Only six months late but for, um, really good reasons, yeah, really good reasons, not connected in any way with Moffat not being able to run Sherlock and DW at the same time no matter what the Controller of BBC1 says. Anyhoo... shooting is taking place at the Pond's house again with Mark (Fast Show/Harry Potter) Williams on set. (Playing Rory's dad perhaps?)
^ God, I'm not! I said back in the Sherlock thread that the time is fast approaching where Moffat will have to decide on one or the other.
Well this one's supposedly mostly Studio bound and the next one's in Spain so news could dry up again pretty quickly. (Especially if they are shooting at Mini-Hollywood in Almeria.)
Please provide sources. Everything I've been seeing in the research I'm doing for a project says that the so-called "late start" has to do with the fact: a) the series transitioned to a fall start date. So why bother start filming in the fall of 2011 for something that won't air till fall of 2012? b) the series is entering the longest production block in the history of Doctor Who (that comes from DWM). Matt Smith is on record as saying production is expected to last A YEAR. c) the season itself is longer, adding the Christmas episode in (again from DWM). There's no conspiracy. Sherlock is 3 bloody episodes. AND Moffat shares duties with Gatiss. If he couldn't handle that he'd have quit. Full stop. If you have proof that shows Moffat and the BBC are lying and that all these 50th anniversary plans and transitioning to a fall broadcast has to do with Sherlock, I'd be interested in seeing it. I'm tired of people seeing conspiracies or indication of incompetence where there are none. News flash - if they'd started filming Doctor Who last fall we'd still not be seeing anything until this fall. Alex
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-13784334 If you do a search online you'll find the actual audio of him saying it, if that's not enough for you. And since you'll no doubt bring up Moffat's denial of what Cohen said, I'll just add, "He would say that, wouldn't he" and point out that at no point has Cohen retracted, clarified or altered what he said. Why would the series being longer (and longer just means they're shooting the Anniversary special after the regular 13 episodes and Xmas Special*) mean they need a six month delay? And they're shooting from the 20th of February to some point in December**, so that's ten months rather than a year. They've had a Studio leased and standing empty (except for the Xmas special) for months. How much License Fee payers money did that waste? The series is the BBC's biggest export along with Top Gear, so how much money do they stand to lose by not having a full series to sell until 2013? How much merchandising money will be lost by not having a DVD/Blu-Ray box set on sale this Christmas or Series 7 related toys? Do you think the BBC want to be in that position at the time of the biggest financial crisis in their history? The Autumn start date is a consequence of the delay not the cause of it. *That's straight from Matt Smith's mouth BTW. **That's also straight from Matt Smith's mouth.
Not having studio space to film in between October and January - cos it was moving home - is also a pretty bloody big factor...
Not really. I'm reliably informed that the lease on Upper Boat doesn't run out until the summer so they could have filmed there before Christmas if they'd wanted to. The reason for the change in the production schedule seems simply to be due to the change in the transmission schedule and probably the extra planning/writing time that a longer production run would necessitate.
Based upon some dealings I've had with BBC America, I can't imagine that they are at all happy with the current situation. They invested in promoting the show and the show itself, and what they are getting is not what they were expecting. Don't get me wrong. They'll be happy when the show starts airing again next fall, and I would expect a big splash from them at SDCC this year to get the hype wheels turning again, but a year without new Who product (save for the one-off Christmas special) isn't what they thought they bought into. They'll have a half-season box set at Christmas, assuming a broadcast start in September or October. (If the half-season runs to end at Christmas, though, there will be many unhappy money-counters at Worldwide.) The puzzle to me, in terms of merchandising, is the scaling back of the novel line in 2012. Yes, we're getting several high-profile books, but the abandonment of the NSA line (as far as we know) is a complete puzzle. It's almost as if there's a deliberate pull back on the property (specifically, the bleeding edge version) for some reason.
I don't see why he has to choose, and even if he wasn't making Who, anyone who thinks he'd content himself with just making Sherlock is sorely mistaken.
Cutting back to doing maybe one Who script per series would certainly help lighten the workload. Considering the fan reaction to most of his scripts the past two series, I don't think anyone would mind.
I suspect that Moffat didn't figure out what he was doing with season 7 in time for the books to fit between series 6 and 7 (or wasn't willing to tell Justin Richards). With the exception of the first batch in 2008, the books have done a pretty good job of keeping current with the show. If Rory & Amy aren't going to be in the show next year, I can see why BBC Books wouldn't have wanted to develop books featuring them.
Fan reaction? I seem to recall the actual poll results being quite good for his episodes, and whilst in particular in series 6 his episodes weren't neccesarily the series highlights, it's not like they were that bad.
They wern't outright horrible, but I thought his stories from the last two series were a lot weaker than the stuff he produced during RTD's tenure. Not to mention his series arcs could have been a lot better. I remember when a Moffat story was the one you looked forward to. Otoh, hes done a great job at bringing fresh new writing talent to the series. I'd rather see him save his creative energy for one brilliant story per series, then giving other talented writers a shot.
yeah but I think that's just the curse of writing 4 or 5 episodes a series rather than 1 or 2. I'd definitely put a show runner limit of maybe 4 episodes a series. Certainly more than this seems a bit much, especially given the showrunner has (so far) always written the Christmas special as well. I can't see anyone who is a fan and who's in charge, be it RTD, Moffat or whoever limiting their writing for the show. Hell if I was in charge I'd have a hard time limiting myself to just writing the one episode every series. I have a sneaking suspicion the arc business will be toned down/reconfigured a bit in S7, but that's just a hunch.
I think it depends on the particular writer. I think RTD's best work was from series 1, when he wrote eight episodes; and even later years where he "only" wrote six (inc. Christmas) I don't see which ones I'd lose. On the one hand, I hope so; on the other hand, Moffat needs to do something about all the balls still floating around in the air.