I think you could arguably cut the Silurian story from Series 5 altogether and have Rory be eaten by a crack in time at the end of the episode after they wake up from the dreams. It would be even more tragic than his original death, and it would make room to add back in a story like Vampires of Venice.

One of the things I’ve always loved about series 5 is that pretty much every episode feels important for either plot, character, pacing, or world-building reasons. Really thankful for the breathing room a 13 episode run gave us.

How could you take out a town called mercy? Literally the best episode in that season

Only thoughts on this would be that God Complex is absolutely necessary for the plot of the season and generally a top tier for the season as a whole. Amy's character arc is at a crucial turning point, so I think we need that, over both Doctor's Wife and The Girl Who Waited (both of which are excellent too obviously).

Wow 8 episodes really isn’t enough for a series of Doctor Who

I feel the God Complex works better as the Finale for Series 6 than whatever the hell was Wedding of RIver Song, as we see the Ponds get a new house, a car & a life again before the events of Series 7

3:17 "An _unforgettable_ encounter with the Silence." Ironic.

At the end of the Girl Who Waited, you’d also have to add the ending scene from Closing Time with River Song and Madame Kovarian. Ending it on a cliffhanger with River in the astronaut suit for the finale.

I think series 7A as a 3 part like the 60th would work, and then keep 7B intact as an 8 episode series.

This is what I'd go with! Series 5: 1. The Eleventh Hour 2. The Beast Below 3. Amy's Choice 4. The Hungry Earth 5. Cold Blood 6. Vincent and the Doctor 7. The Pandorica Opens 8. The Big Bang Series 6: 1. The Curse of the Black Spot 2. The Doctor's Wife 3. The Rebel Flesh 4. The Almost People 5. Night Terrors 6. The Girl Who Waited 7. The God Complex 8. The Wedding of River Song Series 7: 1. Asylum of the Daleks 2. A Town Called Mercy 3. The Angels Take Manhattan 4. The Rings of Akhaten 5. Hide 6. Cold War 7. Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS 8. The Name of the Doctor

I think series 7 is the only time I could live with as an 8 episode series, but once again just because your choices stress me out doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate your time and dedication to these videos!❤

I feel like it’d be better if you not only cut episodes from the series, but also reordered them if let’s say episode 5 fits better as a first story because you cut the original story which was bad, so you have an event two-parter as your first adventure (such is the case with time of angels / flesh & stone).

I think I’d change out Cold War and crimson horror for a town called mercy and hide.

Yeh you can feel the truncated season by havin 8 episodes in Series 5, as it was the perfect number of episodes and I never skip a single one during a marathon

Something to mention is that, you can't really include asylum of the daleks (without any serious changes) if you dont have the god complex since, the ponds wouldnt have left the tardis. So, you could start series 7b with a town called mercy maybe

I was going to do a video on Eleven based on your video, but you beat me to it. Here’s my list, though. Series 5 1: The Eleventh Hour 2/3: The Time of Angels Episode 4: The Vampires of Venice Episode 5/6: Cold Blood Episode 7/8: The Pandorica Opens Series 6 Episode 1/2: The Impossible Planet Episode 3/4: The Almost People Episode 5: A Good Man Goes to War Episode 6: Let’s Kill Hitler Episode 7: The God Complex Episode 8: The Wedding of River Song Series 7 Episode 1: The Bells of Saint John Episode 2: The Rings of Akhaten Episode 3: Cold War Episode 4: Hide Episode 5: Journey to the Centre of the Tardis Episode 6: The Crimson Horror Episode 7: Nightmare in Silver Episode 8: The Name of the Doctor

The thing is, we already know what an 8 part Moffat series would look like as Series 7B is essentially it.

A town called mercy is such an underrated episode. Definitely better than the power of 3. Having Rory’s dad just show up randomly is kind of unwarranted, so taking him out entirely would be better. Day of the Doctor does a great job of reintroducing Kate, so her introduction in Power of 3 could be removed. I’d definitely prefer a town called mercy to make the cut instead of power of 3.

I had a go at making Series 1-13 as 8 part episodes. Series 6 was quite tricky to do. As Series 7B already has 8 episodes I cheated and had those for the 2013 series and added 3 extra episodes onto 7A to make a new 2012 series (the extra 3 episodes were stories cut from Series 6).

