Be Excellent To Each Other

WooooooooooooWEEEEEEEEEEEEEoooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!

6 days to go...

Malc

I note that the BBC have rescheduled it to 6.20. Man, it was dynamic scheduling like that which ensured the series went from strength to strength throughout the 1980's.

Oh wait, what I meant to say was that it looks like the BBC are content to try and kill it off again. Do they never learn?

Episode 2 is at 6.15.

Apparently it's all to try and prop-up the ratings of I'd Do Anything which is tanking embarrassingly.

Which is the kind of experimentation that killed Who in the first place.

When they moved Who to the twice weekly slot at 7pm, it was to find out if BBC 1 could sustain a twice weekly drama at that time. A trial for Eastenders if you like. They then tried to use Who to prop up Saturday nights which had been suffering from awful figures since The Generation Game finished.

Finally they tried to use it to register any kind of audience against Corrie where they actually used the low ratings as justifications to kill it.

In addition lower ratings across the late eighties meant that Who never got the budget increases it derserved.

In short, the BBC execs should learn the mistakes of it's past instead of snorting coke in the 5th floor toilets and coming up with more crazy schemes that will kelp kill off the series for a second time.

The new timeslot doesn't annoy me especially - Though were I still in my previous job, I would have arrived home halfway through every episode. Chances are I'll be watching on Iplayer anyway.

That said, I'd rather it was on in the Autumn/Winter months, when it's dark outside.

Thing is, isn't 7pm a minor watershed? I suspect that because it's going out before 7, Who may have to be scaled back a little in terms of scariness. Also, the likelihood is that the new time-slot will lose it between anything from 0.5 to 1.5 million viewers, thereby giving the BBC the excuse to kill it again. You know, despite it being one of the organisation's best-performing shows.

Still, My Family has been recommissioned for two new series, and Phoo Action was chosen over Being Human, so the company clearly knows what it's doing.

No, wait.

I think there's been a number of staff changes at BBC 1, so Who has gone back to it's default position of being hated by those at the top. Basically I think Grade has poached a load of people to work for him at ITV.

Mind you, I always thought showing it at this time of year was barking. 6.20 running from October to Christmas would be a far better slot. Also would help push up revenus from the Xmas toy market as well. But the BBC never did do anthing that made any fucking sense. Old Who did well at that time of year in an even earlier slot because people were home because it'd cold and dark out.

The thing is, the current climate is such that Who is very saleable (even the US is buying it by default now) and so the Beeb would be stupid to scupper that. Hell, even Torchwood is now (and I can't believe I'm saying this) quite good, despite desperately needing a show running and script editor that both understand the concept of continuity.

Still, it remains obvious that the BBC doesn't really know whether it's trying to win audience share, appeal to those who want something different, or create programmes that no-one else can or does, due to them not being popular with advertisers. The BBC Three revamps suggests audience-grabbing (as does commissioning the dire Phoo Action and not the interesting, engaging Being Human—which would almost certainly have sold well overseas, not least to full the 'Buffy'/'Angel' gap), but compromising Who is just utterly stupid.

Indeed. They also appear to be spending rather a lot on specially made trailers, with their own new footage and FX shots - which suggests they're not looking to bury it just yet.

Have the BBC definitely said no to a series of Being Human?

There's a petition here: http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?bbcthree

I still haven't watched it, though it is sat on my Sky+ box. I've heard nothing but good things about it.

The controller of BBC 1 doesn't give a stuff about overseas sales. Never has, it's not their job. Their job is getting viewers to watch BBC 1. This was the problem Who had in the 80's where BBC Enterprises/Worldwide were raking it in selling Who abroad. The cash from the overseas sales goes directly into the big pot of cash that Worldwide send back to the BBC along with all their other activities.

In fact Enterprises were shitting themselves so much about the prospect of Who being axed in the late 80's that BBC TV effectivly blackmailed Enterprises into stumping up cash directly towards Who's production in addition to the money that went into the big pot.

Today the situation is no different. As I understand Worldwide stump up some of the cash for Who alongside the Canadian public service broadcaster. It's still not the controller of BBC 1's job to worry about how much money Who makes. And that is why the BBC are repeating exactly the kind of brand damaging mistakes they made in the 80's.

As for making specialist trails, I wonder how much of that comes from Cardiff bending over backwards to help promote the show? Remember, they have a dedicated production facility unlike many other shows.

No, but despite massive public praise, critical praise and the fact that it blew away every other drama shown during that period, it hasn't said yes. In fact, it's generally going down the 'no plans for a series' route when you email. And, for fuck's sake, Phoo Action—which was just dreadful—has got a series. Gah!


Seeing as, bar soaps, it's pretty much BBC1's most-watched show, moving its time-slot to a point where it's likely to lose at least 15% of its viewing audience would seem like an idiotic move, then.

The scheduling is typical of the BBC - lets take a ratings winner and move it into an earlier slot and then when people stop watching they have the perfect excuse to axe it again.

My understanding is that the revamp of BBC 3 has been something of a disaster. My understanding was that the average viewing figures for 3 prior to the changes where 500k, while the figures for an abortion of a show like Lilly Allen are barely above 200k. Oh and post revamp, why oh why oh why was Saturday's 3 schedule nothing put 2 Pints? The more things change blah blah blah.

Repeats of 2 Pints at that as the series is finally over for good.

Why did no one tell me about this sooner? I can finally open that bottle of whiskey I'd been saving!

I remember at the time saying something along the lines of how I hoped Phoo Action would get a series so they'd have the chance to make something of it, as I thought the pilot showed promise but was, ultimately, a bit shit.

