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I wrote the following in the comments:
I wonder if the villain problem is tied to the format and run time. Classic Who had multiple episodes per story, time to further examine a villain, while the typical New Who, despite being double in length, really only got that chance if the showrunner created them (Sleevin and Weeping Angels for example) and really liked them. The cliffhanger also set them up as a serious threat at times. New Who doing the whole “season long subarc building to the finale” isn’t the same thing and it doesn’t give a villain a chance to be that menacing, especially the episodes where our heroes were more into making gags (“Tooth And Claw” is my least favorite episode of Davies’ run for that reason while at least “Love & Monsters” was stupid with original characters most of the time and it’s only the epilogue I hate). They need more time to make a threat menacing enough that fans want to see it again to further challenge the Doctor.
As for the settings, that’s bothered me as well. You have access to all space and time, but you don’t do anything with it. Is building a space set really that much harder for a show with modern special effects and presumably a larger budget than the original series that managed to put most of their episodes off world?
I added in a different comment’s response:
I do like that he (Steven Moffat) tried to set an episode in the TARDIS itself, though I don’t see the point of a room that’s just a cliffside with a giant waterfall. I do like the bigger wardrobe than the one in Classic Who, but we don’t see enough of the TARDIS in New Who while in the classic show we’ve seen bedrooms, the Zero Room, and a swimming pool and heard about rooms with a turkish bath and I think a library. I’d like to see the TARDIS be more than an RV.
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