This Saturday sees the finale of Matt Smith’s second series as Doctor Who. Despite the character being seen to be definitively killed off during the series’ first episode, The Impossible Astronaut, there will be further stories to come, albeit not until autumn 2012.
But when the series returns, its companion BBC3 series, Doctor Who Confidential, will not be returning with it. After six series and several specials documenting the behind-the-scenes planning and execution that goes into producing one of British television’s most successful series, channel controller Zai Bennett has decided not to recommission the show.
Bennett is understood to be pursuing a strategy of focusing investment on original commissions in post-watershed time slots. Since taking over, he has decommissioned shows including Ideal, Hotter Than My Daughter, Coming of Age and long-running sitcom Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps.
Speaking last month at the MediaGuardian Edinburgh International Television Festival, Bennett said: “It’s about focusing my budget on 9pm and 10.30pm; those are the time slots that count. Budgets are tight, so we have to be sensible with the money we have.”
Unsurprisingly, Doctor Who fans across the internet have been a bit cross about this. Some of the more vocal ones are those who are always cross about something - often lamenting that this is not the Doctor Who of their childhood, when studio sets were flooded with light so that the multi-camera setups didn’t have to cope with remounting lighting rigs on every shot, when producers spent more time developing hideous outfits for the Doctor to wear than they did on characterisation for the show’s title character, when fans felt that little bit more special because they were the lion’s share of the (comparatively small) viewing audience.
What Confidential has done, and for which will always get full credit from TV Today, has been to pull back the curtain and show a new generation of enthusiastic, imaginative youngsters that there are careers in the creative arts that don’t revolve around being on camera, that for an actor to look good on set takes a huge amount of effort from a large number of people.
But after six years, there’s only so much “look how we blew things up this week” we can take. Executive producer Gillane Seaborne and her team have become expert at making silk purses out of the occasional sow’s ear, but especially this series, Confidential’s 45-minute running time has felt like it’s contained a huge amount of filler material. Seeing Karen Gillan - who has never had a driving lesson in her life - get behind the wheel of a racing car, while fellow companion Arthur Darvill swam with sharks may have made for entertaining television, but it was so far away of the show’s basic remit that one would need a TARDIS to reach it.
There have been some standout episodes, true - David Tennant presented and directed an episode interviewing the former Doctor Who fans who are now producing and writing the new series; his exploration of the ruins of Pompeii, or writer Helen Raynor’s look around a museum dedicated to Depression-era New York, took the historical fictions of the show and turned them into exciting, vibrant lessons in lives long gone.
Ultimately, though, Confidential had become more about filler than it had about fact. While it may be no more after this weekend’s finale, there will still be avenues to explore the breadth of television production techniques that Doctor Who demands. The show’s officially licensed monthly, Panini’s Doctor Who Magazine, has made an art of balancing the behind-the-camera interviews with the more photogenic actor interviews and episode reviews. Children’s shows like Blue Peter, which ever since the 1960s has presented behind-the-scenes shooting, previews of new monsters and the like, may find themselves with more access now that Confidential’s cameras aren’t rolling. And it wouldn’t surprise me if the Corporation’s commercial arm, BBC Worldwide, found some money in its budget to record new documentary segments for its DVD releases to replace the disc of pre-existing content that cut down episodes of Doctor Who Confidential provided (although, looking at the relatively small number of extras on the Series Five boxset, I may be being a little optimistic on that front…).
People may complain that the documentary series’ demise makes it harder to inspire young people to work behind the cameras in television. I’m not sure that’s true: certainly, the people working on Doctor Who today had no such programme to inspire them, and they seem to have done okay.
I think the point you raised about inspiring people to think about what goes into what they see on screen is valid. The David Tennant episode was a particular high point, enjoyable and inspiring.
However, I really began to lose my patience with it around the time of the Kylie Christmas special.
5 mins or more showing Confidential how the napkins and glassware had been printed / embossed with the Titanic logo, when these things were never ‘seen’ in episode made me wonder why they bothered.
I think there are also times when attention to detail, on-screen, can actually detract. The recent department store episode almost had me counting how many different types of instore branding for the fake shop we saw. Did it need to be there?
