So it turns out that from The Caretaker going forward that the remainder of series 8 episodes will begin at 8:30pm. Now to those of us here at the Tour who still think of Doctor Who as a Saturday tea-time program this is, to say the least a bit of a head-scratcher. We thought 7:30 starts were pushing things but adding another hour to the start time? Well we have concerns.
It has been offered that perhaps the scare content is going up enough to move the show even later than ever before. But Doctor Who is, we’ve all heard, a family program, and we fear that ever later starts would begin to erode that practice. Behind the sofa? How about behind the sofa and under the covers.
Here in the States, baseball play-offs have been routinely starting late enough in the evening so that few kids can see the finish of a game. This has been going on long enough that overall viewership has recently been cratering. There are other reasons for this erosion in viewership as well, and perhaps this is just a scheduling necessity for this year, we can only hope it’s a passing fad.
That tea-time tea will be cold.
