In a tidbit that dropped earlier this week, the director of Peter Capaldi’s first two episodes Ben Wheatley proffered that his episodes might air earlier than expected saying, “I’ve got two more weeks shooting Doctor Who, which hopefully is going to go in July.” Given that the current conventional wisdom is that series 8 would run from September onwards this was to say the least a bit of a surprise.
The reaction here at THT Worldwide… naaaaaah.
Our basis for being so dismissive about this? History of course. Head on over to the On This Day… section then move to July or even August and see how spare the calendar is. Doctor Who only ever really creased July during the Hartnell era. August is even more austere. The point is Doctor Who, certainly during the classic years, has always been a fall/winter show only ever imposing themselves from June onwards because the average season length during the 60’s was 42 weeks. The spring starts from 2005 onwards have never really made sense to us, though we suspect there were good technical reasons for it, and once this production cycle had been established they were stuck with it.
Kasterborous, a source we trust, thinks series 8 will begin in August. Fair enough. After all Let’s Kill Hitler ran in August, the end of August, almost September really. Or in other words fall.
Time will tell. Always does.