Doctor Who 2011 - SPLIT

It's been confirmed that next year, they will air the first seven episodes of Series 6 in Spring, and the last six in the autumn.

More details here: http://blogtorwho.blogspot.com/2010/08/next-series-of-doctor-who-to-be-split.html

A big twist mid season? Who else would bet its something to do with who river song is?

I think this'll be a good change, and it'll spread out the season more since we'll get the first half in Spring, second half in the Autumn and then the special at Christmas. And I really can't wait to see what this twist is, something tells me it's something to do with River Song/The Silence.

I love this idea! Not as much time to wait in between!

YAY!

How will affect merchandising such as figures and DVDs, though?

Moffat's talking that it'll be two series in one year, Series 6 and Series 7. (The link above now has a link to an article about that.)

So, will we get smaller DVD collections and action figures for Series 6 during the break and during Series 7?

I'm sure it will be whatever will get BBC more $. So probably smaller collections with not much of a smaller price.

I dunno if this is a spoiler as there's a link from the above article to the video, but it's spoilerish, so avoid if you don't want to know;

Steven Moffat mentioned that it's a "game-changing cliffhanger for the Doctor, Amy and Rory." So Rory is back for either series 6 or both series 6 and 7 - if it's true that it is going to be two series...

To be honest, I think I'd prefer it as one series, but it's not up to me unfortunately (Although, hopefully, if do well in college and go onto university, I'll be able to work on Doctor Who one day!) However, re-thinking about it, it seems like a really good move, especially for fans as it's only a couple of months between two series. However, they do have less episodes, which isn't fantasic, although, I wouldn't mind if they both had 7 episodes but Series 6 is having 7 episodes and Series 7 is having 6 episodes, which is odd, I would've made them both the same length...

And as mentioned before; the DVDs. I suppose they could release two separate boxsets for both of the series or have one big boxset for 6 and 7.

I think what they are saying is that series 6 will be split in to two parts, spring and fall. It doesn't sound like it will be series 6 and 7 to me.

terrasolo wrote:

I think what they are saying is that series 6 will be split in to two parts, spring and fall. It doesn't sound like it will be series 6 and 7 to me.

This is what Steven Moffat said, and this is quoted from the article;

Quote :

"I kept referring to a mid-season finale. So we are going to make it two series – seven episodes at Easter building to an earth-shattering climax, a cliffhanger we could never normally do because it would be too long before it came back. An enormous game-changing cliffhanger that will change everything.

"The wrong expression would be to say we are splitting it in two. We are making it two separate series.

"What I love about this idea is that when kids see Doctor Who go off the air, they will be noticeably taller when it comes back. It's an age for children. With an Easter series, an autumn series and a Christmas special, you are never going to be more than few months from the new series of Doctor Who.

This is the exact same thing that they're doing with Primeval. I don't know if this is some sort of bad idea of intrigue... but we'll see how it goes.

And sorry Moffatt, your earth-shattering climax isn't much of one anymore. It's like ohhhhh so exciting... wait, nevermind. Next!
~

Well after his underwhelming efforts so far.... yawn.

rdks wrote:

Well after his underwhelming efforts so far.... yawn.

My sentiments exactly. I don't watch a lot of current tv shows because I hate the way that modern season finales are done. It's such a big deal and most of the time it is more drama than it's really worth, and the intrigue dies within the first few minutes. I miss the old tv shows that just ended after a season and picked up like nothing ended on the following season. This allowed for sudden cancellation.

See, the shows I watch, the season finales can be exciting, but it's not like, "SEASON FINALE WATCH OR FOREVER LOSE THE INTRIGUE!"

It sucks. I'm almost inclined to wait until this next season or whatever comes out on dvd, then watch it then, but you know what, I think I might just skip DW completely since it's going the way of the networks now.
~

I think the reason why we've been "underwhelmed" with Moffat since he took the series is because before, he wrote one story per series, in one or two parts. That meant he could focus his energy on just the one story. Now, including the Christmas special, he's doing six stories a year out of 11. (2-parters count as one story.)

I still think Moffat is a great writer, but even great writers have their limits.

I'm a little less critical than most. I just watch this to be entertained.

Same here, but I hate unnecessary drama and what they've been doing in modern tv shows is getting ridiculous to the point that I wind up losing all interest in the show itself because of the big hype for its stupid season/mid-season finale. At least watching the show through on dvd gets you past the stupid unnecessary drama and lets you build up your own hype.

