Yeah the classic series cliff hangers were superb. They actually had you shouting 'OMGWTF?!
, how is the Doctor and/or companion going to survive that' and made you want to find out. Then usually it was something cheesey but who cares, it was still awesome and highly entertaining. I think these days, there is far too much music played over scenes, I think they use music in abundance on TV these days to hide poor acting and rubbish writing. Go back to classic Who, not one use of bloody stupid music over a scene, yeah, the acting was quite bad a lot of the time but the writing made up for that the majority of the time.
I just can't take to new Doctor Who at all to be honest, and I doubt I ever will. I have recently gone back and watched the full Eccleston series, and I actually found it to be very watchable and enjoyable but it will never be a patch on any of the classic series.