Another ‘good’ example was the recent Minotaur monster, a decent chunk of the programme went into great detail as to how fabulously intricate the monster, and his control/animatronics were. Again something that didn’t, in my opinion, translate all that well into the actual episode.
I stopped watching DVD/BD extras long ago, except for the odd piece in the occasional film, so that part of CONF stopped being watchable about the same time. If it diversified and tried different formats now and then maybe it would have lasted longer. A lot of it does seem to just be a shopping list of things that didn’t work or didn’t matter in the final edit.
I enjoyed Doctor Who Confidential. It was fun watching the cast & crew talking about the show. It made the main show seem more important & glamorous.
And since they're getting rid of it - people are muttering that the Doctor Who ratings must be down, that interest is going, that Matt Smith isn't working as the doc & the Steven Moffat era is failing. I have friends predicting that Doctor Who is going to be cancelled within the next few years.
Cutting Confidential to half an hour or 15 mins would be better than cutting it completely.
I'd also like to thank Sean above for the Hommus b'Tahini recipe in in his blog.
Thank you. :)
(off-topic : sorry!)
Whilst the format for Doctor Who Confidential may have become stale, this series of it saw it allowing the main cast to take a more active role in the programme, filming behind the scenes action from their point of view, interviewing writers, guest stars....something you would not get from reading it in a childrens aimed magazine.
The Format could be updated, but there is no need to axe the show which is a great companion to the Doctor Who brand. It has inspired youngsters, running competitions to the younger audience to write storys about the Doctor, with special episodes even featuring their creations and getting Schools to have pupils writing.....if used well DWC can be a great tool for inspiration, more so then the flat pages of a magazine.
We have seen the BBC take apart the Whovian world its created since the Doctor Who reboot. Torchwood was sold off to an American TV Cable channel because the BBC didnt want to finance it itself, and they destroyed what was once a great example of British Sci Fi. Doctor Who series being split in half to save production costs and allow for Sherlock to be filmed was annoying enough, now they can DWC to save costs...whilst you see other series like Worlds Strictest Parents and Young Dumb and Living off Mum being made for little acclaim and reaction, that if they were canned no one would notice, but the reaction of fans to the axeing of DWC is very telling.
With the 50th anniversary approaching in 2013, DWC is the perfect vehicle to enhance this even for the audience.
Join the Save DWC Campaign on Twitter @SaveDC and sign the online petition= http://www.petitionbuzz.com/petitions/savedwc to try and show the BBC that some shows are worth keeping to keep its fans and license payers happy
DW Confidential isn't what it used to be. I stopped watching part way into series 6. It became incredibly boring and repetitive. But who's fault is that? Does the BBC not give notes or direction? I saw it go off track, why didn't they see it and set it straight? You should really try to fix (what used to be) a great show before you cancel it. And how in the world could Confidential be costing that much money? If it is, then someone ought to look into WHY. After 6 years that show should be a well-oiled machine. Someone is asleep at the wheel.
Doctor Who is your highest profile show. If Confidential isn't bringing in viewers any longer find out why. Or cut it down to a half hour and re-focus the attention to the particular episode and not to shining their own shoes about how great and kooky they all are.
I absolutely understand why they are canceling Confidential, I just very disappointed that they wouldn't try to fix it first.
I'm quite glad never to have to fast-forward through DWC telling me it wasn't a real helicopter again.
There is, as Scott pointed out, a limited appetite for the material DWC delivered. I liked the 'Day in the Life of...' feature this season - reminded me of the book series from the 80s that included a look at being a script editor. But there really is a limit on how often you can watch Danny blow something up.
DWM has always had a lot of backstage stuff - interviews with cast, directors, script editors, SFX people, costume designers* - as well as copious production notes about where things were filmed. And there is no shortage of other televisual outlets such as Blue Peter, The One Show etc.
The features will still exist: the 'Day in the Life' features can easily be repackaged into something for schools. And I never needed a TV show - besides Doctor Who itself - to encourage me to write Doctor Who stories. I just did it.
DWC was an indulgence.
*I used to read anything about June Hudson avidly. The stuff with Matt Irving rather less so.
I hate how they cancel shows as soon as fans start to get into them. It is a disgrace to just forget people emotional investments in these shows.