~

I hope he brings his 'A' game this season. And for once, could they dump the arcs? There is nothing wrong with just having 13 stand alone stories.

Hoosier Whovian wrote:

I hope he brings his 'A' game this season. And for once, could they dump the arcs? There is nothing wrong with just having 13 stand alone stories.

Completely agree with this, even though I've grown up watching New Who and used to the season arcs it gets tired eventually. I wouldn't mind a season arc every once in a while, but it gets boring if it's every season.

This just reminds me of Network television with the "Fall finales" and "Spring Finales" where they break for a month and a half for Football and Basketball, then give us 6 weeks to wrap up the full season. I hated it because it broke up the season too much and after two months of sports you forgot what was happening in the show.

artanyus wrote:

This just reminds me of Network television with the "Fall finales" and "Spring Finales" where they break for a month and a half for Football and Basketball, then give us 6 weeks to wrap up the full season. I hated it because it broke up the season too much and after two months of sports you forgot what was happening in the show.

Reminds me of what they did with Battlestar Galactica. Made it difficult to watch the show and allowed way too much time during that mid-season break to grouse about the mid-season break.

neogeoMk2 wrote:

artanyus wrote:

This just reminds me of Network television with the "Fall finales" and "Spring Finales" where they break for a month and a half for Football and Basketball, then give us 6 weeks to wrap up the full season. I hated it because it broke up the season too much and after two months of sports you forgot what was happening in the show.

Reminds me of what they did with Battlestar Galactica. Made it difficult to watch the show and allowed way too much time during that mid-season break to grouse about the mid-season break.

Are you a fan of the new Battlestar Galactica?

~

enormous game changin cliffhanger, that the doctor gets out of in the first 5 minutes of the fall program. sure, moffat, and will you ever reveal what *eternal* dalek means? sometimes i think he talks too much.

a1cmustangpilot wrote:

neogeoMk2 wrote:

artanyus wrote:

This just reminds me of Network television with the "Fall finales" and "Spring Finales" where they break for a month and a half for Football and Basketball, then give us 6 weeks to wrap up the full season. I hated it because it broke up the season too much and after two months of sports you forgot what was happening in the show.

Reminds me of what they did with Battlestar Galactica. Made it difficult to watch the show and allowed way too much time during that mid-season break to grouse about the mid-season break.

Are you a fan of the new Battlestar Galactica?

~

I was a fan of both old & new. I saw the old at the theatre, then was a die-hard adherent of the show (for the whole season, and even came back & watched Galactica 1980--only good show that season was cobbled together from an unused Starbuck story from the previous series). I loved the new version as well (Eddie Olmos as Adama was terrific I thought, and a woman Starbuck was a great decision). I just got tired of the looooong breaks between & in the middle of the seasons. Much the same way I'm getting tired of the looooong break between seasons of Caprica.

neogeoMk2 wrote:

a1cmustangpilot wrote:

neogeoMk2 wrote:

artanyus wrote:

This just reminds me of Network television with the "Fall finales" and "Spring Finales" where they break for a month and a half for Football and Basketball, then give us 6 weeks to wrap up the full season. I hated it because it broke up the season too much and after two months of sports you forgot what was happening in the show.

Reminds me of what they did with Battlestar Galactica. Made it difficult to watch the show and allowed way too much time during that mid-season break to grouse about the mid-season break.

Are you a fan of the new Battlestar Galactica?

~

I was a fan of both old & new. I saw the old at the theatre, then was a die-hard adherent of the show (for the whole season, and even came back & watched Galactica 1980--only good show that season was cobbled together from an unused Starbuck story from the previous series). I loved the new version as well (Eddie Olmos as Adama was terrific I thought, and a woman Starbuck was a great decision). I just got tired of the looooong breaks between & in the middle of the seasons. Much the same way I'm getting tired of the looooong break between seasons of Caprica.

I hate those long breaks as well for Battlestar. But, once I got all the DVDs, and watched them back to back for a few weeks, I discovered the show was even better than I thought, and made more sense. Breaks are not good for series that have a story arc.

Interesting. Too bad I can't see it when you guys do.

I'll wait and see before I pass judgment on the format change.

Ronpur wrote:

I hate those long breaks as well for Battlestar. But, once I got all the DVDs, and watched them back to back for a few weeks, I discovered the show was even better than I thought, and made more sense. Breaks are not good for series that have a story arc.

Agreed. If they were purely episodic arcs, then I could understand, but this arc is already split between seasons. I see no reason to split it further.