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charamei at 02:04pm on 11/06/2011
charamei at 02:04pm on 11/06/2011This fortnight's Private Eye contains some rather bad news about the state of affairs behind the scenes on the Who set.
SO. Farewell then Doctor Who, which has now disappeared for the summer, with the remaining six episodes from this year’s series due to be screened in the autumn. Farewell too, to executive producer Piers Wenger, who is leaving the BBC for a job at Film4. Could the two things be related?
News of Wenger’s intended departure followed the curious announcement the previous month that he was stepping down as head of drama at BBC Wales to work as a “creative leader” instead.
Commercial disaster
The decision to split the current series in two, meanwhile, was taken last year when it became apparent that both budgets and schedules on Doctor Who were running so far out of control it would be impossible to complete a 13-part series in time for a spring transmission.
Now, however, there are fears that the second tranche of episodes may not even be completed in time for BBC Worldwide to release a DVD box set of the series in time for the Christmas market, which would be a commercial disaster.
Show insiders blame much of the chaos on the decision taken by Wenger and his fellow executive producer Beth Willis last year to dispense with the services of producers Tracie Simpson and Peter Bennett, both of whom had worked on the programme since 2005. The pair were subsequently invited to return but declined.
The first series of their new joint venture, Baker Boys, was broadcast in January, with a number of other former Who crew also listed in its credits. “They decided they’d far rather work for less money than endure any more of Piers and Beth,” whimpers the Eye’s man in the Tardis. “The show is in a hell of a mess.”
Any old Ood
Showrunner and lead writer Steven Moffat has become expert at papering over the cracks, re-ordering episodes and finding creative reasons for spectacular monsters and CGI creations to be given as little screen-time as possible to save cash. But there was general dismay when sci-fi legend Neil Gaiman – whose much-anticipated episode had already had to be held over from the 2010 series due to a lack of funds – had to be informed that a further £200,000 shortfall in the budget meant he would have to rewrite it to include not the alien he had intended but instead an Ood which had been knocking about in the props store since 2006.
This, however, was far from the end of the bad news.
Programme chiefs in London were horrified to learn recently that BBC Wales is proposing not to make a full series of Doctor Who in 2012, but instead to put the programme on hiatus and merely bash out four “specials” as it did in 2009. This will leave an enormous hole in the BBC1 Saturday night schedule and a bigger one in the profits of BBC Worldwide, and will mean the corporation will be paying lead actor Matt Smith to spend most of the rest of this year doing nothing.
Soon after the Eye was published on Tuesday, the BBC confirmed that there will NOT be a full series of Doctor Who broadcast during 2012 but only “a good chunk” of episodes.
ETA: That last part may not be correct.
SO. Farewell then Doctor Who, which has now disappeared for the summer, with the remaining six episodes from this year’s series due to be screened in the autumn. Farewell too, to executive producer Piers Wenger, who is leaving the BBC for a job at Film4. Could the two things be related?
News of Wenger’s intended departure followed the curious announcement the previous month that he was stepping down as head of drama at BBC Wales to work as a “creative leader” instead.
Commercial disaster
The decision to split the current series in two, meanwhile, was taken last year when it became apparent that both budgets and schedules on Doctor Who were running so far out of control it would be impossible to complete a 13-part series in time for a spring transmission.
Now, however, there are fears that the second tranche of episodes may not even be completed in time for BBC Worldwide to release a DVD box set of the series in time for the Christmas market, which would be a commercial disaster.
Show insiders blame much of the chaos on the decision taken by Wenger and his fellow executive producer Beth Willis last year to dispense with the services of producers Tracie Simpson and Peter Bennett, both of whom had worked on the programme since 2005. The pair were subsequently invited to return but declined.
The first series of their new joint venture, Baker Boys, was broadcast in January, with a number of other former Who crew also listed in its credits. “They decided they’d far rather work for less money than endure any more of Piers and Beth,” whimpers the Eye’s man in the Tardis. “The show is in a hell of a mess.”
Any old Ood
Showrunner and lead writer Steven Moffat has become expert at papering over the cracks, re-ordering episodes and finding creative reasons for spectacular monsters and CGI creations to be given as little screen-time as possible to save cash. But there was general dismay when sci-fi legend Neil Gaiman – whose much-anticipated episode had already had to be held over from the 2010 series due to a lack of funds – had to be informed that a further £200,000 shortfall in the budget meant he would have to rewrite it to include not the alien he had intended but instead an Ood which had been knocking about in the props store since 2006.
This, however, was far from the end of the bad news.
Programme chiefs in London were horrified to learn recently that BBC Wales is proposing not to make a full series of Doctor Who in 2012, but instead to put the programme on hiatus and merely bash out four “specials” as it did in 2009. This will leave an enormous hole in the BBC1 Saturday night schedule and a bigger one in the profits of BBC Worldwide, and will mean the corporation will be paying lead actor Matt Smith to spend most of the rest of this year doing nothing.
Soon after the Eye was published on Tuesday, the BBC confirmed that there will NOT be a full series of Doctor Who broadcast during 2012 but only “a good chunk” of episodes.
ETA: That last part may not be correct.
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We'll just have to wait and see I suppose?
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Yet two production teams have quit, the approved budget keeps having to be cut because as time goes on, there's less and less money available, and this highly successful show has been put on hiatus for the second time in three years.
I'm getting a distinct Bonnie Hammer vibe. I wonder if someone at BBC Wales is a bit less than enthused about Doctor Who, just as Hammer--the former head of the SciFi/SyFy channel--wanted to get her channel away from the "geekiness" of science fiction and fantasy.
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Quite plausible given the BBC's hysterical attitude to what sport they can actually get the rights to.
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...what?? The BBC did indeed make an announcement this week (and Steven Moffat's confirmed it): they announced that Matt Smith had signed for another 13 episodes and a Christmas special. Maybe Private Eye's half right and this 13-episode series is going to be in 2013, but the bit I've quoted above is blatantly untrue.
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I've no idea how accurate this particular story is, but I'm erring on the side of the Eye in terms of general veracity: partly because Ian Hislop has contacts at the BBC and should be able to verify, and partly because I know they were accurate when reporting on my parents' government department's shenanigans a couple of years ago.
(Also, of all the things to cancel my subscription over, I would rather it not be Doctor Who ;) )
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Apparently Moffat doesn't know how many episodes will air in 2012, so it's probably safe to say that nobody does.
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On the other hand, that last bit is not remotely correct, and frankly, if BBC Worldwide can't get a box set out in time for Christmas, they don't deserve their pay cheques.