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Series 13 not shooting until September

From Radio Times-- "Doctor Who is it actually realistic to expect anew series every 12 months?"

https://www.radiotimes.com/news/tv/...YHiEkfsGnWPfc8GQBjvj_goYqD1tPR_BUVbqdm6jpYLIs


Excellent article. Two important quotes:

"Because the truth is that Doctor Who isn’t really like any other show on television when it comes to production. Excluding two-part stories, every single episode requires a new guest cast, new costumes, new props, new filming locations and – barring any use of the TARDIS – entirely new sets, essentially rebooting the entire thing every week.

When I spoke to Chris Chibnall late last year he revealed that he hadn’t had a single week off since taking over the series, only managing some time away shortly before our interview. Presumably the story was similar for other members of the production team, while the cast – Jodie Whittaker, Mandip Gill, Tosin Cole and Bradley Walsh – were back beginning a second 10-month shoot just a couple of weeks after the 2019’s New Year’s special aired on BBC One."
And:

"But this output was a one-off. In Davies’ co-written book (with Benjamin Cook) The Writer’s Tale he describes the stress and pressure he was under working at this rate while also overseeing spin-offs Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures, and his successor Steven Moffat ended up splitting the sixth and seventh series into two parts to help manage the workload, returning for a full 2014 series before taking Who off air entirely in 2016 (save a Christmas special).

When you think about it, the golden age of annual, 14-episode Doctor Who hasn’t really existed for over a decade, so it’s not entirely fair to hold the Whittaker/Chibnall era to that same standard. Arguably in large parts thanks to the Who revival, sci-fi TV has also developed massively over the last decade and a half, to the extent that it possibly does take a little longer to build sets, craft props and create CGI to a screen-worthy standard than it did in the Noughties. Would we really want to rush and get an inferior product just to satisfy our own impatience?"​
 
Would it be too hard to have an extra two or three sfx-lite plot driven episodes or bottle shows a season ?

Or even a cheaper spin-off...
 
Excellent article. Two important quotes:

"Because the truth is that Doctor Who isn’t really like any other show on television when it comes to production. Excluding two-part stories, every single episode requires a new guest cast, new costumes, new props, new filming locations and – barring any use of the TARDIS – entirely new sets, essentially rebooting the entire thing every week.

How come series in the US were able to produce 24 episodes a year, every year (ST:TNG, for example). One episode a week, 24 to 26 weeks of filming. Granted, not every episode was good, but if each script WERE good, they still would have output 24 episodes a season (series for you UK people :) ). And now technology has improved so CGI stuff should be easier. It's not like they have to re-render the TARDIS going thru the time vortex for each episode.

And don't say quality over quantity. Last series would lose you that battle. :)
 
Would it be too hard to have an extra two or three sfx-lite plot driven episodes or bottle shows a season ?

Or even a cheaper spin-off...

And then everyone will complain about shoddy effects :shrug: such episodes would still need guest cast/director etc. Though they could be clever about this. Look at Eccleston's series. Three two parters means shared sets/cast, and one of those two parters could almost be considered a three parter given they featured the same set as The Long Game.

I'm sure all such things are considered though. On the one hand Next Gen had great bottle episodes, but if you had a bad one it was easier to hide in a 26 episode season than a 13 episode one. If you get Drumhead great, but you might wind up with 13 episodes but three of them are Fear Her! Do people really want that?
 
How come series in the US were able to produce 24 episodes a year, every year (ST:TNG, for example). One episode a week, 24 to 26 weeks of filming. Granted, not every episode was good, but if each script WERE good, they still would have output 24 episodes a season (series for you UK people :) ). And now technology has improved so CGI stuff should be easier. It's not like they have to re-render the TARDIS going thru the time vortex for each episode.

And don't say quality over quantity. Last series would lose you that battle. :)

Next Gen had a lot of standing sets don't forget. Much of every episode happened on the bridge, or in sickbay, or engineering. You couldn't spend a quarter of an episode in the console room. A larger ensemble cast meant you could have episodes focused on one or two characters. Plus of course a bigger budget and less restrictions around working hours helped. In the end it all comes down to budget. Moffat said that. Remember The Doctor's Wife? Junior was supposed to be a new alien but they couldn't afford it, hence why he's an Ood.
 
How come series in the US were able to produce 24 episodes a year, every year (ST:TNG, for example). One episode a week, 24 to 26 weeks of filming. Granted, not every episode was good, but if each script WERE good, they still would have output 24 episodes a season (series for you UK people :) ). And now technology has improved so CGI stuff should be easier. It's not like they have to re-render the TARDIS going thru the time vortex for each episode.

