I also feel like they don’t want to open that door. I will make the whole canon discussion really hard. Now they just have to ignore it and that is easier.
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I love the Moffat era but hate that every single companion suffers, effectively, the same fate - dead but not dead. Even Nardole is sort of dead at the end of Husbands but is resurrected in a full body.
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We got him guys, we got him!
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Nah - I don’t hold with this. Amy and Rory are sent back in time. They carry on living for many years. Okay, so we see their graves. We see Scrooge’s grave in A Christmas Carol; we see Doc Brown’s grave in Back to the Future. Doesn’t make their characters ‘dead’.
We see Clara head off for how ever many adventures in a TARDIS. Saying that, eventually, she’ll be dead is true of every companion however they leave. But this one has this weird - in the second before her death - schtick which, for me was hugely unsatisfying.
Bill dies but then gets resurrected - whether that’s in a different form or not makes no difference because, for all four companions Moffat tries to have the drama of a companion’s death but gives every single one a get out clause which means they’re actually carrying on living. It would have been fine with one but with all of them - no thanks.
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Would like to see the New Series get over its preoccupation with making the Series Finale a big deal. Often these fall over under the weight of trying to do too many things: regeneration, companion exit, returning villain, concluding the series arc etc.
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I’ve said it before. My screams would be heard worldwide
Ok but Benny AND another old lady… see my vision… fully agreeing that Benny deserves to be on TV though, she’s the best.
Really, I just am tired of the young 20s companions. I say I want alien companions but really I think I mean it as shorthand for companions with different and broader life experiences. I’d love to see more companions in their 30s and 40s too.
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As a 62 year old fan I’m glad to hear it. 
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I guess we got Graham and Dan 
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It’s why Graham and Dan are some of my faves in ages. Nothing again young people (after all I am one), I just think it’s refreshing to watch older people having fun adventures too
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I amended my last post when I said “the only two things…” because you all have made me remember more.
I agree that not every episode has to be big and bold by putting the fate of a world in the Doctor’s hands, but I think New Who does a better job at having low-stakes/not as serious episodes (Partners in Crime, Space Babies…). That’s what draws me into New Who over classic because I feel like there’s a greater range of “story types”. That being said, I do prefer how classic’s finales (and companion exits) weren’t that dramatic.
Another thing New Who could learn is stopping the over-reliance on sonic material, whether it be the screwdriver, paper, glasses, what have you. It’s a cop-out and makes the Doctor less interesting and, in my view, less intelligent. Every sticky situation can be undone or made right by a wave of a sonic-something. No cleverness involved.
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Yes! We don’t always need that Dalek/Master/Cyberman/a combination finale. Let’s go back to The Time Meddler - a fun adventure that ends with the TARDIS taking off and the Doctor having a monologue while the regulars’ faces are superimposed on a starry sky, and audiences are left wondering if there will be another season.
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Half the time, during my Classic binge, I’d be like “oh, was that the series finale? It was just like any other episode”.
I like the finales to be special. I don’t need them universe-ending all the time, because that has diminishing returns, but I like to feel that it’s an event.
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This is basically my thoughts on it
I find that when a lot of people say they don’t want dramatic finales, what they actually mean is that they don’t want finales with universal stakes or whatever, the drama should absolutely still be there, but make it political drama, or interpersonal drama, or whatever else
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I think right there is the reason why we’ll never go back to low stakes finales - no shade to you at Shauny, but the modern viewer is expecting drama and explosions, and they’re always going to cater for what is more popular in the moment.
I mean look at hiw much everyone hates Ranskoor av Kolos. The fact that it genuinely is a boring episode aside, everyone gave it such shit for being a dull way to end a series because nothing happens. I do think there is a way to balance between literally nothing happening and The End of The Universe Again, but I think it is always now going to skew more to the latter
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e.g. the idea I’ve always had for a finale if I were to write my own fanfic ‘series’ of Doctor Who would be ‘The Angels of Leningrad’, strand the TARDIS team in one of the darkest periods of human history, a place of complete misery, and have the threat be a cult that’s built up around the weeping angels, seeing them as a salvation from the horrors of the present.
It’s a huge opportunity for character conflict, for explosions, for horror, for whatever you want, but the actual stakes are very very low
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Yeah I agree.
But also I think RTD set the standard with The Parting of the Ways, Doomsday, Journey’s End (three absolutely amazing 10/10 finales I think) and is trying to recreate that.
I don’t even remember what happened in Ranskoor av Kolos and can’t remember the name of it unless I see it written down 
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Oh I think every RTD finale has been a diminishing return. Including Empire.
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Everyone has different opinions on what they like to see in a finale.
For me, I want to have my heart ripped out of my chest and stomped on. If I’m not watching it through tears then I’m not happy lol.
That’s why I love RTD and Moffat but find most other ones, including Classic, not for me.
For me it’s
Journey’s End > Doomsday > Parting > Drums
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Yep I even prefer Drums/Time Lords to Earth/End. Stolen Earth is good, but I think people forget just how much of Journey’s End is “I’ll blow you up,” “no, I’ll blow you up,” standing around waiting for DoctorDonna to happen, which solves it immediately, followed by overly drawn out “say goodbye to every character.” Last of the Time Lords at least had an interesting Martha story until Jesus Doctor saves the day.
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Honestly, with a finale, I just want a good episode really. Whether that’s just an ordinary good serial like ends most classic seasons, or some big Moffat event television story. I hesitate to call classic Who’s as season finales, because the idea of a season finale wasn’t really what they did. A season was just this is the 26 weeks we’re on, one of them is just last.
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