My prediction for Series 8-10: Series 8 (this one was easy, and most of these are bangers anyway): 1. Deep Breath 2. Into the Dalek 3. Listen 4. The Caretaker 5. Mummy on the Orient Express 6. Flatline 7. Dark Water 8. Death in Heaven Series 9 (basically cut the two-parters in half) 1. Combine the Magician's Apprentice and the Witch's Familiar into one episode 2. Combine Under the Lake and Before the Flood into one episode 3. The Girl Who Died 4. The Woman Who Lived 5. Combine the Zygon Invasion and Zygon Inversion into one episode 6. Face the Raven 7. Heaven Sent 8. Hell Bent Series 10 (fairly easy, first three episodes are essential for Bill, monk three-parter is great, just take Missy's scenes from the Empress of Mars and Eaters of Light and put them in the Monk three parter or cut them entirely) 1. The Pilot 2. Smile 3. Thin Ice 4. Extremis 5. The Pyramid at the End of the World 6. The Lie of the Land 7. World Enough and Time 8. The Doctor Falls

You miss so much when its cut down to 8 episodes 😭

I still think that since Series 7 was split between 2012 and 2013 due to production being 13 epiosdes if you split it into 8 each we'd have a Pond Finale Season in 2012 and Clara Season in 2013 cause smaller production

Series 5 is my favorite in the show, and while this condensed version still looks anemic and rushed by comparison, I think it speaks to the strength of the stories that I’d still adore this run of episodes even with these cuts. I didn’t love Victory of the Daleks or the Beast Below anyway, truncating Chibnall’s two parter likely wouldn’t hurt any, and Vampires of Venice + The Lodger, while enjoyable, isn’t a HUGE loss. For series 6, I don’t care for Black Spot so that’s no huge sacrifice. The big painful one here is losing The God Complex. Series 6 already isn’t my favorite run of stories, but losing that one just exacerbates how “mid” it feels. Personally, I would drop Asylum of the Daleks from series 7 like a rock and keep Dinosaurs on a Spaceship in its place. Dinosaurs is no masterpiece, but it’s a cute adventure that does Amy and story’s characters a service, whereas Asylum undermines both of them and their relationship horribly, and is a piss-poor Dalek showcase on top of that. We’re gonna get another Dead Clara with the Snowmen, we can afford to lose this one. Series 7b is such a slog that I couldn’t be bothered about any of the cuts made. If I’m honest you could cut a couple more of those and I wouldn’t complain.

You can't remove A town called mercy.

Great video! I love the picks you chose for series 7 (i love nightmare in silver too and i love the design) but I have an idea. This might get very complicated, but I think you could make Series 7 entirely clara-focused, while keeping Asylum of the Daleks. During series 6 you could either: -Condense the opening 2-parter into one episode (may be biased, but I never liked Day of the Moon) to get an extra slot for Asylum of the Daleks to be fitted into this series in the 2nd half after The Girl Who Waited. This means that of the 8 episodes, Good Man Goes To War actually finishes the first half, and Let's Kill Hitler actually opens the second half. (Potentially you could also replace the Flesh episode and have Asylum deal with why Amy is fake but that is a lot more messy) In Asylum, you could change the plotline about their divorce (which many didn't like) to one similar to the now missing episode of the God Complex episode about faith relating to the Dalek conversion. + it could serve as a way to have the Ponds leave now that the God Complex is missing. Having Asylum in s6 is more exciting for the Clara cameo imo (a bit like how Varada Sethu appeared in season 1), and the series can cleanly end with the Pond plotline finished and not need a 7a plotline. The downside here is that we are now missing Power of Three and Angels Take Manhatten which are good for the Ponds development. Potentially, Wedding of River Song could be restructured as the penultimate episode of the series, with Angels Take Manhattan afterwards (because it is needed for the Doctor to be so grumpy in The Snowmen) and we can remove the Flesh episode here maybe to find some workaround? Or potentially The Doctor The Widow and the Wardrobe is dropped in favour of a final Ponds episode like Angels Take Manhattan. Then, since Series 7b is 8 episodes anyway and is structured like it's own series, then we don't need to remove any 11 and Clara episodes at all who already have less development that people would've liked. ALSO If you are getting rid of one of the 2011-2012 christmas specials since there is no series 7a anymore, you could replace the Bells of Saint John with The Snowmen to have the series be entirely Victorian Clara as the companion (which I've heard many people say they would like). OR EVEN: Angels Take Manhattan is the series 7 opener, then The Snowmen christmas special takes place, remove Bells of St John, then the rest of Series 7b.

