Doctor Who… Xmas Special in 2026

[payn]

Basically, there were a lot of uncertainty about whether or not Disney were going to continue partnering with the BBC on Doctor Who, which in turn meant the BBC couldn't plan for further seasons – it's hard to make plans when you don't know what the budget is going to be and things like that. And Gatwa is an actor that's very much in demand, and being committed to a show that is going on a hiatus for a year or two and may or may not be renewed after that puts serious dampers on his career opportunities. So he asked to be released from his contract, which meant they had to do a whole bunch of last-minute rewrites and reshoots for the season 2 finale.

I don't know what the financials are for BBC, but I don't know that the extra money from D+ did the show any favors really. I mean yes, the production values were greater, but did those really matter? I, for one, would be perfectly cool with Tennant1 or Smith production values, with good writing and a return to seasons of reasonable length (13+ episodes plus Christmas specials). Heck, I'll take Eccleston production values.

Thanks for the update, sad as it is. Im sure ill watch Ncuti's doctor at some point I just dont know when.

 

[Tonguez]

Basically, there were a lot of uncertainty about whether or not Disney were going to continue partnering with the BBC on Doctor Who, which in turn meant the BBC couldn't plan for further seasons – it's hard to make plans when you don't know what the budget is going to be and things like that. And Gatwa is an actor that's very much in demand, and being committed to a show that is going on a hiatus for a year or two and may or may not be renewed after that puts serious dampers on his career opportunities. So he asked to be released from his contract, which meant they had to do a whole bunch of last-minute rewrites and reshoots for the season 2 finale.

I don't know what the financials are for BBC, but I don't know that the extra money from D+ did the show any favors really. I mean yes, the production values were greater, but did those really matter? I, for one, would be perfectly cool with Tennant1 or Smith production values, with good writing and a return to seasons of reasonable length (13+ episodes plus Christmas specials). Heck, I'll take Eccleston production values.

Doctor Who is still a high value flagship production for BBC, even without Disney money the BBC wants to maintain the property as an income earner from international sales and licensing deals.

Yeah the Disney money was nice, though I didnt see much difference in the output and am one of the many who like the hookey Doctor Who sfx. The success and future of the show does come down to good writing that kees audiences engaged with the shows quirks and very British style.

 

[trappedslider]

My understanding is that while viewership numbers don't mean anything as far as the BBC is concerned, they weren't that great for Disney's eyes.

 

[Staffan]

Doctor Who is still a high value flagship production for BBC, even without Disney money the BBC wants to maintain the property as an income earner from international sales and licensing deals.

Yeah the Disney money was nice, though I didnt see much difference in the output and am one of the many who like the hookey Doctor Who sfx. The success and future of the show does come down to good writing that kees audiences engaged with the shows quirks and very British style.

I at least thought I could see the money, but it might be confirmation bias. There was much more VFX, like holographic interfaces popping up and being interacted with rather than someone interacting with a screen. You had an episode where a large part of it was spent interacting with a cartoon character – that can't have been cheap. And I don't think they could have done something like the Interstellar Song Contest episode on a 2007-era budget.

 

[Staffan]

My understanding is that while viewership numbers don't mean anything as far as the BBC is concerned, they weren't that great for Disney's eyes.

I wouldn't be surprised if it was a situation similar to that of the Babylon 5 spinoff Crusade on TNT back in the 90s. Crusade had perfectly respectable numbers on its own, but didn't really fit into the rest of the channel with things like wrestling. So you had plenty of people who tuned in for Crusade, watched it, and then changed the channel to something else – and TNT wanted something that would get people to also watch the next thing that was on.

Same thing here, you probably had people signing up to watch Doctor Who but didn't really care about the rest that was on.

To me, this whole thing has two sad effects. One is how Gatwa was wasted as a Doctor. I could definitely see a lot of potential in his portrayal, but it was hampered by short seasons and other commitments so he never really got to shine the way he could have done. The other is that now Disney+ will likely have perpetual rights (outside the UK) to these two seasons as well as the specials, which means that anyone else who licenses it from the BBC will have a two-season hole in their lineup.