Apart from season 6's right? But yes this is good news, disappointed we'll have to wait til august but unavoidable.
But it wasn't a yearly split in season 6. I'd personally be OK with a season 6-like split (not my preference, however), certainly over a year break as in season 7.
I'm not really surprised. My understanding was it was partly because they had to do two specials this year, and partly because Matt Smith did a movie with Ryan Gosling. Not the sort of issue you'd have with a new Actor in the role.
Plus, Capaldi really does need a full, un-interrupted run for his first series. He's already facing the wrath of the fangirls, after all.
There was 6 months between the two halves of S7, not a year (plus the Snowman smack bang in the middle) I have a sneaking suspicion some fan girls may defect...
Christmas 2010 - A Christmas Carol April 23 2011 -> June 4 2011 - S6 Pt1 Aug 27 2011 -> Oct 1 2011 - S6 Pt 2 Christmas 2011 - The Doctor The Widow and The Tardis Sept 1 2012 -> Sept 29 2012 - S7 Pt 1 Christmas 2012 The Snowmen Mar 30 2013 -> May 18 2013 S7 Pt 2 Nov 2013 - Day of The Doctor Christmas 2013 - The Time of The Doctor So, the big gap was between Christmas Special 2011 and the start of S7, not within S7. And we have the same gap between Christmas 2013 and S8
Moffat is a genius, sneaking Capaldi's eyes into the peak of the 50th anniversary episode. Its bound to sway some fangirls over.
Probably, but if Hugh Laurie had legions of fangirls when he was playing House, I can see Peter Capaldi becoming a bit of a sex symbol himself.
The annoying part about that is it's the longest gap we've gone since the show returned in 2005. It's a longer gap than we had during Tennant's supposed "gap year" in 2009. Even more irritating is that the reason behind splitting the seasons was to cut down on the gap between seasons, and it's just increased it instead. Oh well, I'm glad S8 won't be split and hope no future seasons will be either.
Frankly, all the fangirls I know on Tumblr and in reality are more than happy with Capaldi's casting, and reckon he's an older bloke they can all fancy... So I doubt there'll be much in the way of defections.
I thought the split season worked out perfectly fine for Series 6, with the overall arc of the Silence and the Doctor's death. I think the problem with Series 7 had more to do with keeping the Ponds around too long and the somewhat lackluster stories that were written. And the fact none of it really seemed to flow that well. In any case, I think it'll be good to see another full season again. Hopefully it'll also see Capaldi's Doctor taking Clara on one long adventure again. I'm really getting tired of her going on these little "day trips" in the TARDIS and then popping back to her house at the end of every episode.
opposite way round for me - the season 6 split totally fucked the season, so although I enjoyed the episodes individually I hated the season. The season 7 split worked well, basically making two shorter seasons that both worked, without fucking up the ongoing arc/development in the middle. The Ponds staying too long is a totally different matter - they should have been gone as of the end of season 6, and bringing them back really just fucked up the effect of the developments they'd undergone.
Peter Capaldi has those beautiful blue eyes. I'm sure he will make epic use of them the same way Rene Auberjonois used his eyes as Odo. He is one of those men who seems to get sexier as he ages. Kind of like Sean Connery and Patrick Stewart. Plus, Capaldi has a smile that takes years off his face and he has the most adorable boyish laugh. Proof: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5zhExXiL8A I suspect they chose an older actor for the next Doctor because they want him to be more in that fatherly figure role again.
I agree with this. Moffat didn't know how to pace the two halves. He should have approached it with a "I'm doing two Jekyll series in oine go." Instead, he approached it with an "I'm doing series 5 but with a split in the middle," and he split it with the wrong cliffhanger. (Amy turning to goo was the "Oh, fuck!" cliffhanger. The Doctor buggering off after he realizes who River is was anticlimax.) As a result series 6 is rather less than the sum of its parts. Also agreed. Series Pond was a totally different thing from Series Oswald. They worked independently of one another (as series 6 should have) and didn't depend on one another. I think the actors would agree with you; it's whispered that Arthur Darvill did not want to return for Series Pond and only did for contractual reasons. I've sometimes wondered if Series Pond was an inducement to get Smith to stay. He clearly got on well with Arthur and Karen, and even though he got on well with Jenna his relationship with her wasn't the same.
The Ponds leaving at the end of The Girl Who Waited is just the perfect end for them. I can see why they'd have the cameo in Closing Time (so they'd still be listed in the Radio Times and therefore their effective departure in the previous episode would be a more successful surprise) and they sort of still had to be in TWORS albeit as a mix of reprising the openener, and alternate versions of themselves, but... Bringing them back for series 7 was totally unnecessary and undermined it all.
The problem is at the end of Series 6 and then Series 7, the Doctor has no companion. First, it's Amy & Rory he picks up for an adventure now and then, then it's Clara. That's not how the Doctor works. Also, his angst for "losing" the Ponds was silly. He lives soooo long. He has to know and accept that his companions don't.
Except the Ponds were far more than his normal companions. They were his family. By the end of it, Amy and Rory had pretty much become his adopted parents (age differences notwithstanding), and then they were ripped out of his life. I thought his angst was perfectly justified in this instance.