The Doctor Who Discombobulation

As we inch closer through time (taking the slow path) to 8 PM New Year’s Day for the season premier of Doctor Who, BBC America has been helping us with this march through time with a Doctor Who takeover airing since Christmas Eve. 

 

Here in the Fortress of Ineptitude, we own all of the Doctor Who series to date and can watch them without edits and commercials but dang if we don’t find ourselves glued to the living room sofa glomming on to whatever Doctor Who episode BBC America has put in front of us while putting up with a variety of  spots wherein Mayhem tries to make life a mess unless you have All State insurance, a broad spectrum of drugs to treat a wide range of diseases all with moderate to severe symptoms and whatever that damn PSA is with very sad dogs.

 

But over the last few days, I have wondered about the logic of BBC America’s scheduling of Doctor Who episodes.  For example, when BBCA ran Series 1, they left out Dalek and The Long Game.  Both episodes are strong outings for Series 1 and both establish plot points in the two part finale of Series 1.  

 

When Series 3 came ‘round, The Shakespeare Code, Gridlock and Utopia were missing.  The latter was especially egregious as Utopia is instrumental to The Sound of Drums and The Last of the Time Lords. Why would BBCA leave off part one of the 3 part finale for Series 3?   

 

Over the last decade since BBC America has become of the official home for Doctor Who in the good ol’ US of A, BBCA has not always been a good caretaker of Doctor Who, editing whole chunks out of episodes, running episodes out of order and not providing at least some semi-regular spot on BBCA’s regular schedule.  Except for then there are new episodes or some special event programming (like the current takeover), Doctor Who is relegated to occasional random episodes in the overnight schedule. 

 

I’m glad Doctor Who has a home on American television.  I just wish that home took better care of Doctor Who.