Maybe they'll do an episode explaining why the Doctor looks so much like Cardinal Richelieu...
Doctor Who set/on location reports thread
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He could be her new boyfriend without her realizing it. Then the Doctor has to take care of business
Might have also helped things given the state of their marriage at the time.
^If their marriage was on the rocks, they did a good job hiding it for the cameras. They seemed to have pretty good chemistry when they were on screen together.
I liked both Turn Left and Blink. Both are generally praised (especially Blink). Only Love and Monsters has generally been panned. Even then, imo, the absence of the Doctor wasn't really the flaw. It actually opened up the opportunity to explore how the Doctor affected others (Rose's mom made effective use of her time, for example).
That being said, The Girl Who Waited seemed to be sort of a Doctor-lite episode. I think they just did a better job at hiding it. Obviously, Closing Time was a Companion-lite episode. I think that's probably the better way of doing it (don't make it too obvious). But I think, if you want a full run of 12 or 13 episodes, it's almost an inevitability. The plan since then has involved fairly short series lengths, which has been far more controversial than the Doctor-Lite episode.
Doctorwhovian
Fleet Captain
There's also "Midnight" which was companion-lite and also often considered a fan favorite.
I've never really gotten how the US can have shows with 22+ episodes and not have "main character-lite" episodes, while the UK can barely handle 12-13, and only if they get tricky with it. Is it a budget thing? I get that by now having a 12-13 episode season might be the norm for British TV, but you'd think if US shows can get 20+ episodes done in a season easily that it should be relatively simple to get 13 episodes with the whole cast of Doctor Who without having to resort to doctor-lite episodes.
Is it some weird union thing about how long a british actor is allowed to work/a tv show is allowed to get filmed? Is it the lack of regular sets, unlike most American Sci Fi that reused a lot of them which probably ends up being cheaper? Really its not so much the short season that I find confusing than it is the fact that I can't get why TV production seems that much more difficult for British TV shows than it does for so many US TV shows. Its just a bit hard to understand why a show that has about half the number of episodes that US shows have still manages to struggle to get them all done with all of the main cast. The number of episodes could just be UK TV policy at this point, but when you have 52 weeks in a year, 13 full episodes with the main character of the show doesn't sound that unreasonable, especially when the US frequently does 22-26 for similar 1-hour genre shows
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If they do have a Doctor-Lite, I hope they can beat the trend and do a good one. It would be nice for Capaldi to have a great first series, and not have it be bogged down by having the next Love & Monsters or Turn Left.
Is it some weird union thing about how long a british actor is allowed to work/a tv show is allowed to get filmed? Is it the lack of regular sets, unlike most American Sci Fi that reused a lot of them which probably ends up being cheaper? Really its not so much the short season that I find confusing than it is the fact that I can't get why TV production seems that much more difficult for British TV shows than it does for so many US TV shows. Its just a bit hard to understand why a show that has about half the number of episodes that US shows have still manages to struggle to get them all done with all of the main cast. The number of episodes could just be UK TV policy at this point, but when you have 52 weeks in a year, 13 full episodes with the main character of the show doesn't sound that unreasonable, especially when the US frequently does 22-26 for similar 1-hour genre shows
.If they do have a Doctor-Lite, I hope they can beat the trend and do a good one. It would be nice for Capaldi to have a great first series, and not have it be bogged down by having the next Love & Monsters or Turn Left.
I've never really gotten how the US can have shows with 22+ episodes and not have "main character-lite" episodes, while the UK can barely handle 12-13, and only if they get tricky with it. Is it a budget thing? I get that by now having a 12-13 episode season might be the norm for British TV, but you'd think if US shows can get 20+ episodes done in a season easily that it should be relatively simple to get 13 episodes with the whole cast of Doctor Who without having to resort to doctor-lite episodes.
