Does it? Downton wasn't gonna air in the US for months, even though both the companies that make it are American (It's a co-production between WGBH in Chicago and Carnival, a British production company that's actually an NBC-Universal subsidiary)

Oh hey there past me. You've got a p. awesome surprise coming.

Literally every president has done this in some form or another since
Woodrow Wilson. It was mostly in the form of film screenings before
Clinton, mostly due to how long it took Home Video technology to reach
the point where it was easy to make screeners on VHS or shiny disc.

Well, he cites the drop-off, but that drop-off isn't related in what actually matters: AI numbers and sales on both shiny disc and through BBC World. Especially since the fact he sees no savings in terms of budget isn't supported by what other people involved in production (chiefly RTD himself) have said about the…

But on the other hand Moffat had him write a lot of the minisodes designed to tie into the Pond arc. So it could go either way.

Yeah but Broadchurch is still ongoing and, as I understand it, a much bigger success story than Who, which has seen a really big fall-off in terms of ratings this series.

My big question is: did he really decide to nix two parters for creative reasons, or was that done for other reasons? I mean, to me it seems like it's a decision he made to try and make the split series seem less, well, underwhelming. To pump out as many stories and as much story to make up for the fact that we're…

I think he sort of imitates what a lot of comic book writers, Alan Moore and Grant Morrison in particular, have done much better: throw a lot of weird ideas, metatextuality, and general weirdness into the mix. I think that more than his weird attitudes about women, his inability to work with the BBC brass, and the…

I think we're supposed to assume that a lot of the stuff (bubbles, the drape) was wire work. Also they didn't install the mirror, they were following Mark Ruffalo's orders without knowing it.

It could've gone either way. They could've been simpler or they could've been longer. Personally I'd prefer multi-part stories because I like a complicated, weird twisty plot in Doctor Who.

Supposedly the end is near, but the moment has been prepared for. He doesn't have a ton of friends left at the BBC.

If we're dream-casting, it should be David Bowie and Tilda Swinton playing the doctor as a pair of quantum twins like Lutece from Bioshock.

A lot of people are tired of him because his stories tend to be pretty wanky and bombastic, and his longer storylines don't really work. He also can't really write women. Also his decision to stop doing two parters has led to a season comprised entirely of incredibly rushed stories.

I wonder who they're getting to replace him? Industry gossip has it that Neil Cross and Toby Whithouse are under consideration, but Gareth Roberts was supposed to be the favorite a while back.

As tempting as it would to just have them get his costumes from The Hour out of storage, I think he's getting too famous.

I'm kind of hoping they go with someone older, like Peter Capaldi maybe.

John Hamm looks like a cartoon pilot. He's who you have a crush on when you're ten to twelve. Paul Gross can pull off all kinds of looks. He's the upright Mountie, he's the scruffy bohemian genius, he's the tragic soldier and the hot dirty cop. He's basically anyone you crush on until you outgrow having crushes on…

You should check out The Drowsy Chaperone. It's not super popular, but it sorta touches on a lot of the same ideas about theatre. The conceit is that the audience is has been invited by an effeminate, probably gay man back to his apartment to listen to an old cast recording. It's all about theatre and transformation…

The basic sense I got was that, thanks to Geoffrey's stand on the news, they all gained a certain level of cachet. His stage manager says something about how the company has been offered a lot of spaces, but the implication in the finale is that it shut down since he talks about re-starting it. My general feeling is…

I thought it was gratuitous.