So we get two sets of interesting pieces of news today.
First of all, after a significant amount of rumour regarding the future of Doctor Who, and David Tennant in particular, the Beeb has announced that 2009 won’t see series five. Instead there’ll be three specials. This isn’t surprising given that Tennant is now committed to an extended run in the RSC in the latter part of next year at a time when he would be filming the next series.
Series five will be shot in 2009 for a 2010 airing. If you read the Mediaguardian piece you’d think that this absolutely means that Tennant and Exec Producer are imminently leaving the show. It doesn’t though, does it? It means that they’re likely to be with through to the three specials.
Meanwhile BBC 2 has managed to do a deal that’ll keep Heroes airing on it for the series’ life. Series one has aired on the Sci-Fi channel with BBC 2 only getting rights to air it after that initial run. From series two onwards, BBC 2 has exclusive rights. And now they’ve done a deal that sees the series staying with the channel at a pre-agreed price. This isn’t a bad deal to do really, since it prevents Sky One or some other competitor coming in and snapping up rights – q.v. Lost, 24 and Prison Break. I believe that Five did something similar with the CSI franchise very early on.
Not that there’s any guarantee just yet that Heroes will even make it to series three. It’s unlikely in the extreme that it gets cancelled anytime soon, but never put anything past a US network.