Is it some weird union thing about how long a british actor is allowed to work/a tv show is allowed to get filmed? Is it the lack of regular sets, unlike most American Sci Fi that reused a lot of them which probably ends up being cheaper? Really its not so much the short season that I find confusing than it is the fact that I can't get why TV production seems that much more difficult for British TV shows than it does for so many US TV shows. Its just a bit hard to understand why a show that has about half the number of episodes that US shows have still manages to struggle to get them all done with all of the main cast. The number of episodes could just be UK TV policy at this point, but when you have 52 weeks in a year, 13 full episodes with the main character of the show doesn't sound that unreasonable, especially when the US frequently does 22-26 for similar 1-hour genre shows
If they do have a Doctor-Lite, I hope they can beat the trend and do a good one. It would be nice for Capaldi to have a great first series, and not have it be bogged down by having the next Love & Monsters or Turn Left.
First and Foremost Budget. American TV Show actors are paid much more, and therefore are expected to work 16 hour days on a regular Basis. UK Shows, typically just work an 8 - 10 hour day.
Second, Again Budget related, US Shows have a higher Budget, and therefore can double up resources (IE: They can afford to have 4 people working Post Production, where the UK will only have 2)
26 Episodes has been unheard of since Enterprise's Third Season, and that was only a rarity of Star Trek shows, since the 1970s. Typical Network TV Shows are 20 - 24 episodes, (26 episodes a year hasn't been a thing since the 1970s) but, there's a lot of shows that are 10 - 16 Episodes.
British Shows get it all in the can before even nailing down a Schedule. US SHows, often only have as many as 7 or 8 episodes ready to go when they begin airing, and have a Hiatus after airing half of the Season (for shows with more than 13 Episodes a year) from as early as Thanksgiving through to sometimes as late as February or March
So, yea, it almost all comes down to Budget, but, that affects things in numerous ways
These most recent pics show Clara using it completely intact... It isn't exclusively used with the claws out, either. Smith has used it in both modes with no real reasoning for popping the claws out or not, though obviously he does deploy it more often than not. Ditto with the Tennant / Eccleston model, it glows brightly no matter how excited it is.
Mark
I've never really gotten how the US can have shows with 22+ episodes and not have "main character-lite" episodes, while the UK can barely handle 12-13, and only if they get tricky with it. Is it a budget thing? I get that by now having a 12-13 episode season might be the norm for British TV, but you'd think if US shows can get 20+ episodes done in a season easily that it should be relatively simple to get 13 episodes with the whole cast of Doctor Who without having to resort to doctor-lite episodes.
Is it some weird union thing about how long a british actor is allowed to work/a tv show is allowed to get filmed? Is it the lack of regular sets, unlike most American Sci Fi that reused a lot of them which probably ends up being cheaper? Really its not so much the short season that I find confusing than it is the fact that I can't get why TV production seems that much more difficult for British TV shows than it does for so many US TV shows. Its just a bit hard to understand why a show that has about half the number of episodes that US shows have still manages to struggle to get them all done with all of the main cast. The number of episodes could just be UK TV policy at this point, but when you have 52 weeks in a year, 13 full episodes with the main character of the show doesn't sound that unreasonable, especially when the US frequently does 22-26 for similar 1-hour genre shows
If they do have a Doctor-Lite, I hope they can beat the trend and do a good one. It would be nice for Capaldi to have a great first series, and not have it be bogged down by having the next Love & Monsters or Turn Left.
First and Foremost Budget. American TV Show actors are paid much more, and therefore are expected to work 16 hour days on a regular Basis. UK Shows, typically just work an 8 - 10 hour day.
Second, Again Budget related, US Shows have a higher Budget, and therefore can double up resources (IE: They can afford to have 4 people working Post Production, where the UK will only have 2)
26 Episodes has been unheard of since Enterprise's Third Season, and that was only a rarity of Star Trek shows, since the 1970s. Typical Network TV Shows are 20 - 24 episodes, (26 episodes a year hasn't been a thing since the 1970s) but, there's a lot of shows that are 10 - 16 Episodes.
British Shows get it all in the can before even nailing down a Schedule. US SHows, often only have as many as 7 or 8 episodes ready to go when they begin airing, and have a Hiatus after airing half of the Season (for shows with more than 13 Episodes a year) from as early as Thanksgiving through to sometimes as late as February or March
So, yea, it almost all comes down to Budget, but, that affects things in numerous ways
When did we start that "hiatus" thing with American TV shows? The first one I remember was ST:TNG, but I imagine it wasn't the actual first.
