Doctor Who’s still gonna be watching this?

Ok, it started this year with the announcement that Doctor Who would have a mid-season break. This opened the door for a massive cliffhanger and a more American friendly format (as a fair few American shows do this). But now, news has trickled out that 2012 might not have a series of Doctor Who. Instead, it will play host to four feature length specials, two of which will no doubt be on Easter and Christmas.

Um…basically, I don’t get it. The specials didn’t work when they did them with David Tennant. I mean, even at feature length, there wasn’t nearly enough time to make any kind of character development, not to mention that the character development that the tenth Doctor did eventually make was both stupid and seemingly erased out of the final episodes. It also had the problem of focus being too direct on the Doctor, causing him to come across as arrogant, self-centered and royally dickish.

Also, the present writing team would do well to note that, since the departure of David Tennant the ratings for Doctor Who have seen a massive drop to the tune of 1.2 million viewers.  The people who stuck with the series, presumably being Doctor Who fans and not just David Tennant fans (which there’s nothing wrong with – stop writing angry comments), remained loyal, after the man who arguably surpassed Tom Baker in popularity left. This really doesn’t seem like a way to reward fans who’ve stuck with the show. Hence who’ s still gonna be watching this?

The departure of Tennant, pissed his fans off to the extent that many of them didn’t even give Matt Smith a chance, now those that did are going to be pissed off by the lack luster stories of this series, the Americanization of the most popular British series in the world and now the lack of that series all together once 2011 has passed.

Enough people have already lost interest in this series and making less of it is only going to make the situation worse.

I really hope that 2012 has a full series of Doctor Who, I hope this is all a publicity stunt or misunderstanding between departments of the BBC. Because if 1.2 million people wont stick around for a new actor, how many do you reckon will desert this show for a completely new format?