Chris

The Disney deal may turn out to be the best thing that’s happened to Doctor Who since the 2005 relaunch. The show’s original run was always at the mercy of capricious executives at the BBC who didn’t feel any sense of ownership of, or obligation towards, something whose success was entirely not their own doing. It suffered interference throughout the mid-late 80s, leading to inconsistent scheduling and reduced production quality, with the inevitable loss of ratings that are then used as a pretext to fully cancel any popular old show that just won’t go away.

There have been too many early signs of similar happening to Who over the past 3-5 years for my liking. Series have got shorter, it’s moved around the schedules, the Christmas special was moved to new year, a position in the season schedules from which it is far easier to drop something entirely (as has now happened), and stunt-casting (Bradley Walsh paid off, more or less, but I don’t think John Bishop did. Great comedian, but as he himself said, ‘middle aged scouse comic’ is the limit of his range).

With Disney paying what’s rumoured to be an absolute king’s ransom for the RotW distribution rights, come certain obligations. The mouse will expect to see a substantial chunk of that money going on increased production values (which, to be fair, are still pretty high on this series), but most of all to satisfy their own streaming drop schedules they will have insisted on the very consistent scheduling that RTD is now promising. There has been an alignment of the stars here - I have no doubt Davies will have wanted predictable, ongoing scheduling (and a Christmas special), but Disney’s backing will have made it non-negotiable.

I have yet to understand what the heck it is they currently do that makes a gap year a necessity, when they can churn out crap like Casualty on a weekly basis and American studios can produce popular sci fi like the Stargate franchise at a rate of 20+ episodes per year (often many more once the spin-offs began) for 14 years.