Feature: Why Doctor Who’s New Schedule is Not that Big of a Deal

Feature article by guest contributor Rick Lundeen.

Doctor Who has been in a rather rocky position for several years now. Audience attention spans, the ever shifting digital landscape, and even the status of the BBC itself has been in question due to political uncertainty. After Steven Moffat’s departure, there was a question as to whether they could even find a new showrunner, before eventually convincing Chris Chibnall to take over. When Chibnall’s five year, three series contract was coming to an end, the BBC decided to make certain moves to ensure the show’s future. So a partnership was formed.

The BBC gave full creative control of Doctor Who to Bad Wolf and Russell T. Davies, who returned as showrunner. Bad Wolf is a division of the Sony corporation and a partner in good standing with the Disney corporation. Thus, the BBC sold the Doctor Who streaming rights to Disney, ensuring an exponentially larger audience worldwide, giving the show the best chance of survival in future.

Of course, there was plenty of hand-wringing and trepidation that Disney was going to take over entirely, and destroy our beloved show. That it would become “Disneyfied”.

While the BBC, Bad Wolf, and Disney do give notes to Russell, because BBC owns the property, Bad Wolf is technically his employer and it is Disney’s streaming platform—all reasonable excuses, he does have full creative control, and the final say on creative. He *is* however, a big fan of Pixar and Disney stuff, so any “Disneyfication” effect, if any at all, would come from him. I recover all this ground just to make clear that there are no bad guys here. Everyone has put their faith in RTD to deliver the best show he can and ensure the show’s long term future.

An American Perspective

Now, the broadcast schedule has been announced, and *some* U.K. fans, not all, are upset. It does seem to all boil down to “Britain First”.

Full disclosure— I’m an American fan of Doctor Who ever since discovering it in 1980, and there are two very basic, but important, vital requirements for the show. First, that stories be GOOD. Second, that it retains its Britishness.

Over here, us Doctor Who fans were dependent on our local PBS stations to carry the classic series, so we were always *years* behind the current seasons. As the show’s popularity reached its pinnacle here in the mid ‘80’s, we had to go to conventions to see newer episodes, but we waited. Except when the 20th anniversary show The Five Doctors came out. We actually saw that first, because the BBC wanted to wait and show it during the Children in Need special. Even today, there are still some Brits that are annoyed that we saw that first, even 40 some odd years later. We were just happy to see it.

When the show was revived in 2005 by Russell, we didn’t even have access to it on TV. No, we had to illegally download it (have no fear, I purchased all the DVD sets when they finally *were* made available) but then my family would huddle around a laptop to watch the latest episode. This went on for a year or so. Finally, BBC America started broadcasting the new seasons. Now, our wait time was down to six or seven hours behind the U.K. to see new episodes, and from 2007 to 2022, with each and every new episode, we had to avoid spoilers and our favorite Doctor Who websites, as spoilers were everywhere. But it really wasn’t that big a deal. The lone, notable exception was The Day of the Doctor 50th anniversary special, which was broadcast simultaneously around the world. It was shown at 1pm our time, but what did that matter? We loved the show.

Addressing Complaints

Now, the new broadcast schedule has the new episodes dropping simultaneously around the world, at 7pm eastern time in the USA via Disney +, and midnight in the UK on iPlayer, then later that evening on the BBC proper.

Again, not all Brits are upset about this. I couldn’t even say most are, but those who are, have cited the following complaints:

• One—They have to avoid spoilers all day until it’s shown on the BBC that evening.
• Two—They want to continue the tradition and watch it with their family.
• Three—They don’t like that America is seeing it first.

Taking each of these in order—

One—I can only speak for myself, but if I have the opportunity to watch the new episode, I’m going to watch the new episode, instead of wandering the net and stumbling into spoilers.

Two—anyone who makes the conscious decision to wait until it’s shown on the BBC to watch it with their family, can surely extend that decision to not wander around the net for a few hours. For those who don’t have iPlayer, it’s a slightly bigger inconvenience, but iPlayer is pretty inexpensive compared to what we pay for cable over here. It’s more comparable to our streaming services.

Three—I do believe this is the biggest point of contention. That we’re getting the show first.
*But we’re not*. It’s being made available to everyone at the same time. Those who pay for Disney over here, and those who pay for iPlayer over there.

For those over here who aren’t paying for Disney +, I’m not even sure if BBC America will still be getting the show, so those over there not paying for iPlayer, will still get to see it well before us. We’ll have to wait for the disc sets.

The iPlayer and Scheduling

And let’s talk a moment about iPlayer. This wonderful entity really exploded last year spewing forth the Whoniverse, part of Russell’s master plan. Those in the U.K. have gotten to see Tales of the TARDIS, the colorized version of the Daleks and so many other things. The former is only available here in snippets on YouTube and the latter, I’m still waiting for my disc to arrive. The iPlayer is indeed a wonderful thing, and it’s also delivering the new episodes so you can see them whenever you want.

Now, I’m sure there were meetings aplenty about when to actually drop new episodes. And I’m sure there was the suggestion to drop them simultaneously at around 7pm UK time/1pm here. However, the BBC schedule is always shifting and changing. I’m sure the BBC’s partners in this endeavor, specifically Disney, who’s not only streaming the show worldwide, but putting the majority of money into it, would like a reliable, consistent drop time each week, and the BBC does seem to give preference to shows like Strictly Come Dancing over Who, so the current arrangement was probably considered the most efficient.

I think we also have to consider where we are with those two basic requirements, the show being good and British. The “good” part is up to Russell, but the show is still just as British as it ever was, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. After Russell left the show in 2010, he went over to America for quite a while, working on projects, ideas, etc. I GUARANTEE you that there were meetings upon meetings where an American version of Doctor Who was pitched. Endlessly. Mercilessly. Several studios wanted to do some Americanized version as we have with so many things originating over there. But it didn’t happen. Russell undoubtedly made a case that it wouldn’t, couldn’t work. It had to retain its Britishness. And thank god he did. My friends, we dodged a bullet there.

Conclusion

Doctor Who has a future, a much healthier future than it did just a couple of years ago, it has retained its Britishness and Russell’s back at the helm. But the show is going to be seen by more people than ever before, has more operating capital than ever before, bigger budgets, and bigger names appearing. It literally is in the best position it’s been in since the height of its popularity. So it’s in great shape.

Yes, for those in the U.K. who don’t pay for iPlayer, or who have to wait a couple of hours, staying away from the net, it is an inconvenience, but as someone who’s had to deal with this for over 4 decades, I can attest that it’s really not an issue.