Sunday, 7 August 2011

Doctor Who Series 7 and the 50th Anniversary Schedule Speculation

There is a lot of confusion about Doctor Who in Series 7. Will it be a full season? Will the BBC axe the budget so they can have more episodes for the 2013 50th Anniversary? There's been lots of Private Eye doom and gloom (which is what Private Eye do to everything, so pay no attention).

Meanwhile, Steven Moffat has been hinting at the next few years, though he isn't exactly being helpful. For instance, in as reported here, Moffat says the following.
"I've got various plans, but all I can say emphatically is it will be huge. It won't be just one thing . . . We'll be doing lots of stuff. The plans are quite extensive, and changing all the time. Oh my God, we will hit that year very, very hard indeed. . . . There's lot of decisions we're making that are about making all that possible. It'll be amazing."
So just what is happening?

We have to add Smith, Gillan and Darvill being unavailable for the usual filming schedule of Series 7. Normally they would be filming right now, but the Christmas special hasn't even begun. Also, Arthur is performing in Doctor Faustus for a while. This led to rumors that Amy and Rory Pond aren't in for next year, but Moffat is telling us it's going ahead — but it's different. Karen Gillan has confirmed she is in Series 7 too, though Arthur Darvill has said nothing so far.

So it's time for a step back. Let's take a long, hard look at everything, along with the good old fashioned appliance of thought!

Steven Moffat has said before that he wants to take Doctor Who back to an Autumn season, like in the Classic Series. The reason Series 6 was split is probably to make way for the season move, avoiding an 18-month-long gap. Therefore, it's likely that Series 7 will be on in the autumn of 2012, nine or ten months after the end of Series 6, which will be followed by the usual Christmas episode.

Now for some major speculation.

It's also likely that there will be an Easter special in 2012, just so we don't forget about Doctor Who altogether. Many have suggested, probably correctly, that Series 7 will be split; this means six or seven episodes for late 2012 and the others for broadcast in the early 50th anniversary year.

Series 8 could be broadcast in late 2013, as will be the usual from now on, and that would give us more than twenty episodes of Who in a single year. This will leave the "Big Anniversary Story" to be transmitted as the finale of the 2013 Autumn season.

On the other hand, Series 7 could all be contained in 2012, and we would just have to wait a while for Series 8. So no special scheduling is necessary there. In any case, all seasons will be back to a full length of 13 episodes, of course. An Easter special is also a possibility.

This all sounds like a good idea, and it's all put together from Twitter and interview snippets from the Doctor Who team, with my friends and my own added deduction — and of course this could be very totally wrong, but it all answers so many questions and fills so many holes, and waiting and watching will prove this to be right. (Well, close, anyhow.)

Now all they need to do is find a regular time slot for Doctor Who, and it'll all be sorted!

8 comments :

gerard said...

Sounds good! :D nice work

The Scientist said...

Ah, that was a good plan then to split series 6 up.

Devin said...

The original air date for Doctor Who was Nov 23rd. In 2013, Nov 23rd falls on a Saturday, so this all sounds perfect.

riftmaster said...

thats what i thought

10thPlanet said...

I edited the post a bit and added some of my own thoughts. I also created a new tag: "50th Anniversary".

jamawalk said...

but... its all speculation. and when it comes to this sort of thing, thats never really any good.

i'll wait till i hear it from the moff.

Combom said...

time will tell, would you rather believe the fiasco we have ATM?

doggy.pogson said...

Would be a great idea to have a series-long special about the eleven doctors, you know, getting look-a-likes and realistic masks to play the deceased.