Doctor Who has been around for over 50 years now, and the modern iteration of the show recently passed the 10 year mark. That is a ridiculously long time for any sort of series, and it’s kind of amazing that they’ve managed to establish a fairly consistent (albeit rough) continuity over the course of over 800 episodes.
But just how long can it all last?
Speaking to the Radio Times, showrunner Steven Moffat seems pretty confident that the series has at least five more years in it, although he expressed some surprise that it’s lasted as long as it has.
I thought it would last 10 years. I didn’t think it would last 10 years with BBC Worldwide trying to get me in a room to talk about their plan for the next five years! It’s going to do a minimum of 15. I mean, it could do 26!
Why is he so confident?
Simply put, the new Doctor Who has not only managed to last a decade on the air, but it’s somehow gotten more popular over time. That’s pretty much unheard of for anything, much less a quirky sci-fi TV show.
Ten years on, our ratings are pretty much the same. Actually, internationally, bigger. No show does that! You’re meant to go down! Doctor Who just stays. It’s extraordinary! When I first took it over, the BBC said to me, ‘We’ve done all our calculations. The ratings will now fall. Expect to lose quite a bit. We don’t mind that. We’re going to keep it going. So long as it’s a good show we won’t mind if the ratings stop being quite as amazing as they were. That’s absolutely fine.’ And they didn’t. They pretty much stayed the same.
Well done Steven Moffat. Here’s to another 10 years (or more!) of that Timelord’s time traveling adventures.
