Moffat: No Two-Parters in Series 7

[ATimson]

And why should the fact that it is inconveniant for International broadcasters be of any concern to the BBC?

It' not like NBC/ABC/CBS etc... take into consideration the same inconvenaince when it's a US show airing in the UK.

That depends on who you mean by "the BBC".

BBC 1, the channel, shouldn't care.

BBC Wales, the producers of the show who are partially dependent on foreign sales for their budget should care. Their production budget is supplemented by the sales to foreign broadcasters. The producers are already facing a cut in the portion of their budget they receive from BBC 1; they can't afford to annoy international broadcasters and lose that money too.

 

[Rarewolf]

And TOS probably would have had no need to foist "Spock's Brain" on us; DS9 "Prophet and Lace"; Enterprise "A Night in Sickbay"; TNG "Shades of Grey" and half of season 1; Voyager (too many to list)...

Surely that would apply towards the end of a season, when all the best ideas were used up. Spock's Brain launched the season.

 

[Sci]

And why should the fact that it is inconveniant for International broadcasters be of any concern to the BBC?

It' not like NBC/ABC/CBS etc... take into consideration the same inconvenaince when it's a US show airing in the UK.

CBS, ABC, and NBC don't depend upon BBC One, ITV, or Channel Four to supplement their budgets.

 

[Christopher]

Surely that would apply towards the end of a season, when all the best ideas were used up. Spock's Brain launched the season.

It was aired first, because the network wanted to lead off with a Spock-centric episode (the same reason season 2's first-aired episode was "Amok Time"), but it was actually the sixth episode produced in the season. The real season opener was "Spectre of the Gun."

 

[Lonemagpie]

Surely that would apply towards the end of a season, when all the best ideas were used up. Spock's Brain launched the season.

It was aired first, because the network wanted to lead off with a Spock-centric episode (the same reason season 2's first-aired episode was "Amok Time"), but it was actually the sixth episode produced in the season. The real season opener was "Spectre of the Gun."

Which is actually a really *good* episode...

 

[MacLeod]

And why should the fact that it is inconveniant for International broadcasters be of any concern to the BBC?

It' not like NBC/ABC/CBS etc... take into consideration the same inconvenaince when it's a US show airing in the UK.

CBS, ABC, and NBC don't depend upon BBC One, ITV, or Channel Four to supplement their budgets.

Nor does the BBC have to with DW, factor into merchandise rights etc... and it earns the BBC a prety little penny. As for US producers, it would appear from an overseas point of view they only look at what the show earns in the US, rarely factoring into account International sales.

Your lucky you get it the same day(last series), when shows cross the pond the other way from the US to the UK, we can wait anywhere from a couple of days to months before we see it.

So just like the US producers shows primarily for it's home market so does the BBC, International sales are secondary. As long as it's pulling in decent ratings in the UK which it has been Usually around the 7m (35% audiance share) Appreciation figures in the 80's, scoring as one of the highest rated drams in the UK the Beeb will continue to make it.

As for smaller bugets, the Beeb can always order fewer episodes say 12 instead of 14/year

 

[Sci]

And why should the fact that it is inconveniant for International broadcasters be of any concern to the BBC?

It' not like NBC/ABC/CBS etc... take into consideration the same inconvenaince when it's a US show airing in the UK.

CBS, ABC, and NBC don't depend upon BBC One, ITV, or Channel Four to supplement their budgets.

Nor does the BBC have to with DW,

Ah-hem.

BBC Wales, the producers of the show who are partially dependent on foreign sales for their budget should care. Their production budget is supplemented by the sales to foreign broadcasters. The producers are already facing a cut in the portion of their budget they receive from BBC 1; they can't afford to annoy international broadcasters and lose that money too.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

CBS, ABC, and NBC don't depend upon BBC One, ITV, or Channel Four to supplement their budgets.

Nor does the BBC have to with DW,

Ah-hem.

BBC Wales, the producers of the show who are partially dependent on foreign sales for their budget should care. Their production budget is supplemented by the sales to foreign broadcasters. The producers are already facing a cut in the portion of their budget they receive from BBC 1; they can't afford to annoy international broadcasters and lose that money too.

It's more complicated than that. BBC Worldwide supplement the budget with their own budget, which is derived from the sales of merch and rights from all shows not just Doctor Who, they occasionally will offer more money for shows that sell will to keep the sales high but it's not like they're going cap in hand to American networks in co-production deals. Although BBC America did co-produce the American episodes last year, which gave them a bit more money to play with.

 

[MacLeod]

Plus of course whilst it is produced by BBC Wales, BBC One still decide on the air date, and just like the American Networks they schedule it when they thing it'll be best for them. Last time round they had a gap to avoid the summer dip in ratings.

