HI MaryAnn

As someone who is a long time lurker on your blog living even further away on the other side of the world in New Zealand I too am frustrated as I HATE getting "spoiled" before the episodes arrive on TV here in NZ (usually several months at least - sometimes up to eight months later). I too have emailed BBC suggesting a pay per view situation but ... sigh... have resigned myself to viewing on the net through "less direct" methods. I refuse to feel shame about this as I will again avidly watch, hanky in hand (farewell DT!), the DVD copy and once again when it finally ends up on TV here. Move with the times BBC!!

Nov 15th. Well, that's better than Thanksgiving. Except the wait 'til Christmas will be that much longer...

Did you watch Sarah Jane? Not much there, but a bit of a snack while waiting for WoM...

I've been surviving this Doctor Who drought by catching up on older Tennant and Simm works.

Blackpool - lots of fun. Boots are made for walking indeed! Plus, Ice Cream.

Einstein and Eddington - kiss him, you fool!
Plus, some seriously good work by Andy Sirkis.

Learners - He sure does geek well...

Recovery - painful to watch, but masterfully done.

L.A. without A Map - meh

Then flipped over to John Simm in The Devil's Whore. I got it awhile ago, but didn't watch it because the title was so unappetizing. I shouldn't have waited! Strong, brave wonderful female lead, and Simm, well, I'll be in my bunk...

The TV producers still think they have control over how things are distributed. It's kind of like a mass hysteria that affects everyone in the buisness no matter what side of whichever body of water they are.

Yes we are getting DW a month late, but on the other hand the UK has not started showing Dexter season 4 yet. So the pin heads on this side are just as screwed up. Why isn't Showtime, Showtime, everywhere, at least on the same date?

Me thinks this level of dumbness can only be created by a thick steaming pile of lawyers who still think they make a difference when it comes to distribution. Yeah they make a difference, but in the wrong direction.

Every one is losing money on this nonsense. If you just showed the DW on the same date everywhere there would be no reason for downloading. Downloading piracy problem solved and ratings for BBC America go up, I guess I'm a frigging genius who should be pulling down the big bucks with my feet up on the desk and smoking a big cigar.

But we are dealing with twits on both side of the pond who don't get that.

Also if we could just assure that the knuckle dragging pin heads at BBS America do not edit out the important bits to make room for commercials we'd really have a Utopia.

I am a bit surprised that Doctor Who will be shown on BBC on a sunday. It is usally on a saturday. Perhaps they have changed the day in order to get more viewers. Whatever reason, it does not matter, I am looking forward to Waters of Mars.

im aussie and its the same here i have about 6 freinds and my self who are fans of dr who, and we will be watching waters of mars the instant some one posts it on the net. what else does BBC expect to happen when they dont offer any other choice.so beacuase of the way they stagger the´re release dates its expensiive to them(i mean most people arnt going to buy the dvds when they have seen the episodes already) Im seriosly going to miss David Tennant mm sexy ¨he is my doctor¨ does anyone have a different favorite in the old or new series

Google the words

BBC iPlayer outside UK

and see what happens. I'm no techy, but it's something I'll be looking into before I go travelling next year.

Meanwhile, the British government is threatening filesharers with disconnection, much to the amusement of anyone who knows anything about IT. The readers comments below this Guardian article are priceless:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/oct/28/mandelson-date-blocking-filesharers-connections

The BBC desperately need to look into providing a "simulcast" or very close broadcast similar to the current broadcast of FlashForward a few days later in the UK to its original US broadcast. There's no point in anyone raiding the torrent sites over the weekend unless they're *totally* bored!.

@dialoshop: I suspect it's because they don't want to move Merlin or Strictly Come Dancing, which currently fill the 6-9pm slots on Saturday nights. I'm pretty sure it'll get top viewing figures anyway, whatever night they show it. Two weeks!

*goes off to watch SJA episodes again as a warm-up*

i agree entirely. I am a British citizen; sick to death of waiting months and sometimes years for American t.v shows. Although guiltily i must admit that it feels good for the tables to change for once, it still deeply annoys me. The wait from the first to the second special was also far, far, far too long. I wish Tennant hadn't left doctor who on a low by not bothering to even to a series and pospone hamlet for one year.

