He WHAT???

[caz963]

DO. NOT. WANT.



I mean, serioualy, WHAT. THE. FUCK.?

We get 13 episodes plus a Christmas special per year. I'm happy with that, because I think that once you start getting series that are longer than 12 or 13 episodes, it gets difficult to maintain a decent story, the standards of scriptwriting and production values. (The only show that, IMO has ever managed to sustain incredibly high quality over a 22 episode season was S2 of The West Wing.)

But splitting a series of DW in half, airing six months (ish) apart? No thanks.

Moffat says it's to serve the storytelling because he wants to put in a massive "game-changing" cliffhanger. Well, okay, I'm all for something like that. But having to wait MONTHS rather than DAYS for the resolution? Is he stupid, or what? I know people who got fed up with all the twisty-turny, timey-wimey plotty stuff in S5, who couldn't get invested in the new characters and stopped watching as a result. What makes him think that the audience will want to wait months for the resolution of this "game-changing" twist? ^**

I keep banging on about this, but the DW audience is not just made up of fans. There's a large contingent of casual viewers and that makes up the majority of the viewing numbers. I haven't seen a detailed analysis recently, but I remember reading something a while ago in which the numbers of casual viewers vs. fans was actually rather surprising. If anyone's got any info on that, I'd be interested to read it.

But my Spidey PR-bullshit sense is also tingling, because I can't help wondering if what Moffat's saying is really putting a brave face on the fact that he's been told that he has to do this for some reason. I can't see how splitting a series in two would mean they could make financial savings - if anything I'd think it would be more expensive if the filming and production has to be split into two. On the other hand though, if they film everything in the same way as now, splitting the season could save money in post-production as there will be more time to work on some things. Rush jobs always mean overtime.

Whatever the reason, I'm certainly one very uhnappy bunny about this news. Has anyone started a campaign to bombard the BBC with protests yet?

^**I do realise that many complete series/seasons of many shows end on cliffhangers - but I'm going to dig my heels in and whine "but that's different!". I also know that most episodes of Classic Who ended on cliffhangers - but we usually only had to wait a week for their resolution.

So yeah. I'm pissed off.



ETA: There is some spoilery speculation in the comments.

Comments

[killingfrost87.livejournal.com]

UGH. Do. Not. Want.

[caz963.livejournal.com]

IKR? I really do think there's something at work here other than Moff's desire to split the story.

The best thing I can come up with is, as topaz_eyes has pointed out below, that they want to move the show to the autumn permanently, which makes a lot of sense. If that's the case, I wish they'd just say so rather than feeding us bullshit,

[killingfrost87.livejournal.com]

Perhaps.


I'm slowly getting turned off Who....This season just didn't grab me. I liked Matt Smith, but the writing wasn't up to par for me, nor the stories. I just didn't even care if I watched or not. That was very new for me. ::sigh:: we'll see what happens this season.

[caz963.livejournal.com]

I know a few people who just couldn't get into S5. I liked it and I liked Matt, but I don't feel the emotional connection with the characters that I did when Rusty was in charge.

Also - there's such a feeling among certain parts of fandom that Moffat is the best writer EVAR and that he can do no wrong that it annoys me. He's a great writer, yes, but all the "Oh, it's such a relief that we don't have to put up with all that RTD crap now" really pisses me off.

Oops - that turned into a bit of a rant.

[killingfrost87.livejournal.com]

That's exactly the issue I'm having. Both the emotional connection, and the "MOFF IS THE BEST THING AND PERSON EVAR. WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DONT LOVE BLINK THE BEST!?"

Yeah.
Not Pleased.