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Russell T. Davies Returns to Doctor Who as New Showrunner

Source please.

In its 59-year history, Doctor Who has never, at least as far as I know, started production on a Series a year-and-a-half-plus before said Series was scheduled to air.

Things change, in fact looking at the production timescale of all the modern series it seems to have been creeping up for a while. Someone with more knowledge may correct me but for the majority of RTD and Moffat's run 7 or 8 months seemed to be the standard. By the time you get to Capaldi's final season this had drifted up a little to 9, but once you hit Chibnall it goes up more. Series 11 took almost a year and series 12 slightly over a year. Series 13 was comparable to 11 in length but obviously we can't take anything from that given Covid impacted it's production (though it was for only 6 episodes, see below)

The really interesting factor of course is that whilst production time under Chibnall was longer, this was for fewer episodes (10 as opposed to 12 or 13).

Why is this? Who can say. Chibnall is an experienced show runner and presumably rest of his team were similarly experienced so it seems doubtful it was down to them. Technology? There was the introduction of the new anamorphic lenses so maybe this was a factor, do modern filming techniques/CGI require more time in post for example? Or is it budgetary, having to stretch filming out a little more?

It will be interesting to see how many episodes Series 14 gets. If the nature of production now means you need a year or more to produce 10 episodes, then if RTD is returning to 12 or 13 this might necessitate an increase in production time.

Or there may be a more prosaic reason, if RTD is planning to utilise past Doctors for the 60th maybe it's simply an issue of timing. Maybe Tennant (for example) had a gap in his schedule but he could only do it in April/May(he is extremely busy).

If production is starting in April we're going to know one way or another very soon.
 
Source please.

In its 59-year history, Doctor Who has never, at least as far as I know, started production on a Series a year-and-a-half-plus before said Series was scheduled to air.
Source would get into trouble.

Just because something hasn't happened before doesn't mean it won't- t's what innovation means. And there is the 60th to deal with as well. That ad for a PA certainly corroborates what I was told, as far as I'm concerned.
 
The most obvious reason to start in April is to have enough lead time for some specials and a full series even if a new wave of COVID results in reintroduction of restrictions and/or extensive quarantine time for cast and crew.

At this point, believing that production isn’t imminent requires ignoring the fact that Davies has been writing for months, ignoring the fact that auditions for the new Doctor also started months ago, and imagining that Bad Wolf is also producing a completely unannounced high-end drama in Cardiff right during the window when they’d have to do some of Doctor Who.
 
There's no practical reason (that I can think of) to fast-track the casting of the next Doctor (and, yes, casting a new Doctor in less than 3 months is fast-tracking things) and the start of production on the 60th Anniversary Special and Series 14, especially when doing so breaks a 59-year trend by putting 19 months between the filming of said Doctor's debut and the airing airing thereof (if the show were to resume production in April).

Outside of when RTD resurrected it in 2005, Doctor Who has never before had the kind of luxury of time that exists as a result of the timing of Chibnall and Jodie's exits and the airing strategy that has been laid out to present said exits.
 
There's no practical reason (that I can think of) to fast-track the casting of the next Doctor (and, yes, casting a new Doctor in less than 3 months is fast-tracking things)

Is it? Tennant announced his departure in October 2008 and Smith was announced as his replacement in January 2009. And I believe Smith only had two or three weeks of auditions before he was picked.

Chibnall and Jodie's exits

Weirdly paternalistic of you to refer to the male producer by his surname and the female star by her first name.
 
Is it? Tennant announced his departure in October 2008 and Smith was announced as his replacement in January 2009. And I believe Smith only had two or three weeks of auditions before he was picked.

Exactly, there's no instance of the BBC taking months or even a year to hire someone.

Seems like Tennant was hired quite quickly.
And, as Tennant revealed, the quick turnaround for his casting left him slightly concerned that he’d be left high and dry after filming the regeneration from Christopher Eccleston’s Doctor to his own in 2005 finale The Parting of the Ways.

“‘Would you take over and can you film a scene for the end of episode 13 kind of in about 10 minutes?’ It was a bit like that,” he recalled.

Eccleston was announced as leaving on 30th March, Tennant was announced on 16th April and was filming the regeneration snippet by the 21st April. Now obviously RTD had decided some time before that he wanted Tennant, and presumably time was a factor.

Let's consider Smith to Capaldi as well. Smith was announced as leaving on 1st June 2013, Capaldi was announced on the 4th of August.

Of course the best example is RTD and Eccleston, which mirrors the current situation with eerie similarity.

The return of Dr Who with RTD at the helm was announced September 26th 2003. The casting of Eccleston was announced on March 22nd 2004.

The return of RTD was announced on 24th September 2021, so if a new Doctor were announced towards the end of March this would dovetail neatly with what happened before.

So in conclusion I think the notion that hiring a new Doctor in just a few months is somehow fast tracking them is, in fact, twaddle. Unless of course practically every Doctor was fast tracked into the role :p
 
With most of the previous Doctors, there was a production-necessitated impetus to recast the role fairly quickly that doesn't exist here.
 
Weirdly paternalistic of you to refer to the male producer by his surname and the female star by her first name.

I agree with you (and I've pointed it out before), but literally (in a figurative sense ;) ) everyone calls Chris Chibnall "Chibnall" and Jodie Whittaker "Jodie", so picking on Digi for this (although tempting and satisfying) is (I grudgingly admit) a case of unfairly singling him out.
 
Sweet shit, you can never give ground on a matter, ever, can you? You have to act like a know it all, always.

And you wonder why everyone calls you out on a matter when you're revealed to be wrong later.

There's nothing to be wrong or right about here because I'm simply stating an opinion that quickly casting the Fourteenth Doctor when he/she will not be making their debut for nearly two years is fast-tracking the casting.
 
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