What is SciFi's plan for the Who specials?

[Brendan Moody]

There probably isn't an "other special."

There definitely is. They've confirmed four to be filmed starting next month.

Yes, I know that. I was saying that, contrary to your suggestion, there's probably no "other special" to air between Easter and Christmas, just one and then three.

Most of what I've read so far has suggested that one will air in between

Can you point to any of the things you've read suggesting that? Fans have been speculating that it would be logical to have one there, but as I'll explain I think that logic is flawed.

However, it seems to me that the Beeb would be better served having them staggered throughout the year instead of bunching them up a few months before they launch a whole new series.

Not really. That whole new series will feature a whole new Doctor- audiences will be enthusiastic about it no matter how close to Tennant's last special it is.

If the idea is to build enthusiasm for Doctor Who by keeping it off the air longer than usual, they have to actually keep it off the air longer than usual. If they do one in August or thereabouts, that'll mean gaps of about five or six months, like the audience always has between the end of a series and a Christmas special. Whereas eight or nine months would be unprecedented- it creates a craving for Who and then satisfies it like mad with three episodes over ten days. Ratings bonanza! They can build audience enthusiasm over three episodes, increasing to a mad peak with the departure of the wildly popular tenth Doctor. Plus holiday viewing is always very high, so the standalone episode will perform better than they would in late summer or fall. And the audience associates Who with spring/early summer and Christmas, so it keeps the show where it feels right to the audience.

If staggering the specials were the priority, as fans originally expected, the schedule would be Easter, May Bank Holiday, August Bank Holiday, and Christmas, or something similar. But that's pretty clearly not what the producers want from the specials. They're chasing a publicity spike, not four tentpoles.

 

[Garth Rockett]

Most of what I've read so far has suggested that one will air in between

Can you point to any of the things you've read suggesting that?

Mostly fan speculation, as I indicated above, but the early announcement was that the 2009 specials would be "bank holiday specials." However, I've just done a bit of searching and I can't find anything from the BBC calling them that. Wherever the bank holiday idea originated was where the idea of an August special came from. Right now I can't find anything to definitively pin that on the BBC, so that may have been conjecture on whoever reported it.

If the idea is to build enthusiasm for Doctor Who by keeping it off the air longer than usual, they have to actually keep it off the air longer than usual.

Well, your scenario is possible. On the other hand, spreading it out a bit lets them keep Doctor Who fresh in people's minds, and makes each one an event.

If one is going to be a standalone and the other two are going to be connected to each other, it doesn't make a lot of sense to me to run the three together in short order.

If I'm guessing completely wrong here, it won't be the first time - or the last.

 

[Stevil2001]

What this thread has conclusively demonstrated is that it's pretty impossible to know Sci Fi's plan for the specials when we don't even know the BBC's plans for the specials!

 

[Brendan Moody]

If one is going to be a standalone and the other two are going to be connected to each other, it doesn't make a lot of sense to me to run the three together in short order.

Well, I imagine the first would lead into the second without being part of the same story, the way "Doomsday" leads into "Runaway Bride." In any case, running separate stories as holiday specials within a few days of each other is something other British shows have done. The sense of it is the same as in those cases: to maximize the presence of a popular series during a major viewing period.

RTD's book The Writer's Tale has some interesting information on the early (up to August 2007, before any public announcement had been made) plans for scheduling the post-2008 specials, before it was decided to do four rather than three. There were several different planned schedules that were dropped for one reason or another. In, order they were

1. Easter 2009, Christmas 2009, Easter 2010 (directly before series five). It's not clear why this plan was dropped, though it may have been due to concerns over finishing an Easter special in time.

2. Christmas 2009, New Year's Day 2010, Easter 2010 (directly before series five). This was dropped because they felt it was a mistake to lead directly into the fifth series rather than letting it stand on its own.

At this point RTD was considering a few different possibilities.

3a. Christmas 2009, New Year's Day 2010. There would have been only two specials here, but they were all geared up to do three, so he wasn't liking this plan.

3b. Halloween 2009, Christmas 2009, New Year's Day 2010. This would have meant going up against The X Factor, which RTD felt was "scary," so he wasn't liking this plan either.

