In what is more a financial issue than a story arc, Steven Moffat has confirmed what was speculated as far back as this past June, that the seventh season of Doctor Who will be pushed to a fall premier versus’ the spring launch that started when the series returned to the airwaves in 2005.
When the original series aired, so much like the American broadcast TV schedule, it ran from the fall to spring (of course, it was airing 26 half-hour episodes a season then). But when the series was resurrected back in 2005, it became a spring/summer series. While the series had good ratings, it did suffer viewer drop-off (and if anyone analyzed the BBC iPlayer, where the show can be downloaded later [becoming one of the most downloaded drama], they see that while it was watched, people were unwilling to cut down their summer plans to watch an episode). And while international distribution was bringing in money to the BBC, it seemed that the always cash strapped BBC was losing money on a very expensive, yet very high-profile TV series.
So basically, the show’s perennial timeslot on Saturday late afternoon/early evening in the summer was killing Doctor Who. And while the show aired here on BBCAmerica, it was at 9pm Eastern/Pacific on a Saturday night (though HD viewers in the West could see the show at 6pm, as it ran on the Eastern feed).
Even as early as 2010 (the series fifth season), during the early months Steven Moffat’s first year as showrunner, word began circulating that show was –at times- over budget and was having difficulties meeting deadlines –which was why Neil Gaiman’s scripted episode The Doctor’s Wife was delayed a year (and still had a ¼ of its budget cut when it did finally get made). More financial issues continued into 2011, which –perhaps- lead to the departure of two of its executive producers, Beth Willis and Piers Wenger, and could explain more clearly why season six was split in two –a spring season and then a fall one.
When the show was picked-up for a seventh season of 14 episodes in June, the BBC and even Moffat were mum on exactly how that season would air in 2012. Moffat seemed to speculate, as summer turned into fall, that the series would be better suited for an autumn (as it always was) airing –when darkness settled much earlier than the summer. And while Doctor Who has been nothing less than a huge success since its return, for the always cash conscious BBC, the show was costing them a lot of money and because of its summer airings, it was losing a huge audience for a show with such a budget. And ratings are the barometer of all TV series budget.
So now with “official” confirmation from Moffat, we can speculate that the seventh season of Doctor Who will begin airing sometime in the fall of 2012. And much like season six, will be split in half, with at least 6 episodes in the fall, followed by a few week hiatus which would lead into the now traditional Christmas episode (and whether that would be a stand-alone or part of what ever arc Moffat has designed for that season is anyone’s guess –or even dumping the whole concept altogether maybe?) followed by another hiatus before the shows balance is broadcast in 2013 –the 50th anniversary of the series.
With this come other speculations as well; Matt Smith has already stated he wants to come here to America and work. He’s committed through season seven, but would he be willing to stay another year is a huge shot in the dark question. While 2013 is the franchises 50th year, its official birthday would be November 23, 2013. Could we see a regeneration of 11th Doctor (already being sort of foreshadowed in the last season finale, The Wedding of River Song) in the season seven finale? That could help the series ratings wise when it (speculation here) launches an eighth season in the fall of 2013. And where, in the end, does this proposed David Yates directed movie version of Doctor Who fit in? Will it follow, possibly, the way the X Files did their first movie? Or a complete reboot of the franchise as a movie series?
In the end for Doctor Who, 2012 may be a more of a watershed year for the shown since its 2005 return. And where it goes in 2013 and beyond remains in the hands of BBC, who historically, play everything close to the vest when it comes to its programming schedule.
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