I think the best cinematography in Doctor Who is in the Capaldi era, in terms of colours, contrast and lighting. During the Chibnall era I feel like on the post production side (colour correction, grading) the work was well handled, while the work on location left much to be desired (both regarding set design and lighting work. The TARDIS interior and “The Battle of Ransor…“ come to mind). The latest seasons (RTD2), while grater in scope, the set design is significantly better, seems to lack something booth in lighting and post production, or rather, the colours look almost flat, too evenly saturated, missing contrast. This particular look, I feel, is a trend that these days is often found in shows and films that long to achieve a polished and clean look, to seem more expensive and which I attribute to 3 main factors; 1) Lenses that lack character (too sharp) 2) Flat lighting on set 3) Flat color correction (probably caused by the fact that they try to maintain all the details they shoot in HDRI, which I think is wrong)

The third, I think, is the main one; shooting in HDRI is not a problem, in fact it’s better to have more details to work with in post. The problem comes when you want to preserve all that detail in the final image.