It’s a good time to be a Doctor Who fan right now. Season 11 is three weeks in and everyone’s already in love with Jodie Whittaker’s Thirteenth Doctor, her TARDIS crew and the overall fresh direction the show’s been taken in by new showrunner Chris Chibnall. However, we might have some bad news to bring down the good mood. Rumors say that Whittaker’s second season as the Time Lord could be hit by a production delay, which would mean we have no new Who in 2019.
A report by The Mirror claims that work on season 12 won’t kick off until January and seeing as season 11 began production in October 2017 and aired a year later, it follows that season 12 wouldn’t be ready to be broadcast by the fall of 2019. “There simply isn’t time to finish filming and get all the editing done before next October,” said a BBC source. “It’s too tight. We’re facing a gap year.”
Don’t start crying just yet, though, as RadioTimes.com has done some of their own digging into the situation and their source tells them that production on season 12 will actually kick off by next month. Moreover, it’s apparently far too early for any decisions about its release to have been made anyway.
“We go into production next month but it’s much too early to be making scheduling decisions anyway. We hadn’t decided when the current series would air when we were filming it – we only decided a few months ago.”
RT goes on to say that they’ve heard that season 12 is also expected to have a truncated production period compared to that of season 11. Due to this season effectively being the start of a new show, with a revamped cast and crew, naturally the pre-production process was much longer. So, even if there is a delay on season 12, it’s very possible it’ll still be finished in time to air next October.
Due to these conflicting reports, it’s hard to know what’s really going on with Doctor Who‘s production at the moment. Obviously, we hope RT’s information is right though, as it’d be a big shame if the positive momentum of season 11 was dulled by a year-long gap. Having a new season come out at the same time each and every year can only be good for the show and with any luck, that’ll continue to be the case.