It is not the end, but it has been prepared for...

[almostwitty]

So, Doctor Who takes a year off...

It was rather inevitable really. Plus people on the production team had been muttering in interviews how tired they were, and how they wanted a break. With most long-running TV programmes that take 9 months to film, there's an ensemble cast that allows actors to take the odd break. Not with Doctor Who - and even when they do an episode without the lead actors, the lead actors are off filming another episode! Something had to break.

There's also the flaw with filming a 9-month serial in Cardiff when the lead actors and production staff have their main home in London or Manchester or elsewhere. Cardiff is many things, but it's just not as major a city as its residents would like to believe...

Still, this time - compared to the last time Doctor Who took a "break" - the programme is almost unbearably universally popular (what happened to the cult TV show that I could say was Mine! All Mine!) and there's three specials to tide us fans over. Although if one more person speculates it's going to be about the Time War with McGann...

Plus Tennant isn't sitting on the beach for a year - he's going to do Hamlet on stage every night for six months. Opposite Patrick Stewart. If that isn't exercising your acting muscles, I don't know what is...

Comments

[lips-of-tragedy.livejournal.com]

Thanks for this interesting entry, I have just read about the Who hiatus! I don't think it's a bad thing at all and if DT doesn't want to come back for 2009, then fair enough. It is a heavy scheule for the production lot, doing Who and Torchwood each year. And if it gives the writers time to have a break and create great new stories, rather than feeling pressure to churn out eps because it's expected then that can only be a bonus.