BBC Gives 'Doctor Who' A Seventh Season
Matt Smith returns, but how much of it will air in 2012?
The BBC didn't waste a lot of time giving "Doctor Who" a greenlight for a seventh season. But the question was never if The Doctor would return -- just how much would he return.
The economy has wreaked havoc on television, especially those that depend on government-style assessments like the BBC. Because of that, there was a lot of speculation that the BBC would take a year off, like it did in 2009, airing "Doctor Who" specials instead of a full season.
While the 14-episode order is proof enough that the BBC isn't taking that route again, the network did hint that there's a chance some of the episodes produced in 2012 may not air until 2013.
"The new [season order] is a big commitment," a BBC spokesman said, according to The Guardian. "Not many other shows have such a commitment so far in advance. We do not know yet how many will air in 2012."
The BBC has taken great pains to reassure fans that changes being made in how the episodes are being produced are dictated by the writing staff, and not by budgets. For instance, the strategy in 2011 to split the "Doctor Who" Season 6 in half was based on storytelling elements implemented by showrunner Steven Moffat, and not to help better space production costs over multiple financial quarters, the BBC said.
Yet, getting any real commitment no matter what the ratings (or international interest) is tough to get these days. Just ask "Torchwood," the "Doctor Who" spinoff, that earned just a five-episode renewal for its third season, and still make a killing in terms of domestic audience. Yet, the BBC couldn't commit to continuing the show on its own, and instead struck a deal with an American premium cable channel, Starz, to jointly produce a fourth season.
A move like that, however, might not be all it appears. While it might make BBC look like its being tight with every penny, it could simply have made much better business sense to cash in on the international appeal of "Torchwood," and sharing the financial burdens of the show with another company, lowering its own risk. Studios enter joint deals like that a lot, no matter what state the economy is in.
A couple examples in recent years include the first season of "Battlestar Galactica" between NBC Universal and Sky One. That type of work has even spilled over into movies, like the 1997 blockbuster "Titanic" becoming a shared property between Paramount and Twentieth Century Fox, when it's then-record budget was too much risk for one studio to assume.
No matter what BBC's motivation is, "Doctor Who" is coming back for a seventh season, and it will have Matt Smith continuing in his role. And for now, that will just have to be good enough.
British audiences have already seen the mid-season finale of "Doctor Who" with BBC America showing the final episode this coming weekend. The sixth season will return to show remaining episodes in the fall.
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by ymarkone | Mon, 06/13/2011 - 17:11 #1
Oh no! If the subtext of this article is to be believed then the BBC has been infected with the same viral diarrhea of the brain that most US networks currently suffer. And if so, what a pity!
If you are a network that is currently running 6 shows, but you decide you can only afford to run 5 shows it would make sense to dump the show with the lowest viewership/ratings and run the other 5 shows.
The worst thing you can do to screw up a show is to mess around with its format. Okay, so splitting the season in two and spreading them out in the year isn't the worst, but it's pretty annoying. The year with just a few specials was really starting to annoy me to the point of no longer watching the series! (I'm English for gods sake, that would be such a sacrilege!) And an entire "year" of Torchwood in 5 nights pushed me over the top. Do I really want to give them a second chance? Do I want to become invested in a show that might jack me around in the future and decide to do a year of 2 specials and a comic book?
"The BBC has taken great pains to reassure fans that changes being made in how the episodes are being produced are dictated by the writing staff, and not by budgets. For instance, the strategy in 2011 to split the "Doctor Who" Season 6 in half was based on storytelling elements implemented by showrunner Steven Moffat, and not to help better space production costs over multiple financial quarters, the BBC said."
Please excuse my language, but that's just so much bullshit! Okay, so if you have a season of 24 episodes where each episode is a different story you can run them all together. But if you have a season of 12 episodes and there are two story arcs you have to put several months between them! If you can explain how finding out who River Song is requires that we take a several month "rest" from watching Doctor Who so our brains will cool down then I would love to hear it. Otherwise, it's just exactly the opposite of the first sentence!
Nothing loses you fans more than screwing around with the show. Moving time slots, moving days, changing episode lengths, changing season lengths, and changing show format are all changes that bother fans. Any one of these will lose you fans, start changing more than one of these and you are actively attempting to lose fans and dump the show.
If the BBC can not commit to shows that are as popular as Doctor Who and Torchwood and feel that there is some "risk" involved in continuing with a hit show, then maybe something is wrong at the BBC decision making level! What is it that scares them? Is it the risk that the shows may become more popular? Is it the risk of maintaining a show's audience? You bring back a classic show after it being of the air for years. It's a resounding success! Over the last few years your fan base has increased beyond ridiculous numbers. Merchandising has picked up. The writing and the stories are fantastic! TIME TO WORRY? Is it any wonder that TV executives don't make any sense at all?