The eleventh season of Doctor Who brought many changes to the property – from the new lead, to the new showrunner, to the increased emphasis on social issues – but one alteration that the series just might be doubling back on for season 12 is the time slot.
Though it was long the tradition for Doctor Who episodes to air on Saturday evenings, Jodie Whittaker’s first season switched things up a little by moving the show’s slot to Sundays. But according to a new report from The Mirror – who previously brought us advanced intel on both the initial move to Sunday, and the move from Christmas for a New Year’s special – a return to Saturdays is being discussed at the BBC “as a likely option.”
According to the tabloid’s inside source, there’s a feeling amongst the team that families are freer to watch the show on Saturdays than they are on Sundays “when kids have homework to finish.” The report adds that while the show received respectable ratings overall, there were still “concerns over the decline in audience.” Indeed, the first episode of season 11 drew 8.2 million viewers overnight when it premiered back in October, but this number declined to 5.2 million for the finale in December.
Though it’s not yet confirmed that the BBC is moving the time slot, it’s unlikely that you’ll hear many objections to Doctor Who becoming a Saturday night staple once more. In any case, we still have quite a few months to go before the twelfth season makes its premiere, though filming is already underway for the next set of episodes. Stay tuned for further details, before Whittaker and the gang return to our screens in early 2020.
