Over on Starburst Magazine there’s a new piece of news appeared today (Sunday 18 November, 2018) and it’s all about series 12. At first glance it looks like good news (see DOCTOR WHO: BBC Confirm Series 12 to Broadcast in 2019), but read to the end…

The end of the world?

On some levels this looks like a new type of omnirumour, mixing Christmas specials, high ratings, key personnel leaving, another regeneration and lots of fear, uncertainty and doubt. If this is largely true, I see nothing but problems. Can the show take another change of direction? Were someone new to come in, what direction would they take: male Doctor; a non-white Doctor; Daleks; no Daleks… to me it seems like chaos. It makes me wonder just how the show would limp to its 60^th anniversary. It would mean more options for Big Finish though!

I can understand someone wanting to work with their own team, but not the workload element. If you want to produce more episodes in a space of time, stick to being show-runner only and get more writers in. Don’t write so many (any) episodes. Get back to the creative tension between writing and production.

If true, the one thing I would want is Jodie to stay a bit longer. Ideally keep Graham around, and I don’t mind Yaz and Ryan as characters, and another series might sharpen them up as well (and we’ve still several episodes left of this run). I’m sure this will run and run, and the BBC won’t do any more than ignore or at least confirm the 2019 for series 12 (even if that’s a run carrying over the New Year into 2020). I’ll keep you posted.