[UTVLifer]

Would the BBC have had a say in the time of year? Or have Disney dictated that?

Because this doesn't exactly feel like the strongest time of year for Saturday Night viewing...

Russell said this a little while ago in his DWM column (from Issue 600) that

"In an ideal world, we might have followed The Church on Ruby Road with a full series of Ncuti and Millie in January, and believe me, we tried. Way back in 2022, we jugged scheduled and budgets and capacity, but... nope. We'd have ended up spending money on the rush rather on the programme itself. It's the FX..."

So really, I think it may have come down to them not being ready for a January launch, and then having to wait until May for the next ideal launch time to come up for both the BBC and Disney+

[Brekkie]

It feels a mistake after such a strong Q1 to then have a month long gap between the end of Gladiators and Big Show/The Wheel to launching this. They wasted any momentum they had built up from a linear perspective at least.

[JAS84]

The Wheel hasn't ended... that was actually on straight after Who last weekend. Only reason it wasn't on the previous week was Eurovision.

[Andrew]

The Wheel hasn't ended... that was actually on straight after Who last weekend. Only reason it wasn't on the previous week was Eurovision.

These episodes of The Wheel are repeats though

[JMT1985]

I feel a consolidated figure of around 3.5 to 4 million is excellent for the show - 2024 is a very different era in television - even big ITV dramas such as Trigger Point, Breathtaking and even Mr Bates vs the Post Office was around this mark.

This is the world we live in now - as people tend to watch it very later after release. I bet the 28 day consolidated figures will be more interesting to read.

[RhysJR]

It's 2046, Amol Rajan is still presenting and BBC News still hasn't had new graphics. Sometimes fiction is more true than reality.
Nice to see the two line lower thirds are eventually back by then though.

Honestly not sure what to think of that episode. The ending felt unsatisfying and feel like I'm missing something (but so is everyone else). Really liked the first portion in West Wales and Mille Gibson was fantastic, especially considering that was the first episode she filmed.

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I don't know why Unleashed blurs out logos on coats like has happened a few times this series. Does it matter if anyone can see if Steffan Powell is wearing a North Face jacket? Especially weird when the epsidoe kept the real life McDonald's and Nat West on Newport High Street.

[JMT1985]

It's 2046, Amol Rajan is still presenting and BBC News still hasn't had new graphics. Sometimes fiction is more true than reality.
Nice to see the two line lower thirds are eventually back by then though.

Honestly not sure what to think of that episode. The ending felt unsatisfying and feel like I'm missing something (but so is everyone else). Really liked the first portion in West Wales and Mille Gibson was fantastic, especially considering that was the first episode she filmed.

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I don't know why Unleashed blurs out logos on coats like has happened a few times this series. Does it matter if anyone can see if Steffan Powell is wearing a North Face jacket? Especially weird when the epsidoe kept the real life McDonald's and Nat West on Newport High Street.

It is BBC rules on not seeing to be promoting a product on screen. This has happened a lot. I remember back in 2009 on Top Gear, Jeremy Clarkson had to place a black piece of card over what we all could see was a Coca Cola bottle, and he called it a "zesty drink".

Back in 2008, during the Oz and James Drink to Britain, when they went over to Ireland, and taste Guinness, James May said on camera they couldn't say the name Guinness too often due to "undue prominence" so they held back on saying the word Guinness as much as they could.

[James2001]

Well, last week's Doctor Who told us that BBC News will still be using the same graphics in 22 years time...

And this week's episode playing Timmy Mallett's musical prowess to the world...

[AaronTV]

Looks like they struggled with Ncuti’s availability this season more than we were necessarily anticipating - after last week’s ’Doctor-lite’ episode, this week’s was both Doctor and companion-lite.

Doctor Who Unleashed confirms this episode was filmed at the same time as last week’s, with limited Doctor/Ruby scenes mostly filmed in one studio sitting with an autocue.

We are well over halfway through this series and yet it’s become almost impossible to be familiar with Ncuti’s Doctor IMO because he simply hasn’t been on screen enough.

I’m not really sure how else they could have resolved the scheduling issues, but to have your new lead mostly absent for 2/8 episodes isn’t really ideal, especially quite early on in a short season.

[Moz]

Not for an expensive flagship show with a massive advertising campaign behind it it isn’t. RTD was supposed to bring the casual audience back but, as of yet, that doesn’t seem to be happening.

Have tried to watch, and while I like the new guy, it’s the stories which are unwatchable.

I know it’s a kids programme but that doesn’t excuse such terrible writing.

The one with the terrible character stealing music was just ridiculous.