Moved so it doesn't delay "Strictly Come Dancing" (Sacrilege - HOW VERY DARE THEY!), or clash with X Factor on ITV (go Joe!!!) I can't wait to see it - in fact I have delayed a trip to London so as not to miss it!!! Loved SJA this week - especially the line "No one will ever forget you." I had a lump in my throat!

And sorry, but I have to disagree with David's post but I don't think that Mr. Tennant has left on a low at all - it is a high - the break was a great way of building the suspense and make us hungry for more...and it fits in well for the new guy too.

And as one of the lucky few who got to see Hamlet (and is counting the days till Christmas for the broadcast) I am delighted that he showed the world what he is capable of (and as it was an RSC ensemble piece he either did it when it was scheduled or not at all - HE wasn't the lynchpin!). There - feel better now that my spleen has been vented!

i used to watch the episodes of the last series on www.dailymotion.com usually a day after first being screened it is usually broken down into 13 minute blocks but is quite easy to find

When did the SyFy Channel decide to stop airing DW episodes?!
Also - this makes me seem like a 'bad' fan of DW, but did SyFy air the specials before now? During Christmas, I'm at home and we don't have BBC America there so I've been used to waiting forever to see it [no internet at home, either] until a couple or so weeks afterwards. I didn't remember that BBC America doesn't delay their broadcast of the specials...I assume they didn't delay airing the specials until now? Sorry to ask, I didn't know about this until now.

My region-free dvd player is a lifesaver. There have been several music DVDs that are not available on Region 1, no ifs ands or butts about it. And I needed to buy 'Skins' series 3 on Region 2 because of issues with them losing the rights to use some songs by the time episodes air here on BBC America [I didn't see series 3 on BBC A when it aired, but the issues were obvious with the previous two series].

This is a huge bummer to me that SyFy will not be airing these episodes, anyway. I had no idea. And I do not have BBC America anymore, so I haven't bothered to check their schedule.

Oops, sorry, nevermind what I said about BBC America and the delay for episodes.

I really enjoyed the trailer os 'The Waters of Mars' here's hoping it's a big one. There's potential for The Waters Of Mars to be a really nice episode, and turning it into something a bit more sinister. In the midst of the global swine flu panic, the story may also end up having a bit more resonance than originally thought on the basis of the trailer.

Also if we could just assure that the knuckle dragging pin heads at BBS America do not edit out the important bits to make room for commercials we'd really have a Utopia.

Is that the sound of drums I hear?

Yup, the other way around sucks, too. In fact, it makes even less sense, because I'm sure that American TV shows have a far larger audience in Britain than *Doctor Who* gets in North America.

Would it be impolite of me to point out just two decades ago, most American Dr. Who fans like myself had to wait years to see the "new" Dr. Who episodes? You yourself have mentioned this in the past, MaryAnn.

As for the trailer, well, I usually make a point of avoiding the trailers as much as I can. Half the fun of watching a Dr. Who episode is guessing which direction the story is going to go and I learned very early on that watching the trailers just spoils that.

It never hurt to avoid the trailers on Torchwood either...

Would it be impolite of me to point out just two decades ago, most American Dr. Who fans like myself had to wait years to see the "new" Dr. Who episodes? You yourself have mentioned this in the past, MaryAnn.

That's because years ago the BBC, in another unfortunate bout with carrying on an old tradition, sent the DW episodes over by bicycle carrier. Rather unfortunate.

And in the 80s, one of the members of my local Who club (The Prydonian Renegades of Central Ohio) had a UK connection who would send him tapes of the show which he would then get converted from PAL into VHS and then the club would meet and we'd all watch the latest installment.

