News on Series 9

This story (spoilers for S8 Ep.5) from Den Of Geek reports that Series 9 will begin filming in January.

No other specifics are given. Does this mean a split series, since it would no doubt start broadcasting around Easter?

Not that I would mind another full 12/13 in a single run, but it that were the case, how long before series 10?

 

No... the current season started shooting in January 2014, so a January 2015 start for the next one fits with a September 2015 un-split transmission.
The big difference to a few years back is that they're now shooting the Christmas special 'solo', in September a month or so after finishing the last season, rather than in July at the start of the new season which would then be ready to go out from Easter.

 

Yeah, it looks like Doctor Who is now a fall show. One the one hand, it's nice we have some consistency back again to the broadcast schedule. On the other, it's irritating that we basically end up going 8 months without any Doctor Who, a longer gap than we had during Tennant's supposed "gap year."

Oh well, at least we are rid of those silly split seasons.

 

I wouldn't mind a split season if it was 20+ episodes. That would be 10 & 10 at least.

 

Honestly, I can't even stand that. Split season are easily the worst idea on television these days. Yeah, I understand the reasoning with American shows, it's better to have all the episodes clustered together as opposed to the "traditional" network approach of episodes scattered over a nine month period, but when you start releasing the show on DVD by the half season and have gaps in the middle of the season as long as or even longer than the gap between seasons, it gets real annoying.

Plus, Doctor Who didn't even fulfil what it promised with split seasons. It was supposed to cut down the gap between new episodes and give us entertainment during the "cold dark winter months." It in fact increased the gap between new episodes, and we still don't have anything in the winter months.

 

Well, there was an eight month gap between Horns of Nimon and Leisure Hive, and nine months between seasons s18/19 through to s21/22, not to mention the big one of 1985/86, and then back to nine months from s23/24 through to s25/56. So us older types are sort of used to it.
And I have it on good authority from slightly older friends that the six month gap between The War Games and Spearhead from Space was unendurable at the time (even though the first UK transmission of Star Trek was run as a replacement).

 

It takes them nine months to film 13/14 episodes - that makes 13/14 months to film 20 episodes. With only 12 months in a year, you can see the flaw in that plan...

Unless they were 25 minute episodes, of course.

 

Is that a BBC thing? It seems shows (U.S. ones at least) with more episodes get done faster than that.

As far as the "split season", I'm certain it all started with one network thinking it was going to outsmart the other networks, then the other networks tried to outsmart the first, etc., etc.

 

American hour-long shows are typically shot in a seven or eight days for an episode. British shows take closer to two weeks. They are probably taking similar number of hours, because American series will shoot for much longer days and have stupid amounts of overtime.

Doctor Who and NCIS both take nine months to film a season, but NCIS squeezes out more episodes from those nine months.

 

There are various factors which contribute to it. Keep in mind, with Doctor Who the entire season is written before filming even begins, while American shows have episodes being filmed and written simultaneously. Doctor Who is also a show with no standing sets aside from the console room and no regular cast aside from the Doctor and companion(s). 90% of any given Doctor Who episode is on an episode specific set or location work. American shows are almost exclusively on standing sets, with regular cast of five to ten plus supporting cast. And aside from the showrunner, most Doctor Who writers only do one episode a season while American shows have their writers doing multiple episodes a season. Basically each episode of Doctor Who is basically a miniature movie with its own dedicated production to details vs the American "churn out the next episode" model.

It started with cable shows deciding to take December off, on the logic that no one watches TV during the holiday season. Someone got it in their head that a season of twenty episodes might as well air their tenth at the end of November and than have their eleventh at the beginning of January. But then someone got it in their head to capitalize on holiday sales by releasing the first half of the season on DVD in December, and things snowballed from there to the point that now it probably makes more sense to refer to each half-season as its own season, since that's pretty much what it is with the half seasons getting their own DVD sets and promotional materials devoted to it.

 

You're forgetting the Christmas specials.

 

The current season finished shooting (last pick-ups) six weeks back, just before Jenna and PC started their world publicity tour; the 2014 Christmas special is shooting about now; so the 2015 special will probably shoot next summer/autumn (fall).

 

But there were Christmas specials in between those gaps. So there was close to a six month gap between Doomsday and Runaway Bride, and then a little over three months between Runaway Bride and Smith and Jones. The longest gap in the RTD era was seven months, between Planet of the Dead and Waters of Mars Now compare that to the eight months between The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe and Asylum of the Daleks, and another eight months between Time of the Doctor and Deep Breath, and presumably another eight months between this year's Christmas special and next year's premiere.

 

There are reports on Twitter that Dan Starkey has been sighted in Cardiff. Some are taking this to mean that Christmas will be another Victorian adventure with the Paternoster gang.

 

GROAN!!!

 

Or it could mean the story will feature Sontarans, but not necessarily Strax?

 

I'm fine seeing Strax again, but I agree I'm sick to death of the Victorian setting by now. Hopefully it's nothing more than just a quick stop the Doctor is making there.