Immediately after the airing of the season 11 finale on Sunday, the BBC dropped the bombshell that Doctor Who will return for its next outing…in 2020. We’d heard rumblings about this before, as well as reports that it wasn’t true, but the realization that we’ll be without the show for so long still came as a disappointment to fans.
So, what’s the reason for the delay? Well, a BBC reporter has claimed that it’s due to how difficult a show like Doctor Who is to make. Entertainment correspondent Lizo Mzimba has revealed that, though there is “a recognition that fans might want a series every single year,” that’s very tricky to achieve because “Doctor Who has almost uniquely complex filming requirements and a lengthy post-production period.”
Reports have said that showrunner Chris Chibnall called for season 12 to be pushed back so that he can work on making the batch of episodes as good as possible. If you believe these claims, then the BBC wanted Who to release on a yearly basis, but Chibnall shut it down as he said it was impossible. There was even talk that he might walk away, taking Jodie Whittaker with him, after season 12, but that seems to be nothing more than an unverified rumor at this point.
Still, it’s clear that Doctor Who is getting more troublesome to make. The show was a regular fixture every year until season 7 was split between 2012 and 2013. From 2014 onwards, the 13-episodes and a special format went down by one, but even that didn’t prevent there being no new season in 2016. Season 11 reduced the episode count again to 10 but obviously, that didn’t do the trick, either.
The next move seems to be doing away with the traditional Christmas special. This year’s will air on New Year’s Day for the first time, though there’s not expected to be another one next winter. Unfortunately, going by Mzimba’s comments, it sounds like a season every other year will be par for the course from now on.
Given that its the last one for eons then, make sure to catch the Doctor Who New Year’s special – titled “Resolution” – when it airs on January 1st.