Same principle as Youtube & Torrent--just slower method! And here I am, 25 years down the line, buying and Netflixing copies of those same episodes to watch them over again with special features and commentaries.

i live in a neighborhood with a high concentration of irish immigrants, and i remember in the mid-90s, when all of them were "Father Ted" or "Ballykissangel" mad, and would have their relatives mail them videos of the shows, take them to the local butcher(!) and he had a system for rendering them watchable on vhs and they'd then sit around in the pubs watching it on the big screen TV (not flat or giant)... i remember it cost something like $25 to have a transfer done. wild! but people paid for it -- sometimes a group would get together to pay for the tape in ireland, the person in ireland to do the recording, the shipping and then the transfer! probably something like a total cost of $50-$60 to watch a 45 minute show!

the same was done with popular football matches -- the recording of the game would be overnighted and then transferred to vhs, then watched on the big screen in the pub. now, of course, the football is done by a simultaneous feed because the sports broadcasting companies got smart, found out the bar owners (or local club or whatever) would pay to have the feed done because it was so good for their business. (which is why i sometimes pass the pubs on a sunday morning, and they're having a big breakfast special for the matches). i don't understand why broadcast companies all over the world haven't figured this out -- it would be good for everyone.

of course, i still don't understand why we here in the States can't get Canadian television without waiting for some small portion of it to finally make its way to our local PBS stations!

Did you hear about David Tennant's US pilot for an NBC show call Rex is not Your Lawyer? It is for NBC, which is drowning, which may be a good thing, since they'll need some shows. It is also a bad thing since their ratings are so low nobody sees ads for new shows.

I did hear about Rex is Not Your Lawyer. I'll feel bad for DT if the pilot isn't converted into a full series, but I'll also feel bad if it is, because then he won't have time to do much in the way of side projects. :-(

I had really hoped Tennant would be getting plenty of movie roles - even if not particularly large at first - because he has so much range and I would like to see him tackle lots of different characters. Failing movies, I had hoped for a few good mini-series.

Oh well, perhaps if Rex gets just a couple of seasons - enough to raise his profile in the US, it will then get him an 'in' for the movies.

The other thing I worry about is that Doctor Who was DT's dream role, he found it dificult to give up, but yet he did only three 13 episode seasons plus specials. By its nature, Doctor Who allows plenty of variation in what individual episodes are like. For a US network series, what is the minimum number of seasons the star would be locked in for and how many episdoes per season? How formulaic wouldf it get?

I'm sure DT has given this plenty of thought - he's not stupid, that's for sure, but still - I can't help but worry.

In the 1980s, the BBC was not facing competitionn from the Internet and region-free DVD players, so they could hold off on sending the episodes to America for as long as they wanted, for whatever reason, and not miss out on any kind of revenue because of it. Today, it *is* facing that competition, and it is missing out on the money that I -- and lots of other fans -- would happily give them to let me see *DW* at the same time it airs in the U.K.

And yet apart from the first season of the new series--and a few recent episodes--the BBC regularly prices the box sets for the new series above the budget of many potential buyers--instead of breaking them up into affordable sets like they did with the first series.

Yet you never complain too much about this, MaryAnn.

Oh, well. To each his or her own...

The harder the BBC makes it for me to buy their stuff, the more inclination I have to check out alternative methods. After all, I won't exactly die if I don't see Doctor Who at the same time as the rest of the civilized world.

MaryAnn, did you see this DT/John Simm posting?
JOHN SIMM - Steve Wright interview

@Bronxbee--

of course, i still don't understand why we here in the States can't get Canadian television without waiting for some small portion of it to finally make its way to our local PBS stations!

My mom lives on the south shore of Lake Erie and her cable company includes one (1) Canadian TV station in their lineup. Whenever I'm up there and surfing, it's one of the first channels I check out. Lots of good stuff on it. Would love to be able to get it at home.

Those of who do have BBCA need to be vocal and complain, they have been promising to air the shows nearly simultaneously-and then don't. Torchwood COE was a joke, in todays world, you need to air the show within 24 hours-otherwise anyone who hangs out on certain websites is likely to be spoiled even if they try to avoid and you miss talking to friends online or reading reviews and comments while they are fresh.

There was some spec on one of the forums, that by pushing back WOM, BBCA would run a three episode mini series-following WOM with the last two Tennant Specials each a week apart on Dec 26 and Jan 2. I don't believe this, but if they do it, I will forgive them. A little bit.

There were some recent rumors that BBCA was trying to make the iPlayer international, not sure what happened to that.

Also living in a border state and having Canadian tv rocks.

I've just watched the UK broadcast of Waters of Mars - so much more dramatic than Planet of the Dead. I just love that man (err, Time Lord) even when he oversteps the mark. Roll on the next two specials on Christmas Day and New Years Day.