Doctor Who Season 7 news & rumours.

[ajr90]

Originally Posted by DrVenkman

I don't think there's even a reason for BBC4 to exist.

Without BBC4 we wouldn't have Wallander, the Killing, or Spiral, to name but three programmes, and reason enough in my book.

[paulsaz]

and why couldn't they be put on bbc2 instead of it showing the same episode of the kennedy's for three nights in a row?

the bbc don't have enough quality content to fill two channels yet choose to fill four with endless repeats and abysmal garbage that costs nothing to make.

[Wilson]

well i guess someone has to use the bandwidth out there. If it wasnt BBC4 then it would be some obscure channel pumping out phone in bingo **** 24/7 I spose there was a huge goldrush style thing going on at the beginning to get as much space as possible and then worry about what they would fill it with later, they just stopped worrying about what they would fill it with and left the crap on.

[paulsaz]

When Dave is showing newer versions of QI and Mock the Week than BBC2 it's time to think again about whether they can really justify four channels.

[Guest 10592]

Gutted that there won't be a full series of Doctor Who next year and a bit annoyed about the lack of info coming from the Beeb. Why can't they level with the audience about what's going on?

[ajr90]

Originally Posted by paulsaz

and why couldn't they be put on bbc2

Because they're foreign language with subtitles, and terrestrial TV has long since ceased to be friendly to such things. If it wasn't for BBC4, those shows would never had made it to the UK at all.

I agree with you that some of the repeating is utterly absurd. I missed James May's Toy Stories last week because I was watching the GP, so I recorded it. Watched it the next day, and when I went back to normal telly I was surprised to see they were repeating it again already. And it was on the next night too! Madness.

My own idea for the BBC to save money? Bin daytime telly. Go back to the days where everything turns off after breakfast TV and doesn't come back on until the evening. No-one watches TV during the day anyway.

[jpig]

The BBC could fill four channels if they stopped chasing discovered talent and started discovering it again. That would save a fortune. Also, I have no problem with repeats - but why limit it to stuff that we can already see / get / watch. Why not plunder the archive for stuff that has long since been forgotten?

BBC1 has effectively become ITV and BBC2 is the old BBC1. Why, for example, are the BBC paying £25m over two years to air 'The Voice' which is effectively another shot at a singing talent show. If Doctor Who costs £2 million an episode (it doesn't) then that's a lot of original drama that could have been made - instead they give us another show that ITV already do perfectly well.

And yes to the Glastonbury thing - they will be all over it with multiple reporters from multiple stations at huge expense. Let SKy do that sort of thing and spend the money on lots of smaller festivals.

Is all of this too obvious for them?

[ajr90]

Originally Posted by jpig

The BBC could fill four channels if they stopped chasing discovered talent and started discovering it again.

Indeed. If only the BBC would remember that they are there to "Inform, Educate and Entertain" and not to chase ratings (leave that to the commercial channels. Get rid of the populist pap and stick to making quality programmes.

Also, I have no problem with repeats - but why limit it to stuff that we can already see / get / watch. Why not plunder the archive for stuff that has long since been forgotten?

I may be cynical - but it's because they get more money putting it out on DVD instead of putting it on free-to-air television. You could also ask why the iPlayer isn't more like 4 On Demand, where they keep shows around for longer than seven days, and also have lots of old archive shows on there too.

And yes to the Glastonbury thing - they will be all over it with multiple reporters from multiple stations at huge expense. Let SKy do that sort of thing and spend the money on lots of smaller festivals.

It's not like they even need so many reporters. They just need a camera crew for each stage. Point the camera at the stage, have a bloke in an edit suit working out which one to show at any one time, and have someone in a studio at the TV centre to cover any gaps. Job done. But that isn't the "BBC Way", is it? It's not isolated to Glasters - look at their Olympic coverage, say, or anything which requires them sending a bunch of reporters etc. a long distance to cover something big.

[hookbeak]

Doctor who costs roughly 800k - 1 million per episode. It's budget is about 12 million for 14 episodes. As most BBC shows technically make a loss, the fact that one of it's most expensive makes a huge profit is remarkable.

[dvds2000]

Originally Posted by Harold1066

BBC are losing money hand over fist, the lastest is that either BBC4 goes or the F1 http://twitpic.com/5dggsr/full so guess Dr Who has to fall in line too

That doesn't make sense, if they are losing money, then cancelling a show that makes them money surely means they will make a larger loss

What I don't get is, when Moffat took over, why didn't his contract state he has to do 13 episodes + a Xmas special every year.

Even so, why can he not make 13 episodes of DW and 3 Sherlock episodes a year? Surely each episode doesn't take over 3 weeks, especially when you consider he isn't even writing them all.

[hookbeak]

Originally Posted by dvds2000

Even so, why can he not make 13 episodes of DW and 3 Sherlock episodes a year? Surely each episode doesn't take over 3 weeks, especially when you consider he isn't even writing them all.

