’t just mean in the old fashoined linear style but even streaming. They are more interested in short form social media ‘content’.
All this is just the way things seem to be now, which would be OK if Doctor Who embraced its niche appeal rather than chase former glories.
I see what you mean, but I think this is something that has been going on for a while, and I feel like this is a completely different discussion. I agree with some of what you say, and I think the show needs to find new ways of staying relevant. But this is so much larger than just how many guest writers a season should have.
I would say the move by the BBC to bring back RTD after the not-so-popular years of CC was something they tried. It might not have brought the show back, but I would say it has a bigger reach now than it did during those years. The show is definitely not at its top, but it is at about the same level of relevance as it has been since Capaldi’s second year.
Yeah my point at least was only ever about the writers. I dunno how well the show is doing because I don’t look at ratings or whatever. That side is a different discussion entirely than what I was saying about new voices, as you say Tian
The way my favourites are here too 
This started a long time ago - when the show came off Netflix during the Capaldi era, then when loads of casual viewers that I know switched off completely during Chibnall (anecdotal I know but even my Mum who watched every single episode has never seen Flux or the specials after that, but she came back for Season One and Two).
