Doctor Who Social Club

Written by: Russell T Davies

Directed by: Euros Lyn

I'm not typically a fan of participating in the rumour mill, but (a) this guy is fairly level-headed and not a crackpot, and (b) thanks to recent events...this is where we are now.

Anyways, this all seems pretty plausible to me. Thoughts?

The BBC has announced the next stage in the expansion of its Whoniverse, a pre-school animation version of its big-selling IP, which just wrapped second season under returned showrunner Russell T. Davies. (...)

Disney, which co-produces the Bad Wolf and BBC Studios-produced main version, will not be involved with the animation.

Written by: Russell T Davies

Directed by: Keith Boak

This community was founded early in season one, around the time that "Boom" was released. After the season ended, we went back and did some "Retrospective Discussions" to cover the first couple of episodes of the season, plus the Tennant/Tate specials.

The main conceit of them being "retrospective" is that we're free to discuss things in hindsight, pulling in context from later seasons as desired.

After that initial run, I put them on hiatus, as engagement was understandably lower than with new episodes. But...we're looking at a potentially lengthy break between new episodes, so maybe it's worth looking at the idea again.

I think "Rose" would be a logical place to start, for ahem multiple reasons.

What do we think? If the interest is there, we could start on the weekend.

It's very obviously futile, but let's use that as a space to share things that absolutely cannot be shared without spoiling things.

If you just want to discuss the episode, that thread's already up and running.

Written by: Russell T Davies

Directed by: Alex Sanjiv Pillai

Balfe has a load of high visibility (audibility?) credits to his name, dating back to his time as an assistant to Hans Zimmer. The standout title for me is another Bad Wolf production, His dark materials, but YMMV — it's a long list of movies, video games and TV shows he has scored.

I think it's interesting that Murray Gold wasn't chosen to do the honours, as he has with most of NuWho and at least parts of its Torchwood and Sarah Jane adventures spinoffs. It certainly indicates that the show may have a different flavour than the main show.

Just thought I'd leave this here before the season finale and the #RIPDoctorWho that will surely take on a life of its own when more people realise the show isn't coming back immediately.

From Disney+'s press package released ahead of this season — my emphasis:

Doctor Who remains one of the most watched programmes on iPlayer and was a top 5 series on Disney+ globally every week it aired, as well as being the BBC’s top drama for under 35’s this year making it one of the biggest programmes for the demographic across all streamers and broadcasters.

Doctor Who  has a variety of licensees and partnerships spanning comics and collectibles, audiobooks, podcasts and magazines. Since 2012, over 17 million Sonic Screwdrivers and action figures, 19 million DVDs and over one million tickets for Doctor Who live events have sold globally.

That last paragraph underlines what Steven Moffat has said in the past, that Doctor Who depends less on viewership (much less over-the-air ratings) and more on the cachet it bears in peripherals and cultural capital. The BBC needs the show to go on.

As for the BBC viewership numbers going down — that isn't just Doctor Who. People are simply watching less TV on the broadcast date and time, and more streaming at their convenience. Keeping this in mind, Doctor Who has consistently been in BBC One's top five viewed programs on broadcast.

Since Disney+ rarely disclose their viewing numbers, the fact that the first (or 14th) season earned a consistent top five position on the platform offers some support for a renewed distribution deal. If the platform are less thrilled by the number of viewers who only subscribe when Doctor Who is on — that's another, negative factor. Neither we nor the BBC know what's what until after the finale has aired.

There will still be a production break for at least a year before we see new episodes, but there will be the spinoff The war between the land and the sea in the interim.

We're going to see a bunch of wild rumours and armchair speculation about the show's future over summer, but at this point I take an optimistic view based on the early signals from the BBC as well as the above Disney statement