He probably writes more than you think. When RTD was exec he did at least one rewrite on every single episode (except for Moffats as he always said they were the only ones he didn't have to touch). Many of the scripts were really RTD's in the end, but with other peoples names on. On top of this exec-producing isn't just writing, it's more than a full time job in itself even without being head writer.

RTD & Benjamin Cooks book " A Writers Tale" gives a lot of insight into the production process - producing a show like Who is incredibly stressful.

[new]

All that's happening is that the same old Private Eye article is being repeated and just fulling a fan fire.

As soon as the second half of this Who series was shifted to Autumn, I think most people assumed that this would be the place were the next series would start so there would be a longer break/wait for next year.

OK we may not (still NOTHING confirmed) get a shorter Who series next year, but as I said I would rather have two 7 episodes series of more stuff by the Moff; like Blink, Empty Child, Doctor Dances, Girl in the Fire Place, Eleventh Hour, Time of Angels, Made of Stone, Big Bang, Impossible Astronaut, A Good Man Goes to War, etc, than a series with some fillers like Curse of the Black Spot, Vampires of Venice, etc.

I really dont think there is going to be any official word until after this series finishes its run, so Im just going to sit tight and wait until then,

[Guest 2484]

Just a thought. We know just 4 episodes next year. Why assume that means a four episode series. Perhaps it'll be off air and the new series will launch with the 50th anniversary in late November and then follow straight through into 2013.

Then it's just a big gap rather than anything particularly weird and Doctor Who is back running in it's traditional winter slot (which I always thought made more sense anyway).

[hookbeak]

Originally Posted by RDJ

Just a thought. We know just 4 episodes next year.

Since when ? we don't know anything about how many will air 2012 yet !

[Guest 2484]

Thought I read that. In the mine of semi-information I probably imagined it. Still a possibility though...

[4gotten]

The oft reported claim that RTD had to rewrite most of episodes of Doctor Who always seems rather odd to me.

Back in the day when I didn't take any notice of who wrote a particular episode, I nevertheless did perceive a huge variation in quality and at some point during the Tennant years I stopped watching on a regular basis. That was mostly due to Tennant's over-acting but also a lot to do with the stories.

When I look back at the episodes of Who that I really enjoyed (The Unquiet Dead, Dalek, Father's Day, The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances, The Idiot's Lantern, 42, Human Nature/The Family of Blood, Blink) I see that none of them bear RTD's name, even if he does claim he had to rewrite them.

So whatever RTD did to these scripts, there must have been something about the original scripts that sets them apart, at least in my sensibilities, to the rest.

As for the speculation on series 7, seven episodes in the autums of 2012 and 2013 seems to be the most obvious way to go.

[hookbeak]

Originally Posted by 4gotten

The oft reported claim that RTD had to rewrite most of episodes of Doctor Who always seems rather odd to me.

it's true though, as i said before "The Writers Tale" goes into this quite a bit.

[4gotten]

Originally Posted by hookbeak

it's true though, as i said before "The Writers Tale" goes into this quite a bit.

Don't doubt it but I don't get is why those stories are generally so much better than the ones that credit RTD as writer, if he actually wrote all of them

As I said, I don't consider myself one of the RTD haters: I reached this conclusion before I took note of who was credited as writing the episodes.

[Guest 58450]

Originally Posted by 4gotten

Don't doubt it but I don't get is why those stories are generally so much better than the ones that credit RTD as writer, if he actually wrote all of them

As I said, I don't consider myself one of the RTD haters: I reached this conclusion before I took note of who was credited as writing the episodes.

Didn't Lucas rewrite a huge chunk of Empire Strikes Back because Leigh Brackett died after only the first, unfilmable draft. Of course, this is another of those stories you don't really know what to believe.

But a good story and good script are really different things. RTD is clearly a great writer of scripts in terms of pacing and 'beats' to dialogue, even if I'm rarely a fan of his idea of a story.

[4gotten]

Originally Posted by TheoGB

. RTD is clearly a great writer of scripts in terms of pacing and 'beats' to dialogue, even if I'm rarely a fan of his idea of a story.

I think that's probably the key to it.

While we're at it, as much as I love what Steven Moffat has brought to Doctor Who, he also very often uses the same little rug-pulling tricks in his scripts and I think is guilty of too much teasing (especially when it comes to River Song).

His vision (whatever it is) could actually stiflle the development of potentially great Who stories by other writers, because their ideas don't fit in with his overall planned story arc. The Doctor's Wife for example was widely praised but still needed the "The only water in the forest is the river" reference shoe-horning in.

This happened in in series 5 too, one example being the really awkward bit at the end of Vampires in Venice where The Doctor turns to Rory and says "Listen, what's that?" and Rory says "All I can hear is silence."

Maybe this is another reason for splitting series 7, so that other story ideas can be explored? Ultimately the BBC decides what happens with Who and perhaps they're unhappy with Moffat keeping his cards so close to his chest.

Anyway, all this speculation and we're not even close to the end of Series 6 yet! It could turn out to be such a disappointing finale, that giving Who a rest for a year turns out to be a wise decision