Anglotopia article on the recent series length news

[the_willows]

A quite interesting commentary on the recent debacle surrounding the length of series 7/number of episodes and the like. Some good points made with regard to possible scheduling reasons in 2012:

Comments

[ragdoll]

A couple of quick comments -- the special year was NOT ever done because DT wanted to do Hamlet. It was already in place well before then. DT took the role because he knew he'd have the time to do it. It was to accomodate RTD and the rest of the production staff and give them all a way to transition out since they (Russell, Julie, Phil) were all planning on leaving and giving the new team to start putting things into gear. DT could have stayed on had he so chosen, but he wanted to leave with the previous producers. The Gap Year Specials would have happened regardless.

Also, this was posted to Gallifrey Base 2 days ago and I meant to post it here just to reassure people, esp in the wake of some other more incidiary stuff that's come to light:

The information I'm going to impart below comes from three different sources. All three are what I consider excellent. This is unfortunately as much as I can say about any of them. You'll just have to each look at my own history here and in the OG forum before it and decide from all that whether

[ragdoll]

And just to add to that, Steve Manfred is the guy who was Neil Gaiman's "mythology consultant" for "The Doctor's Wife" so one can safely assume that he's in the loop in terms of sources and info. How true any of his information is here is anyone's guess, but it sounds a lot more reassuring than "The Sky Is Falling" or "Everything is Our Scottish Overlord's Fault". :)

[the_willows]

Fascinating stuff. It all makes sense. But why oh why have the BBC not swooped in with some major damage control before now?

Still, this idea to shunt Who to the darker months makes a lot of sense, there's too much going on in the good weather, what with the British weather being so unpredictable, the slightest whiff of sun and people head out in case we don't see it again for weeks.

A captive autumn/winter months audience is entirely reasonable. And a 5 month gap is better than it going off air all together.

[ragdoll]

It does make sense to me and its why I've been saying is probably the case. Plus add in the London 2012 Olympics and the Queen's Jubilee both of which are going to affect Spring/Summer 2012 programming and guess what? It's even MORE logical that the show gets pushed back for a few months.

I wish the BBC would come in and say something but Danny Cohen is striking me as a total idiot when it comes to PR and his shows. (He's apparently the person responsible for screwing over the cast & crew of My Family which, like it or not, has been popular for 11 years. He cancelled it and didn't even give them a chance to do a proper wrap up. And it's to make way for newer, hipper shows...wtf. I also suspect he's the reason this is going to be the final year for both New Tricks and Hustle which has me very very unhappy...) His new baby seems to be a UK version of The Voice - because what this world needs is more reality shows, right? *sigh

[tasty_kate]

Lovely commentary. This gives me a lot of hope if this writer's thoughts come to pan out. My biggest line of hope:

Second, the good news is this, this messed screening schedule could allow room for Arthur Darvill and Karen Gillan to return despite their commitments this fall, assuming they are not written out of the show this season.

HOPEHOPEHOPEHOPEHOPE though I honestly doubt it

[ragdoll]

If the rumours about S7 starting to film in February are true, then its very possible. Esp in conjunction with some other spoilery rumours about some dialogue in episode 13. *fingers x'd*

[tasty_kate]

I haven't read said spoilery episode 13 dialogue (and prefer to stay in the dark!) but this is raising my hopes a little bit too much. I read an interview of Arthur Darvill and a separate interview of Karen Gillan where both of them dropped hints that they were done after the next airing. Of course, they could have mastered the art of Moffat...

[ragdoll]

No spoilers, I promise. But it just seems like all the questions and answers and storylines will not be neatly wrapped up by episode 13. Which seems to be Moffat's standard operating procedure. :)

I could be totally wrong about both Arthur and Karen's departures. The signs are definitely there, but now that the filming schedule seems to be pushed back, I do wonder if one or both of them are being coy and dissembling to keep the storylines going. It wouldn't be the first time an actor went along with subterfuge to keep a storyline under wraps.

[apple_pathways]

You see, I knew I hated the Olympics for a reason!

I will never understand BBC scheduling--it's more complicated than astrology. (And considerably less reliable.) If they didn't own my soul at this point, I'd have to seriously consider watching television from my own country... :P

[lady_with_cats]

I'm ready for any Doctor Who to be thrown at me, whenever. And the maybe, possibly good news about Rory and Amy? Awesome. But, seriously, 50th Anniversay omg! I CAN'T WAIT! :DDDD

[eaweek]

Thanks to TheWillows for this article, and many thanks to Ragdoll for the additional information and interpretation. : ) It sounds to me like the potential changes are mostly the result of scheduling considerations and budget constraints rather than a (real or perceived) drop in quality due to what the Moff is doing with the show

[ragdoll]

It's easy when you're watching to think, "I wish they'd done X or Y," but there may be a whole slew of reasons why X or Y just wasn't possible.

This armchair producing makes me nuts. There are times when yes, something much cooler and spiffier would have been cooler and spiffier but it's just not financially or logistically viable. Neil Gaiman wrote about his working on "The Doctor's Wife" in his blog recently, and one of the reasons that Nephew is an Ood is because it was just cheaper to give him a pre-existing monster in that role than to have to do more prosthetics and special f/x for something new. It was all a matter of budget and given how much that episode took out of the budget for the year (which is why it was pushed back from S5), he could hardly argue over a point that was pretty much cosmetic.

I watching Game of Thrones which is based on a series of novels and there was a huge wankfest (the bad kind) over a recent episode where a major battle was not seen, only discussed and shot around. People whined and carried on