3c. Easter 2009, Christmas 2009, New Year's Day 2010. The worry here was that there wouldn't be time to finish the Easter special for broadcast.

That's the last mention in the book of special scheduling. Obviously at some point they settled on doing an Easter special after all.

I would point out that all five of these plans involve gaps of at least nine months between specials, so it seems that RTD and co. aren't worried about having no episodes for a long time, and even seem to prefer it. Also, none of these plans have room for the final two-parter, which leads me to suspect that the addition of the fourth special was the result of a decision to split the final Tennant story into two parts. Which, again, would support the idea of there now being three episodes (and two stories) at the end of next year.

 

[wamdue]

What this thread has conclusively demonstrated is that it's pretty impossible to know Sci Fi's plan for the specials when we don't even know the BBC's plans for the specials!

that is what I was thinking

 

[AviTrek]

If one is going to be a standalone and the other two are going to be connected to each other, it doesn't make a lot of sense to me to run the three together in short order.

Well, I imagine the first would lead into the second without being part of the same story, the way "Doomsday" leads into "Runaway Bride." In any case, running separate stories as holiday specials within a few days of each other is something other British shows have done. The sense of it is the same as in those cases: to maximize the presence of a popular series during a major viewing period.

RTD's book The Writer's Tale has some interesting information on the early (up to August 2007, before any public announcement had been made) plans for scheduling the post-2008 specials, before it was decided to do four rather than three. There were several different planned schedules that were dropped for one reason or another. In, order they were

1. Easter 2009, Christmas 2009, Easter 2010 (directly before series five). It's not clear why this plan was dropped, though it may have been due to concerns over finishing an Easter special in time.

2. Christmas 2009, New Year's Day 2010, Easter 2010 (directly before series five). This was dropped because they felt it was a mistake to lead directly into the fifth series rather than letting it stand on its own.

At this point RTD was considering a few different possibilities.

3a. Christmas 2009, New Year's Day 2010. There would have been only two specials here, but they were all geared up to do three, so he wasn't liking this plan.

3b. Halloween 2009, Christmas 2009, New Year's Day 2010. This would have meant going up against The X Factor, which RTD felt was "scary," so he wasn't liking this plan either.

3c. Easter 2009, Christmas 2009, New Year's Day 2010. The worry here was that there wouldn't be time to finish the Easter special for broadcast.

That's the last mention in the book of special scheduling. Obviously at some point they settled on doing an Easter special after all.

I would point out that all five of these plans involve gaps of at least nine months between specials, so it seems that RTD and co. aren't worried about having no episodes for a long time, and even seem to prefer it. Also, none of these plans have room for the final two-parter, which leads me to suspect that the addition of the fourth special was the result of a decision to split the final Tennant story into two parts. Which, again, would support the idea of there now being three episodes (and two stories) at the end of next year.

I just checked my calendar and Christmas/New Years 09/10 are on Friday, so the extra episode could easily be slotted in the Saturday night between Christmas and New Years or the Saturday night immediately after New Years.

In fact, now that I think about it, why not have a straight two hour episode on New Years. Let Tennant go out with a real bang.

 

[The]

Odd question, but being an outsider I'm curious - how does the SF channel treat/adveise Doctor Who?

Sadly all I know is from the Doctor Who section on their website.

The tone they present in the commercials is the same one they give Stargate SG1: action/adventure with slight wink-wink/we're not taking this seriously humor. How do they treat the show? With not much enthusiasm. You catch a few commercials on Friday nights before the new season is about to start airing. But, I haven't seen them go out of their way to really get an interest in the program with viewers. It's just like "Here it is............AND AFTERWARDS STAY TUNED FOR SCIFI ORIGINAL PROGRAMMING MANSQUITO!!"

 

[Allyn Gibson]

In Sci-Fi's defense, however, considering the pittance they're paying for Doctor Who (as compared to, say, Battlestar or SGA), they don't really have to promote it to any great extent. The audience that's going to watch it already is, and it's large enough that their ad revenues are solid.

