UPDATED!

Speaking yesterday (June 14), BBC1 Controller Danny Cohen said there would be “no full series” of Doctor Who for 2012, but promised a “special run” of the show for 2013, the series’ 50th anniversary year. Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffat responded with this tweet today (June 15):  “Dr Who: misquotes and misunderstandings. But I’m not being bounced into announcing the cool stuff before we’re ready. Hush, and patience.”

Speaking at the Church and Media Conference on June 14, Cohen’s statements seemed to confirm the report in Private Eye last week that the series was in “chaos” and that there would be a shorter run of shows in 2012. The BBC rushed out a statement that a further 14 episodes had been commissioned with Matt Smith starring as the Doctor, but ambiguities regarding transmission dates remained.

The exact number of episodes to be broadcast in 2012 and their individual duration has not been revealed. It has been reported that Cohen jokingly attributed the delay in new Doctor Who to showrunner Steven Moffat’s commitments to Sherlock, the BAFTA-winning series he co-produces with Doctor Who writer Mark Gatiss.

Following the Private Eye report—which was denied by the BBC—fans feared that 2012 would be another ‘gap year’ for the show, following David Tennant’s run of four specials in 2009. The nature of the “special run” of episodes for 2013 has not yet been revealed.

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The final announcement was made on March 21: six episodes in 2012, and eight (so far) in 2013.

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  1. Cohen blaming Moffat is ingenuous at best…

    This actually isn’t news – as soon as this season was split, it was obvious that they were going to move to an autumn premiere in time to line up to have a season on air during the Anniversary in 2013 (November 23 2013 is a saturday!). To do this, they had to either make more episodes, leave an extra six months’ gap between premiere dates, or split a season and have the next year start one year after the premiere of the second half – that’s what they did.

    Season 7, confirmed as commissioned last week, is, I’m told, budgeted as being split (somehow it makes a difference to the moneymen when done this way) – that means an autumn 2012 premiere and a spring 2013 second half.

    They have to make the move to autumn this production year for practical reasons, because they’re moving studios in Oct/Nov/Dec and so can’t shoot then anyway. So there couldn’t be a spring 2012 series filmed in time. (Xmas 2011 is being filmed around August, AIUI)

    So, we get:

    Spring 2011 – season 6.1
    Autumn 2011- season 6.2
    Xmas 2011- Xmas special
    Autumn 2012 – season 7.1
    Spring 2013- season 7.2
    Autumn 2013- season 8 (whether split or otherwise, but I suspect that by that point the audience will be used to midseason splits)

    Where this leaves a 2012 Xmas special is anyone’s guess, though…

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