2013 Transmission / Shooting Details

[Cutter John]

With all the horror stories I've seen about the BBC's budget, maybe we should be happy the shows even still on.

[Starkers]

Cutter John wrote:

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With all the horror stories I've seen about the BBC's budget, maybe we should be happy the shows even still on.

[The Wormhole]

Allyn Gibson wrote:

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We had a discussion at work about split seasons, and we were trying to figure out who to blame. (My coworkers were upset at the midseason break for The Walking Dead.) The thing is, no one's to blame. American television has always had split seasons, it's just that we never advertised them as such. Shows usually take a breather in the schedules during November and December. The networks use that as a time to put specials and other events on the schedule, while the programs can catch up productive-wise and build up another bank of episodes. It was always an informal thing, but shows like Battlestar formalized the broadcast break into a narrative break.

In the past, a show traditionally began in September, continued airing new episodes until the end of November, then took a break for December. After that, you could be guaranteed of new episodes in February, but otherwise the remainig episodes of the seasons would be stretched out so that the season could last until May.

These days the episodes are clumped together, which usually means splitting the season in two halves. With some shows like Lost and 24 it was felt that a mid-season split actually hurt them, and they actually did air all episodes consecutively, with a season starting in January and ending in May.

Maybe I'm ignorant here, but it does feel like BSG and the Stargates were the pioneers of the mid-season split with having mid-season cliffhangers. Hell, I'm fairly certain BSG started the tradition of releasing half-seasons on DVD.

[Sindatur]

The Wormhole wrote:

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In the past, a show traditionally began in September, continued airing new episodes until the end of November, then took a break for December. After that, you could be guaranteed of new episodes in February, but otherwise the remainig episodes of the seasons would be stretched out so that the season could last until May.

These days the episodes are clumped together, which usually means splitting the season in two halves. With some shows like Lost and 24 it was felt that a mid-season split actually hurt them, and they actually did air all episodes consecutively, with a season starting in January and ending in May.

Maybe I'm ignorant here, but it does feel like BSG and the Stargates were the pioneers of the mid-season split with having mid-season cliffhangers. Hell, I'm fairly certain BSG started the tradition of releasing half-seasons on DVD.

I'm pretty sure Farscape did the Half Season splits before NuBSG was a twinkle in Moore's eye. In fact, when they promised to renew Farscape for S4 and S5 at the same time, they tried claiming that S4 part 2 was S5 to avoid looking as if they had backed out of the renewal for S5.

[captcalhoun]

i miss the old days when the Beeb would wait for three years and then show all three years of an American show in one block, week in, week out. by the end of which, they'd probably have years four to seven to carry on with.

[The Wormhole]

captcalhoun wrote:

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i miss the old days when the Beeb would wait for three years and then show all three years of an American show in one block, week in, week out. by the end of which, they'd probably have years four to seven to carry on with.

That wouldn't be practical these days due to the readily available alternate methods people would turn to.

[diankra]

The Wormhole wrote:

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That wouldn't be practical these days due to the readily available alternate methods people would turn to.

It wasn't even practical back then, such as when the BBC turned down Next Generation ("I've seen it, it's awful," said BBC1 Controller Jonathan Powell. Actually, he'd watched the first 15 mins of Encounter at Farpoint, according to Private Eye), and then picked it the terrestrial rights after Sky had been running it for three years. Aside from the Sky showing, there'd been rental video releases of the whole of season one (bar two episodes... wonder if you can guess?) and sales of dual standard VHS players got a very noticeable boost around that time... :-)

[Candlelight]

Sindatur wrote:

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I'm pretty sure Farscape did the Half Season splits before NuBSG was a twinkle in Moore's eye. In fact, when they promised to renew Farscape for S4 and S5 at the same time, they tried claiming that S4 part 2 was S5 to avoid looking as if they had backed out of the renewal for S5.

The main problem with season breaks is not that they're there, but if they have enough episodes to cover it. Shows like TNG which had a solid 26 episodes to play with, they could split the show and you'd still have ~13 episodes before Christmas.

But shows these days like Game of Thrones or True Blood only have 12 episodes, so it makes sense not to split them - and they don't.

With Doctor Who having 14 episodes a year there really is no point splitting them (especially as the Xmas special is already separated from the group anyway).

[Candlelight]

captcalhoun wrote:

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i miss the old days when the Beeb would wait for three years and then show all three years of an American show in one block, week in, week out. by the end of which, they'd probably have years four to seven to carry on with.

Yeah, we got Babylon 5 delayed by a season and a half, which effectively gave us seasons 1-3 back to back without breaks, an unbroken 68 weeks of the show (The Gathering was split into 2x 1 hour episodes at the start). Really helped me get into the story arc.

[Lonemagpie]

captcalhoun wrote:

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i miss the old days when the Beeb would wait for three years and then show all three years of an American show in one block, week in, week out.

...in a totally random order...

[MacLeod]

captcalhoun wrote:

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i miss the old days when the Beeb would wait for three years and then show all three years of an American show in one block, week in, week out. by the end of which, they'd probably have years four to seven to carry on with.

You mean the good old days when ST and other Sci-Fi shows where on BBC at 18:00, only for episodes to be postponed due to the great TV god of sport, and even if the sport had finished by 18:00 if it had overrun, the Sci-Fi show would be posponted in favour of the show that the sport had overran into?

Ah yes the good the old days.

[Allyn Gibson]

Per Moffat at a preview screening:

And if that makes for a merry Christmas for viewers, there's even more to come in the New Year as Doctor Who celebrates its 50th anniversary: "They are immense, they are considerable and they will be full of tremendous surprises," said writer Steven Moffat of his much-discussed anniversary plans.

"We're not going to tell you [any details] but I promise we're going to take over television, trust me," he told an audience of fans at a special preview of the Christmas episode.

Certainly Matt Smith will be around to play the titular Time Lord – he intends to go on playing it "for infinity number of years" he said.

I'm curious to see how Doctor Who takes over television in 2013. A repeat season, perhaps.

[Mr Awe]

^^ Well, Moffat also promised more Who than ever. So, I'd take all of that with a huge grain of salt!

[The Wormhole]

Doctor Who taking over television in 2013 will just end up along with some of Moffat's other memorable quotes like "more Who than ever," "airing in those cold, dark winter months," "splitting the season means less gaps between seasons," and so on.

Rule 1: Moffat lies.

[Samurai8472]

I'll cherish those 7-8 weeks of WHO in April before we go back into the dark until 2013 Christmas special


I hope a Proms or SOMETHING is wedged in between the wait