 

[The]

Oh, I understand the reasoning as to why they don't put a lot behind Who. It's not theirs. They'd much rather push their own merchandise than second-hand...

 

[timelord1010]

I've been lucky to watch Dr. Who by "Alternate Means" but with fair to poor video quality and was surprised to see how much of the show Sci-Fi cuts out for commercials. BBC America seems to show the entire episode. Hopefully BBCA will air the Dr. Who specials shortly after the original airing.

 

[tomalak301]

Hopefully BBC America will air the 2008 Christmas Special soon. I doubt Scifi will.

 

[AviTrek]

BBCA has always aired the shows after SciFi. I doubt BBC will give BBCA the first run US rights unless they want to outbid SciFi.

 

[Brendan Moody]

Or unless Sci Fi doesn't want to buy the specials right away, as they did with the past couple series, and lets BBC America have them first rather than make an immediate bid.

 

[davejames]

Too bad they aren't just releasing these specials on DVD as they come out. I'd love to be able to buy them separately, without having to wait until 2010 for the entire set, which is probably how they're going to do it.

 

[AviTrek]

Or unless Sci Fi doesn't want to buy the specials right away, as they did with the past couple series, and lets BBC America have them first rather than make an immediate bid.

I'm sure SciFi will buy(if they haven't already) the first run rights to the specials. Then they can sit on them and air them when they want to. Remember, NBC bought the rights to Merlin last summer and the earliest it will be shown at this point is this coming summer.

 

[Worf2DS9]

What this thread has conclusively demonstrated is that it's pretty impossible to know Sci Fi's plan for the specials when we don't even know the BBC's plans for the specials!

I shudder to think how the CBC here in Canada will handle next year's specials. They can't even show a Christmas special at Christmas (or at all). I'd really love for BBC Canada to air Doctor Who, but I guess CBC owns the exclusive rights, even though they treat it like it's some sort of burden to them.

 

[Brendan Moody]

I'm sure SciFi will buy(if they haven't already) the first run rights to the specials. Then they can sit on them and air them when they want to.

Possibly, but there's no guarantee that they're interested in first-run rights for the specials, or that the BBC will want to sell them to someone who's going to sit on them when BBC America wouldn't. Sci Fi doesn't have the kind of prestige and clout NBC does, so the Merlin comparison isn't all that relevant.

 

[AviTrek]

I'm sure SciFi will buy(if they haven't already) the first run rights to the specials. Then they can sit on them and air them when they want to.

Possibly, but there's no guarantee that they're interested in first-run rights for the specials, or that the BBC will want to sell them to someone who's going to sit on them when BBC America wouldn't. Sci Fi doesn't have the kind of prestige and clout NBC does, so the Merlin comparison isn't all that relevant.

SciFi has a ton more prestige than BBCA, and BBC will sell to the highest bidder even if the bidder wants to sit on them. That being said, I hope SciFi does air them sooner and makes an announcement already.

 

[Meredith]

Something not entirely like this: http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=145

 

[The]

I'm sure SciFi will buy(if they haven't already) the first run rights to the specials. Then they can sit on them and air them when they want to.

Possibly, but there's no guarantee that they're interested in first-run rights for the specials, or that the BBC will want to sell them to someone who's going to sit on them when BBC America wouldn't. Sci Fi doesn't have the kind of prestige and clout NBC does, so the Merlin comparison isn't all that relevant.

SciFi has a ton more prestige than BBCA...

Does it? I thought the only "advantage" it might have, in terms of being connected to something relevant, is that SciFi is owned by NBC (just like they own BRAVO). But, it's not like it's very "prestigious" to be aired on the SciFi channel. Without Battlestar Galactica and, originally, the Stargate franchise, SciFi is nothing more than a second-rate cable channel that airs reality crap like Ghost Hunters, and their own campy, B-level creature-flicks-of-the-week. If SciFi has any interest in making itself the preimmenent leader of science fiction and fantasy programming, I could see the "prestige". But, as it is, it's just treading water until it finds the next fad-show (i.e. reruns of Heroes) to fill its airwaves. Doctor Who fills a slot and brings in a medium-to-modest fan-rating every week. Nothing more, nothing less...