Doctor Who (2005) - I am very much biased, since I grew up watching classic Doctor Who (which is far from perfect), but I’ve never really been a fan of the new series (really, it almost ruined David Tennant for me). I didn’t like how the writers emphasized their hero-worship of the time-traveling Doctor, I didn’t like how most of the (female) companions were just meant to be kissed by the Doctor, I didn’t like how the seasons/series endings were just taking one (type of) bad guy and making them bigger or more in numbers, I didn’t like how the Doctor turned from a grandfatherly character into that one friend/brother who keeps on giving speeches and never shuts up, etc., etc., etc. That being said, I do like some episodes on their own, and I gave a shot at it, the story and characters would probably be much different (and probably not as marketable to the young, female demographic as the actual show it) which try to mix the best of both the classic and the reboot while bridging the two in a more cohesive way. The Doctor himself would be given an air of mystery by simply avoiding a lot of the “questions” that certain writers tease to answer only to never to.
The great thing about Doctor Who is you never need to reboot it. If you have a different vision for it you just layer it on top of what’s already there. I actually have some really in-depth plans for how I’d handle the series, by which I mainly mean a random collection of ideas. Basically, I’d have the Doctor travelled with a woman from the past and a man from the future. The woman enjoys it but the man just wants to get home. He changes his mind, however, when they end up stranded on a planet without the Doctor or the Tardis to translate each other’s languages, leaving them to communicate non-verbally and eventually fall in love. Then the Doctor comes back and they continue on their merry way. Oh and there’d be lots of references to Keys of Marinus, with Voord as the main villains (come on, we need a break from the same three villains all the time).
Next era has the Doctor travelling with several consecutive generations of a single family. He encounters several other renegade Timelords. The Monk is masquerading as a man named “Rasputin”, the Master frames the Doctor via Twitter scandal, a commentary on how trigger-happy our culture has become in turning against public figures, and there’s also the Rani and a new renegade called the Warrior. Eventually, the Doctor and crew realize there is an ancient evil imprisoned deep within the Tardis. It escapes, and the Doctor enlists the help of the above mentioned renegades to take out this cosmic god.
There’d be an era where the Doctor’s a teacher at Coal Hill, and his companions are a few of his students who discover his identity. And another one where he’s stranded on a medieval fantasy world fighting the forces of Fenric.
Oh and in terms of casting, most of it is up in the air, but one person I definitely have in mind for an incarnation of the Doctor is Brian David Gilbert. Yes, he’s American, no he isn’t an actor, but I think with the right rudimentary training he’d be perfect for the part. Of course the BBC would never allow it, but they’d never allow non-contemporary companions either, so who cares.