The obvious bonus is that you can have 2 cliffhangers per year.
I think Doctor Who is somewhat unique in that it only really has 2 or 3 main characters, which I think would make it harder to do a "lite" episode.
Another factor may be that British actors do a lot of stage acting as well as screen acting; they don't specialize in one medium to the extent that US actors do. So they wouldn't be able to devote all of their working time to producing a 22- or 26-episode TV series, because they'd have stage commitments for part of the year.
I don't know, it seems like filming 12 episodes of Doctor Who takes 6-8 months. I think besides working less hours, they may be a little inefficient filming in blocks, though you'd think it would be more efficient.
As far as I recall, SciFi/Syfy has always split it's Original programming into Approximately 10 episode half Seasons (If the season is over 13).
I think LOST, is probably where the hiatus became common/mainstream. LOST is the show that encouraged Arcs into the mainstream Programming (though certainly there were many arc'ed shows prior to LOST). Before LOST came along, rather then a Hiatus, what you had was typically reruns after the November Sweeps period, through the Holiday Season (And this was no big deal, because for the most part, it didn't matter if you saw episodes out of order). Due to the Arc nature of LOST, this caused many complaints, because it was too hard for the Average Joe to keep track of the arc and new and repeat episodes (6 or 8 new episodes, then 4 repeated, then a couple of new episodes, then a couple repeats...) so, they worked towards incorporting Hiatuses instead of Reruns (Or rerunning the entire season so far), so, Average Joes could know if there was an episode on, it was new (Or you'd see the entire season so far, before new episodes started back up again)
Also good points Ar-Pharazon about only 2 - 3 main cast members and Christopher regarding Stage acting as well.
The continuous filming was the first that came to my mind. American shows write as they film. Seven weeks is generous. I think five is more accurate. Since British shows are all done, they shorten time until the product is done by filming two at once. Also, American shows may not even have the luxury of doing that since they may not have the next script ready.
I'm impressed that you could glean any sense of expression from Barbara Bain.
It was only in early season 1 that she seemed lacking in expression (and I was wondering if that might be due to a face lift or something). She was pretty expressive in season 2. Although I saw an interview feature with her recorded at the time, and she was a lot more engaging and natural out of character than she was as Dr. Russell. I did find myself wishing she'd put more of that into her performance.
What particularly struck me about both Landau and Bain in the show was that their approach to intensity was basically just yelling. John Koenig was one heck of a blowhard, constantly screaming at people. It wasn't appealing.
I believe the initial Lost hiatus was forced by a writer's strike, IIRC...
Interesting. I just took hiatuses for granted because it takes better advantage of sweeps. But I looked back at the original series and saw that the season ended in April. The TNG did have breaks, but it seemed less strategic (season 3 ended in mid-June). It was a syndicated show, so I'm not sure what impact that had. I had no idea that the modern television strategy that seems designed to hit two sweeps at critical moments is a relatively recent invention. Funny that it's essentially going away anyway (although AoS and ABC has the best idea on how to preserve it).
Even a show as popular as Lost was lost viewers that never came back after the hiatus... and the recent trend of ordering a few episodes of a new sf series and then having a long break after it gets picked up for more was a major factor in doing in shows like Jericho, V, and Flash Forward. Not that those shows didn't have flaws, but a significant portion of the casual audience loses interest and doesn't come back. I assume the networks like the idea because it limits their upfront exposure if the series doesn't work out, but it can be hard on the fans who do want to watch them and it makes it more likely that they'll fail to hit the rating survival line. My response has been to say "well fine, frak you" and not watch any show until it gets a 2nd season, which is why I'm about to start watching Orphan Black now lol.
Fortunately Who is popular enough to make it through the breaks when they have done them, but a few decades of inertia will help that.
Fortunately Who is popular enough to make it through the breaks when they have done them, but a few decades of inertia will help that.
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