One of the traditional advantages of the Saturday evening slot was that it followed the early evening news bulletins with the football results (and a long time ago - the "pools" forecast) so that family tended to be watching together then. Shows like Strictly that follow the early evening slot also attract a family audience. It's true that ITV have really upped their game on Saturdays in the last decade, but I think Dr Who really owned that slot through to the Matt Smith era. The big show on Sunday evening over the last decade was the Clarkson led Top Gear on BBC2, nothing was competing with it. Maybe now that Top Gear has dropped so many viewers the BBC think Doctor Who as a chance in that time slot, but I still think it's a relegation from Saturday evening. The move from Christmas Day to New Year for the specials is definitely a relegation .
I remember watching Dr Who with my father as a kid back when it was on PBS , I really didnt get interested in it until Peter Capaldi became the Doctor and not only would i watch it regularly I immensely enjoyed it. I admit i havent seen the current doctor but prob will one day as my wife is a big Dr Who fan
Again, crap clickbait reporting from them, where an accurate headline would read “Matt Smith may be open to returning to Doctor Who.” “Teasing at a return” implies it’s a fait accompli.
Not sure I’d call the move to New Years Day a relegation , as it was obviously planned way in advance, as the first special of Jodie’s era was clearly designed to go out on that day. And Christmas Day viewing isn’t quite the big deal it used to be.
Last episode was the best Chibbers-penned ep so far; a low bar, perhaps, but at times it felt like Proper Who.
I don’t think that’s true, just checked the TV listings and there’s original programming on Saturday evenings.
Final rating was 5.79 million, so it is the lowest of any modern season premiere… but it was still the #9 programme for the week.
Ratings aren’t everything. This season of Doctor Who will still be bringing in money for decades to come. Who’s going to be purchasing old episodes of Top Gear or Big Brother in the future?
I just let new Who wash over me and try not to think too deeply about anything. I mean you have to anyway with these last second saves, and huge coincidences like two people far apart being in ships and on an alien communications system at the same time... good cliff-hanger though, no idea how they'll get out of this one (end of the second episode).
The image of the doorless TARDIS was properly nightmarish and the floating contorted house (another TARDIS?) was rather intriguing. Astonishingly for Chibbers, there were a few memorable lines scattered across the episode; “hit the road, Skaak” made me snorfle. JW is still a charisma void at the core of it all, though I did warm to her childlike glee at hitting the Sontaran’s probic whatnot with the catapult. I’m enjoying Glam Skeletor’s louche line delivery, he has potential as a villain. Rubbish things? For a race of warriors, the Sontarans are lousy shots, choosing to chase after the running Dan Keystone cops-style, firing wildly, rather than standing still, drawing a bead on him, and zapping him. They seem to be in the habit of leaving their ships unlocked, too. One might think having three-digit hand sensors on all their doors is a useless security device if anyone with the capacity to do a Vulcan salute can open them. Look, just have automatic doors, it would save the effort. Though I suppose they’re the kind of bureaucratic spuds who enjoy superfluous effort.
Not really...you get repeats of network shows, a handful of new reality shows...but scripted originals have long, long been absent from Saturday nights. Unlike in the late 70's/early 80's where you could find Hart To Hart, The Love Boat, CHIPS and other popular shows on Saturday nights.
Sontarans have that button on the back; they'll never match the Cybermen with those things there... and really, I thought they looked a bit naff this latest outing, I saw a better looking bunch on that Shakedown fan-made video way back!
What with the cyber allergy to gold dust and the Sontaran probic vent, it’s as if the monsters always have an Achilles heel that gives the scriptwriters an easy narrative way out. Lucky that (spoilers) the Sontarans all took their restorative nap at the same time, and that the tubes carrying their life-restoring gases could all be easily-sabotaged from the outside of the ship…
I thought the Sontarans looked great, and am really enjoying this series... much to my surprise. I will never forgive Chibnall for what he did to Torchwood (particularly the Cyberwoman episode), and his previous Dr Who episodes have all been meh, but I have to hand it to him - so far, this is exceedingly on the money. Special mention - best Weeping Angel scene since Blink, in the first episode.
The masks were a throwback design to the one in the very first Sontaran story, “The Time Warrior” (1973): I thought they looked pretty great—especially on horseback.
Well apparently in the US and UK the sales of the current toys has fallen through the floor with the current run. No-one wants them. I looked around a local shop the other day and couldn't find any. Quite a change given back in the Tennant days there would be a big section everywhere. The companies that have the licences are not very happy the BBC has damaged the show so badly.
I attempt to collect the Character Options action figures, and their issues have a lot more to do with lousy distribution and poor line management than anything else. In the UK, they’ve had a bunch of exclusives (sold only at B&M) that have (I’m told) been impossible to find, while in the US, they’ve had a series of inept distribution partners that have kept a LOT of the figures from being sold here (not counting secondary market imports at extortionate prices). The clearest evidence that this has nothing at all to do with the current series is that the last few years have been almost exclusively classic series figures, which appeal to a larger audience whose loyalty doesn’t depend on current series quality or ratings, and those figures are generally at least as hard to acquire as the handful based on Jodie and her fam. (Off the top of my head, I don’t even recall them offering any new series characters beyond the TARDIS crew.) There are also quality issues with what they do issue, as they’ve been doing a lot of repaints (old figures with new paint jobs) and kit-bashes (“new” figures made by combining parts of old figures in different ways… including borrowing heads from a toy line based on a completely different show, giving you characters that are at best just reminiscent of the original actors). They’ve also had a lot of 3-packs that give you two of the same figure. Yet their price points have been a lot higher than comparable products from other toy lines. If you’d like to learn more, try this link, which has entries (and discussion threads) for all the latest offerings. Doctor Who 5″ scale figures – Merchandise Guide - The Doctor Who Site
So this next bit involves some speculation on my part. This much is fact: From 2006, Character Options’ Doctor Who figures were imported and distributed in the North America by the US division of a UK company called Underground Toys. UT (UK) made their own toys, but they were also the UK importer/distributor for US toy company Funko. UT (US) mainly sold CO’s Doctor Who toys to specialty hobby stores, but they occasionally managed to get some of the ones with more mainstream appeal into US mass-market stores like Toys-R-Us and Wal-Mart. But in 2017, Funko purchased UT’s UK operation… but they had no need for the US division, which spun off as a new company, Seven20 Brands. For reasons unknown to me, Seven20 didn’t follow their predecessor’s lead of bringing the CO Doctor Who line into North America, and the line disappeared here almost overnight. Shops that used to sell a fair amount literally cannot get them anymore, no matter how much they might want them. At about this same time, there was a pretty big gap in Character Options’ Doctor Who line in the UK, and when it resumed, the toys had shifted mostly to being B&M exclusives, while cost-cutting measures like repaints, kit-bashes, and repeated figures in multipacks became the rule rather than the exception. So here’s the part that’s speculation: I think that the North American sales of Character Options’ Doctor Who action figures line were an important part of their budget, and when that revenue stream dried up (due to circumstances that had little to do with the show or even the toys themselves, and more to do with the huge success of Funko’s Pop toy line), CO was left scrambling, and they haven’t yet figured their way out of their problems.