On another note, just to be helpful, I think you could improve these videos a little by adding more of an intro and outro to get people settled into the content. For the intro, you could re explain the concept and why you're doing it. I also think it would be beneficial for you to add some keywords into your titles. So instead of series 5-7, you could say the Matt Smith era/series. Up to you though because the titles are good already. Additionally, I think you do a great job explaining why you're keeping episodes, but if you wanted to add more content and go more in depth, you could give further reasoning as to why you feel you need to cut episodes. You could then give a brief rundown of the season after you've finished each one and say whether or not you think it would work with 8 episodes. Just some thoughts!

I know this isn’t super relevant to the video but I really wish Mel appeared in the Big Bang wedding. It would have made the melody plot line so much better

I would switch out The Girl Who Waited with The God Complex personally. They’re both great episodes, but The God Complex is important for the Doctor’s choice to drop off Amy and Rory before his “farewell tour.”

I’m kinda curious to see the opposite eventually; what would Series 14 look like if we got the full 13 episode run?

I know this is controversial, but series 9 is my favourite one so I really can't wait to see which episodes you'll cut off (even if I think I can already guess that)

This is a very interesting choice, although, in my opinion, it's cheating - combine two series into one. Because, in fact, we don't know what this story would look like in this format. We're losing the whole half. And the episode may just break down, seem like just a pile of ideas like "orphan 55". And! Where is my favourite «the beast bellow»? Suddenly the new video seems to be less revealing than the past. Then I just catch yourself thinking that with 8 episodes, the series on the one hand loses a lot, but on the other hand it seems to still remain super-strong. And it's interesting to compare it with the new one. And here it just feels like the structure of Steven Moffat's series is just different. And on the one hand, fewer fillers makes the plot more concentrated. And on the other hand, something invisible seems to be lost. The very basis of feelings, the journey itself and the attachment to the characters.

I do agree with pretty much everything in the video except for the cutting of victory of the Daleks. I don’t like the story either but unfortunately it is pretty important in regard to bringing the daleks out of their post time war struggle for survival.

You cant cut vampires as thats where rory joins. 8’episodes does not work period. Too many essential or good episodes cut Vincent and doctor should be cut if liz 10 and Chuchill cut. Should focus entire on amy and her boys only. Also god complex stays

You cant cut vampires as thats where rory joins. 8’episodes does not work period. Too many essential or good episodes cut Vincent and doctor should be cut if liz 10 and Chuchill cut. Should focus entire on amy and her boys only

It's interesting how plot heavy series six ended up being. It's all very focused on the Doctor, River, Amy, and Rory, and there's very little breathing room for regular adventures.

Do series 8-10

How are we going to explain the daleks returning if there's no victory? I love the paradigm, bud be kind

Could you do What If Matt Smith stayed for Series 8?

Cool

By the same logic you could combine the weeping angel s5 story?

Id swap the doctor wife with curse of the black spot

Would you have Amy and Rory leave in the girl who waited, because that’s quite an important moment in the god complex. If so, having to add on the ending of the god complex and the ending of closing time makes it seem like girl who waited needs to be trimmed down a bit.

You skipped The God Complex, and... And kept The Crimson Horror. Okay... Okay.

I would also switch out The Power of Three with A Town Called Mercy. Power of Three is fun enough in a few scenes, but boring overall. A Town Called Mercy isn’t exactly world class itself, but it’s a fun little Western homage, and it would be cleaner to just cut Brian from the series altogether than to just have him in one episode.

You cant cut vampires as thats where rory joins. 8’episodes does not work period. Too many essential or good episodes cut Vincent and doctor should be cut if liz 10 and Chuchill cut. Should focus entire on amy and her boys only.