And don't say quality over quantity. Last series would lose you that battle. :)

In many cases, British cast and crews benefit from much more stringent union regulations dictating how much time they can be forced to be on-set during a shooting day. Sure, TNG was able to get 24 - 26 episodes per season, but they sometimes had 20-hour shooting days. With Doctor Who, even though they're making ten episodes, it's still a 10- to 11-month commitment out of your year and it doesn't leave a lot of room for taking on other projects. The grueling schedule is why Capaldi, Smith and Tennant left after just a few years.
 
Doctor Who ran a series every year from the early sixties to the early 80s of at least 26 half hour episodes a year. Even if it takes 10-11 months to film as season, they still are taking a seven or eight months between filming seasons to do pre-production work. But then you had 4-5 stories a year spread across 2-3 hours instead of 10 stories or more a year. I wouldn't be bothered if they returned to the old series structure that allowed them to do fewer sets and longer stories and more content.

In the meantime, though, I can always catch up with the Big Finish audio series that have been stacking up, such as the ongoing War Master series.
 
Doctor Who ran a series every year from the early sixties to the early 80s of at least 26 half hour episodes a year.

Sure, and they were shooting on low-resolution, low-sensitivity videotape against cardboard sets with props you could find at a thrift shop. Modern Doctor Who has been shooting in high-definition since the Year of Specials and they need to prepare lighting, scenery and props that can withstand the visual scrutiny. Beyond that, these are actual professional productions nowadays; it's not uncommon for a scene--or sometimes even a single shot--to take several hours to be blocked and lit.
 
I think people would prefer more, better stories over those extravaganzas. There has to be a balance, and this level of output is on the wrong end of it, regardless of modern filming difficulties.
 
Sure, and they were shooting on low-resolution, low-sensitivity videotape against cardboard sets with props you could find at a thrift shop. Modern Doctor Who has been shooting in high-definition since the Year of Specials and they need to prepare lighting, scenery and props that can withstand the visual scrutiny. Beyond that, these are actual professional productions nowadays; it's not uncommon for a scene--or sometimes even a single shot--to take several hours to be blocked and lit.

How does that explain why the show now takes an 8 month break between filming each series?
 
Eh, I can't imagine that doing 12 episodes a year is out of the question, even for the BBC now. Chibnall is the first person to need gap years between every one of his series, so obviously he's at least part of the problem.

Also, comparing Doctor Who to shows like Sherlock, that had to schedule around the actor availability of two people doing a huge amount of projects overseas, is fucking asinine. I know that comparison was really only brought up in the first few posts, but it was such a ridiculous comparison that I had to mention it.

This all said, Chibnall is so bad at his job that I don't really care anymore. New episodes of Doctor Who are no longer "must see TV" for me, I just watch the episodes that actually do something besides waste 50 minutes of time on lame bullshit. So while I don't want gap years because I want Chibnall to just go away as quickly as possible so that Doctor Who could potentially be good again, I really don't get bothered by gaps since it almost feels like the show was cancelled after Capaldi left anyway.
 
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How come series in the US were able to produce 24 episodes a year, every year (ST:TNG, for example). One episode a week, 24 to 26 weeks of filming.
As already mentioned above, American shows rely on excessive amounts of overtime to get by which British labour laws forbid, and quite frankly that's a damn good thing since the kind of hours that go into filming American TV alone are downright frightening. A typical Star Trek episode in the 90s was a six day shoot, with filming hours being from 7am to 11pm. Just think about that for a moment, sixteen hours a day for six days straight with only one day and then back at it again until twenty-six episodes are filmed. If you're still not frightened by that, take a look at the actors who had to play aliens. They'd have to be in studio at 4am to get their makeup on, and removing the makeup at the end of the day took over an hour just for simple prosthetics like Bajoran noses, so you can imagine how long some of the more involved alien makeup jobs were. And there are other shows made in the US and Canada which are even worse. Stargate SG-1 typically started a day at 6 or 7am, and sometimes would still be at it as late as 1am, starting again at 6 or 7am.

I suspect this is a factor in why even American television in recent years is starting to embrace shorter seasons for their shows too. Even if they are doing insanely long days, at least they aren't doing them for as long as they were once upon a time.

Sure, it may take over a year to film a season of Doctor Who at ten episodes, but at least the ones filming it are able to be human beings while they do so. Actually, even in Britain television and film production is still a very involved process with longer work days than a typical job, but at least those involved aren't killing themselves the way their American counterparts are.
 
I still miss the days of RTD's clockwork series run and Smiths 5th and 6th season before it got split.

-Christmas episode

-March or April season premiere

-June or July series finale

-Christmas episode

-March or April season premiere

-June or July series finale

At least we knew what to expect.
 
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