Could Dr Who be heading back to our screens earlier than anticipated ??

Oh God, nobody show this to the GC Beeb board. It will only fuel their demands. I can see it now, Dr Who flagship for Xmas......... blah blah, blahddy blah, we DEMAND our Dr Who board......... nay, tis our divine right................... yadda, yadda, yadda, licence fee.......... :lol:

On a positive side, I'm quite looking forward to it :thumbsup:

I'm amazed none of them have seen or heard about it yet. They're obviously too busy posting their latest "Rant about Emily" thread ;)

I'm surprised she hasn't been around so much, I could never moderate that board, I'd be banning left,right and centre. I feel sorry for her, they seem to be shooting the messenger

I guess it's more understandable than having a go at the Moderators which they've also been doing, which amazes me, just what kind of authority to have boards removed do they think the Mods have ??

I started out as being quite sympathetic to their situation but I have to say that due to the actions of a vocal minority they probably deserved to have those boards taken off them. Look how much attention the GC now needs, can you imagine what it must have been like with a whole bunch of boards ?!?!? Madness.

I had sympathy to begin with, it can't be nice to have your boards taken away due to trolls. What is ironic, on the other hand, is how a minority of these complainers are now displaying classic trollisms on the GC board. Go figure :D

It's interesting to read this:

You're kidding, aren't you? With "competition" (since they're on the same channel) like EastEnders and Only Fools and Horses (quality aside, surely these are more likely to get huge ratings)

Sadly I can see them putting this into the 8pm Only Fools and Horses slot, and it may lose out to ITV's competition - which will more than likely be Millionnaire.

It really concerns me when people say that this new series of Doctor Who will suddenly be the BBC's huge blockbuster hit, and everyone will love it again. It didn't happen in 1996, and I can't see it happening now. The first episode may well be successful (as long as it doesn't have much competition), but I can see the ratings swiftly dropping. It's happened every other time they've tried a new sci-fi series, and to be honest the stigma associated with Who won't do it any favours...

I think it will do a lot better than you think it will. For a start there are no other british cult shows for it to compete with. Granted general interest in SciFi is on the wane at the moment, but it's not totally disappeared. Also you have to take into consideration that the last generation to have gone through Dr Who, are more than likely more settled now, and will sit and down and watch TV.

I don't think I did that between 1987 to about 1999, I was always out :lol:

There's nothing like heaping expectation on something. I seem to recall that Crime Traveller and Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased) were tagged in the same manner, Invasion Earth as well if I recall correctly.

Christmas is never a good time to start anything. The opening episodes are always the most important ones in that that's where you capture most of your audience.

I wonder if they'd have been better downplaying the expectations and actually premiered it on BBC2 in a primetime slot there.

Does that really matter, though? Surely Joe Public is't going to say 'ooh, a British cult show - I'll have to watch that rather than that American show'. Strange was 'British Cult', and that failed in the ratings.

WEll, that counts for a potential 4 million - however one thing to remember now is that there's much more diversity on TV now - whereas in the past there was just BBC2, ITV and C4 as competition, you now have hundreds of digital channels, all providing alternatives. Sadly Who struggled during it's final few years, I can;t help but think this series will make the mstruggle more.

And another thing to remember - the average selling figures for a Who DVD are about 10,000. Even if this counted for 1% of the potential Who watchers, you'd only get a million.

Personally I'd love for it to be a success, but realistically these rabid Who fans should get ready for a disappointment :(

:thumbsup:

Great the sooner the better!!!!

Providing its done as well as possible of course!!

What do you think about the primetime Christmas day slot though Ken ??

Could be potentially damaging.

:weird:

Yes it could be, depending on what it is up against and how well it is done. From what I have heard it is going to be joined by things like the first new TWO RONNIES show for god knows how many years so maybe the beeb are hoping people will stay on the same channel all night.

Hopefully providing they dont cut corners just to get it ready for christmas day it will still be a sucess. :thumbsup:

I guess as Phillip says it's going to be improtant as to what kind of competition it's up against on ITV. All being well it'll get slated against something relatively easy and smash it :)

Or they could just as easily put it on between the two Christmas EastEnders episodes, and have it thrashed by Coronation Street :D

Seriously though, I think it would be a much wiser choice to go for the 8th of January - a new season, and less chance of it being beaten by the festive offerings of the other channels.

After all, for these other shows planned (Two Ronnies, Generation Game and so on), you can have a special festive edition, something I don't really think they'll be going with on for first episode of a new series of Doctor Who :)

Makes you wonder what they'll do if the first episode doesn't pull in the numbers. Obviously no effect on the Production of the first season itself as a good number if not all of the episodes will already have been filmed by that point I would imagine, but it may prove disastrous for anykind of longevity.

I've heard varying reports on what's been confirmed - there are rumours ranging from a confirmed 3 to 5 years for the series, so we'll have to see!

Of course, there's every chance that if it fails they'll regenerate Eccleston in to Shane Richie or something to get the ratings.... :(

It always worries me when you hear the "confirmed for x number of years" statements though. I remember when Lois & Clark was renewed for 2 years at the end of it's third season. 12 months later and after disastrous numbers WBs still pulled the plug. Even in committments there's pretty much always the flexibility of a few loopholes. ;)

Shane Ritchie ?? Just so long as it isn't that git Alan Davies, or Eddie Izzard for that matter !! :)

What's wrong with Eddie Izzard, it's the make up isn't it. That could work, the first cross dressing Doctor :lol:

On the contrary, it's the fact that he's a tw*t.... :lol: :lol: :lol: