When will the Doctor visit somewhere other than Earth?

[Scoobing]

Meh, they still land on a *Planet*. I'm thinking instead they should land on a giant trifle of some kind. Would make for an interesting ep.

[Ses]

As far as Im aware, its because they wanted the stories in Who to be more accesable to viewers and they made them focus on humans so that people could relate...

But wasn't it part of the point to Dr Who that no matter how strange the culture a common ground can be met and related to

[Flyboy]

Yes but now all the cultures have to be human in origin.

[Scoobing]

Stargate makes a good job of that, well more so in the early seasons. I think it showed that a show could be good sci-fi without relying on aliens every week. And Farscape I love too, and that's at the other end of the spectrum. DW is more on the SG side of the scale, more humans than aliens, but still a few every now and then.

[Nuallain]

Far too earthy. It's still human based.

Where were the humans in End of the World? I mean, Cassandra only barely counts. And New Earth is, again, set on a planet with no humans - only species

Spoiler:

descended from humanity.

Sure, the classic series had an alien planet in the second story but didn't again hit upon the non-human/alien planet combination you're looking for until The Web Planet. In fact, in the whole 26 year run, there's only ten such stories.

Anyway, the bottom line is that there were no alien planets in s1 because RTD was writing his outline when he had no idea what the FX crew would or wouldn't be able to accomplish (or even what company would get that commission). Considering how the Mill and co found their feet over the course of S1 and how much better the FX were by the end - and how much better again they are in S2, I think he made a reasonable decision. New Earth and Impossible look fantastic, visually, but I'm pretty sure they wouldn't have looked so good if they'd tried it in S1.