But given the choice of that and Being Human... well it boggles the mind. At what point can we stage an armed uprising to take over the Beeb?

It was utter turd, and this is coming from someone who likes Hewlett comics. Also, it was commissioned before the drama run on Three anyway, because someone at the Beeb fucked up. Well done, BBC!


Tomorrow's good, but I have to be back by 7 to go to a meeting. Current BBC form answer regarding Being Human, FWIW:

Translated: We bung your email on Gateway (the BBC internal intranet) and everyone logs in at lunchtime and laughs themselves silly at the duty log.

Which is exactly what I used to do.

Mm. Still, it's good to see the BBC reaction to almost unanimous praise from critics and viewers alike, commissioning a heap of shit like Phoo Action instead.

I used to be on a mailing list where someone would kindly recirculate the best of these. They were, indeed, hilarious. Was it you?

To be fair, at the time there were 29,999 other people laughing their socks off internally at the duty log every day. So no, it wasn't me.

Someone leaks parts of the BBC and ITV duty log to Holy Moly each week. This weeks aren't so good as usual:

SEASIDE RESCUE

TX Date: 06/04/08

Claimed that the presenter incorrectly pronounced Isle of Wight. "He referred to it as Isle of 'white' rather than 'Wight'."

DOCTOR WHO

"Could George Lazenby be asked to do a guest appearance?"

"Could the female cast of 'Desperate Housewives' be asked to feature in an episode?"

MAJOR DOCTOR WHO NEWS:



Apparently it's supposed to be embargoed until 10pm but the cat's been let out of the bag slightly...

If it's embaragoed, having it on the front page of the main bbc news site for the last 30 mins was a mistake.

I was watching the NTAs at the time when he made the announcement. I was going to mention it here first but alas I was too slow.

I'm not too bothered by this as he annoyed me a lot of the time, and I preferred Ecclescake.

Yeah, I think they just said "oh, fuck it" after a certain someone went ahead and announced it. It had already appeared on and then been pulled from the Guardian website's front page.

I wonder who will be up next? They seem to have been getting progressively younger doctors as time goes by.

As such, I'm predicting that the next Doctor will be some annoying child that we don't 'get'.

Younger you say?



LET ME DREAM!

But I think it's good that Moffat will get a fresh Doctor to make his own. Let it move on more elgently from RTDs era.

Anyone been watching The Sarah Jane Adventures? I've been watching them on iPlayer and it's actually pretty damm good.

I'm sure the timing is no coincidence.

I saw the original of this (the one-off shown at Christmas/New Year a couple of years back) and liked it a lot, but I keep forgetting to watch the actual series. I'll have to catch up at some point.

The Second series has started and it seems it is staying on the iplayer till end of december

It's pretty good. Bradley Walsh as a clown anyone?

I still want to see the Eighth Doctor get a decent bit of screentime, brought in through 'wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey' shenanagins. I'm sure McGann would be up for it.

Patrick Stewart, mooted to be the Meddling Monk, would be wasted in any role less than the main one. Children love Patrick Stewart.

And David Morrissey is Sun-rumoured to be playing a 'future doctor' so that's a reasonable projection as well.

We'll see a lot of the same old Richard E Grants rolled out though, I'm sure. I just hope RTD doesn't piss all over Tennant's last hurrah, on balance the guy has been brilliant.

I can't give you that but I can give you a new series of weekly McGann 8th Doctor episodes currently playing on BBC7.

The last episode being a Top Gear rip off but with starships

So, we're on to the 11th Doctor in 2009? At this rate we're going to need some serious handwaving in a couple of seasons to explain away a twelfth regeneration.

Pft. I've never understood why it's a problem. Surely they can simply come up with an exciting two parter with some timey-wimey stuff or new Gallifreyan radiation that can explain it all away? In fact, even if it was just some "regeneration stabilising hip-flask only not really a hip-flask but some hyper machinery rammed down on a quantum level and jiggery pokereyed into looking like a hip-flask, oops, better not lose it etc...!" type thing would be fine.

What are you on about? He's allowed a 12th regeneration. It's a 13th one he's not allowed. Don't you know anything?

It's a bit of a cheat though, as they made the Master jump through all sorts of body-possession, rotting-corpse-host hoops.

Hmm, perhaps not. I thought it was 11 regenerations for 12 lives, but you are indeed correct, sir.

Have Dave's Doc do something that causes him to be flung back into the Time Wars, but with a chance to change it.

Mind you, knowing RTD, his finale will involve every character he's ever written about in a huge circle jerk, trying to save everything, everywhere, everywhen and everyhow. YOU CAN'T GET ANY BIGGER THAN THIS, the spectacled twat will say, frothingly.

The count in base 29, doncha know.

I heard on the news that it could be that Irish chap whose name escapes me. He was in Cold Feet and JAMES NESBIT!

Didn't the master use all his regens up, and got more?

He did indeed. The Roger Delgado one was supposed to be his final form and all the others after have all been host bodies. He was granted new regenerations (Derek Jacobi incarnation onwards) to fight in the Time War.

Fuck, I can be such a Who geek sometimes.

So, who will be the next Doctor?

I know little about Paterson Joseph, but if he's Moffat's choice, I trust the judgement.

And I expect complaints from those who dislike him that he got in on an 'equal ops' ticket, alas.

Sandi Toksvig is my favourite suggestion so far.

Seriously.

Me too actually. It's frequently been better than Doctor Who.

FTFY.

McGann or Sean Pertwee.

Or Reg Varney.