Time isn’t a straight line. It’s all…bumpy-wumpy. There’s loads of boring stuff. Like Sundays, and Tuesdays, and Thursday afternoons. But now and then there are Saturday nights in the UK: Big temporal tipping points when anything’s possible.
Doctor Who’s latest season brought about a bunch of changes — a new Doctor, a new showrunner, a new console room, new stories to tell, and new ways to tell them. But part of all that change was also a pretty wild one for fans who’ve been watching Who for years, whether they started in the classic era or jumped on board in 2005: a new night to watch the 13th Doctor and her friends on.
For the first time in decades, Who premiered on Sunday nights, but now as the show prepares to return for season 12 next year, it could shift back to its traditional Saturday evening slot, which means a nice morning session on Sunday for us in Australia.
A report from British tabloid The Mirror — so Dalek-shaped salt shakers at the ready, although it’s admittedly had a decent enough track record on rumours for the Chibnall era of the show so far, reporting in advance both the initial move to Sundays and the move away from a Christmas special for New Year’s — alleges that the BBC is considering pulling Doctor Who back to its original times lot from previous seasons.
It makes sense — although in general, audience and critical reaction to the new season were decently positive, people are creatures of habit. In the UK Doctor Who became a staple of Saturday nights over the last 13 years, so much so that its return in that timeslot pretty much revitalized an age of family-oriented drama airing on Saturday evenings again. Suddenly moving it a day later meddles with that habit and means that people either drop off, or wait to catch up through other means. This also means that fans here in Australia won’t have to wait until the end of the work day on Mondays to view the newest episode anymore, instead they can enjoy it at any point on Sunday.
That said, if there’s one thing that Doctor Who should keep about its timeslot in the UK if it moves back to Saturdays is some consistency. Season 11 aired pretty much at a similar regular time throughout its run, something that Doctor Who hadn’t really done for a while, much to the chagrin of its former star.
Hopefully, if the TARDIS does take us back to Saturday nights next year, at least that change will remain.