 

[Cutter John]

Ugh, God help us all if they start letting BBC America make decisions for them.

In my perfect world the series would be twice as long and every story would be a two-parter. But since that'll never happen, I can handle no two-parters. To be perfectly honest, a lot of them have really been less than stellar. Save the cliffhangers for the truly epic storylines.

Of course the real downside is this means no cliff hangers (or does it? You could quite easily have a cliffhanger between two stand alone episodes- take The Beat Below/Victory of the Daleks?)

True enough. This sort of thing goes all the way back to Hartnells, where the ending of one story teases the beginning of the next. (see also Frontios/Ressurection of the Daleks, and The Poison Sky/The Doctors Daughter)

 

[PorthosShadow]

Ugh, God help us all if they start letting BBC America make decisions for them.

In my perfect world the series would be twice as long and every story would be a two-parter. But since that'll never happen, I can handle no two-parters. To be perfectly honest, a lot of them have really been less than stellar. Save the cliffhangers for the truly epic storylines.

Of course the real downside is this means no cliff hangers (or does it? You could quite easily have a cliffhanger between two stand alone episodes- take The Beat Below/Victory of the Daleks?)

True enough. This sort of thing goes all the way back to Hartnells, where the ending of one story teases the beginning of the next. (see also Frontios/Ressurection of the Daleks, and The Poison Sky/The Doctors Daughter)

"Hill Street Blues" was like that in that there were technically no "two-parters" but every episode dove tailed into the next one.

 

[Christopher]

True enough. This sort of thing goes all the way back to Hartnells, where the ending of one story teases the beginning of the next.

Yeah, which makes me wonder how they manage to fit so many tie-in novels, stories, and audios into the Hartnell era.

 

[Brendan Moody]

There are more Hartnell stories that don't lead directly and indisputably into the next than people often remember-- I could about a dozen that offer at least as much wiggle room as many a later story. Sometimes the tie-in writers squeeze something new between two stories that are continuous by inventing a new resolution for whatever cliffhanger and then setting it up again at the end of their story. (For example, the audio The Transit of Venus immediately follows "The Sensorites," and has the Doctor throw Ian and Barbara off the TARDIS as promised at the end of that story. Eventually they're reunited... and the Doctor, annoyed about something new promises to throw them off again, restoring the lead-in to "The Reign of Terror.") And sometimes, of course, they just fudge it.

 

[Cutter John]

Indeed. It was just an ocassional thing.

 

[Stevil2001]

I like how the prospect of a ton of first Doctor, Ben, and Polly stories was created by having the Arctic wasteland the TARDIS lands in at the end of The Smugglers just not be Antarctica in The Tenth Planet.

Keith Topping inserts Byzantium! before The Romans quite cleverly by setting another adventure in the same time period. It's a shame the book isn't very good, though.

 

[Newspaper Taxi]

So we can look forward to a three parter in season 7?

 

[Christopher]

I like how the prospect of a ton of first Doctor, Ben, and Polly stories was created by having the Arctic wasteland the TARDIS lands in at the end of The Smugglers just not be Antarctica in The Tenth Planet.

Keith Topping inserts Byzantium! before The Romans quite cleverly by setting another adventure in the same time period. It's a shame the book isn't very good, though.

And it helps if the story you're adapting has been erased. John Peel modified things in his 2-book novelization of The Daleks' Masterplan so that Sara Kingdom travelled with the Doctor for months between episodes 6 & 7 of the serial -- although the more natural break would be between episodes 7 & 8, since episode 7 ("The Feast of Steven") is a Christmas episode that was treated as a disposable sidebar and ended with Hartnell breaking the fourth wall and wishing the audience a happy Christmas, rather than leading directly into episode 8.

 

[DeadmeatDiggory]

You know, I really don't like Moffat as the showrunner.

 

[TemporalFlux]

I've really wondered if Season 7 is just going to be the ultimate love letter to fans. We're leading into the 50th Anniversary; a typical season is 13 episodes; and we've had 11 Doctors. What if Series 7 has 11 episodes that feature the Matt Smith Doctor working in the background of a previous adventure for each Doctor (including himself)? That would give 1 set up episode; 11 previous Doctor adventures; and a conclusion episode leading into something big for the anniversary special. 13 episodes.

If the above approach was taken, you wouldn't have room for 2 part episodes; you would need every episode you have in order to showcase each Doctor while still giving a beginning and end to the story.

 

[Pauln6]

Personally I prefer the two-parters. Any episode that has no time for running up and down corridors is pretty poor in my view. Only a handful of single episodes have been really good since the series started. There is just no time to establish a plot or any supporting cast in single episodes. Oh well, I guess it's money that talks.