Solar Flare: Science Fiction News

First of lets get one thing very clear. Doctor Who is thesci-fi series. I can enjoy a good Star Trek. I loved Babylon 5. But Doctor Who is the series. Its the one I grew up with. Its at the heart of my love for the genre. You can make all the snide comments you want about wobbly sets, Doctor Who at its best is better than any other SF program ever.

That said, I’m obviously very very eager to see the new series of Doctor Who which will be showing on BBC 1 in the UK this year. But, being as I’m in the US now, I’m wondering where I’ll be able to see it.

At the simplest level you’d think that the best thing would be to have it on the channel that would give it the widest exposure. Which would be one of the networks. But that’s probably a bad idea. Network’s have a very low tolerance for low ratings. Look what happened with the last Doctor Who tv movie on Fox. Better to have it on a channel with a smaller audience, but one that will allow the series to grow itself.

On the other hand if you go too small or obscure then you’re really limiting the show’s draw. So to my mind basic cable is where we want Doctor Who to be. Conveniently, that seems to be what the BBC think too.

Eight different channels have been mentioned in connection with Doctor Who. BBC America, Trio, A&E, USA, Sci-Fi, FX, Bravo and TNT. We can immediately throw out Trio as it barely exists any more. BBC America remains a very small channel in the US and to my mind that makes it something of a last resort for Doctor Who. Which takes us down to six.

Bravo isn’t know for original drama series or for science fiction. On the other hand A&E has shown a lot of British drama in the past, but not much in the way of science fiction. Put those too on the less likely list. Now we’re down to four. TNT, FX, USA and Sci-Fi.

These four all put on regular original drama series. None would be opposed to genre drama. In essence you can put USA and Sci-Fi together. They are owned by the same company and have done deals in the past for shows to appear on both channels (Dead Zone). If I was to pick I think that would be my preference, but any of the above four would make an excellent potential home for the new Doctor Who series.

So come on and buy it already people!