Doctor Who : Series 12 - Marketing And Promotion Problem

Doctor Who's twelfth series is well underway, in fact at the time of writing, only three episodes remain. It's been a strong series so far and a huge improvement on the last series which in my opinion, pales in comparison. Yet, there's an underlying problem with series 12 that isn't doing the show any favours at all. The marketing and promotion. 

Can it be fixed?

Well, in a word, yes. First though we have to establish exactly what the problem is and the effects that its having. After Spyfall concluded its two episode story, the wait began for the third episode of the series, 'Orphan 55' written by Ed Hime. Nobody really anticipated it being anything special given Hime's previous contribution to Doctor Who in series 11 with the mostly critically panned episode 'It Takes You Away'. There seemed to be though, some encouragement from the Doctor Who BBC America twitter account. 

A short teaser tweet posted by the Doctor Who BBC America account seemed to promise something big happening at the end of 'Orphan 55' that peaked viewers interest significantly. After the two major surprises of The Master and Gallifrey in 'Spyfall', it seemed to be a reasonable assumption that they were right.......there was nothing. Literally nothing dramatic or unexpected happened at the end of the episode. You could in fact miss how this episode ended, because the episode itself was as dull as the last one written by Ed Hime and the ending was rendered incredibly anti-climatic by this tease. It's probably fair to say that this didn't go down very well and it might just have knocked a legitimate tease that came only two weeks later.

Another teasing tweet, this time posted by the Official Doctor Who account teased that if they thought The Master returning was big, they "won't believe what happens this week" in advance of 'Fugitive Of The Judoon' and this time, they were damn right. The episode saw the return of John Barrowman as Captain Jack Harkness and the revelation that Jo Martin's seemingly ordinary character was in fact another incarnation of The Doctor herself. This time, the promise paid off in a big way but because of the previous tweet in relation to 'Orphan 55', some were quick to dismiss it as just being a ploy to rake in more viewers due to the decline in viewership this year. It was only after the two big points of this episode that got people talking across social media that a lot of people watched the episode on catchup. 

Skip ahead to this week. We've had 'Praxeus' and only 48 hours ago, we had 'Can You Hear Me?'. Next up we've got 'The Haunting Of Villa Diodati' which is one of the more exciting and unknown episodes of this season and this time, we've got a rather different tease. 

In another teaser tweet from the Doctor Who BBC America account, we get a preview of this week's episode with the tagline of "only 1 episode left until the incredible 2-part season finale". Now this is just my own opinion but why promote the episodes after the forthcoming episode instead of that one itself? You might as well be saying "don't bother with this one, the really good stuff is next week!"

It just doesn't make sense. Especially when in the case of this, we know this week's episode will feature the 'Lone Cyberman' and be the first of a loose 3-part finale, yet they're just skipping over and essentially disregarding Villa Diodati from promotion despite it being a pretty damn vital episode leading into the season finale which we now know will feature an entire army of brand new Cybermen.

Fixing the problem

Going into the Dalek special (rumour has it that it will air on Easter Sunday this year) and beyond into Series 13, the BBC has to reconsider and change up its strategies for marketing and promotion of the show entirely. Series 12 has proved that secrecy and misdirection can be vital and a great asset for the show but that doesn't mean that every little thing should necessarily be kept under lock and key. Chris Chibnall has proven himself to be rather clever with this series in particular as the trailers lifted certain elements from the scenes they were pulled from, the biggest being Sacha Dhawan having been digitally removed from Spyfall scenes featured in the trailer. This is a great and effective way to promote the show whilst keeping the big stuff under wraps. Series 13 could and really should double down on that. 

The production notes in DWM are scarce and rarely feature anything from Chris Chibnall. Obviously that is his own prerogative and nobody can force him to divulge anything but if there's anything that doesn't give away spoilers, why not let them out into the public domain? Ironically this is something he did do in advance of Series 11, dropping lots of character names and episode plot points. Maybe we could get that back for Series 13? I feel like transparency is something we could use more of when it comes to Chris Chibnall. Fans need stuff to talk about during the months when the show isn't on. Without it, we only have unsubstantiated (and often completely untrue) rumours from less than reliable 'sources'. 

Things like guest cast and episode titles being kept secret is something that really, i think most would agree, doesn't need to be kept as secret as it has been. If a title is very spoilery or references a returning character (i.e. Ascension Of The Cybermen, The Timeless Children) then by all means, hold it back until the time is right to let it out into the public domain but even then, there's no real reason to keep it held back. Knowing something like that will keep people talking, speculating and tuning in. It worked during the Russell T Davies era and it worked mostly during the Steven Moffat era. Secrecy in this era has proven itself to alienate a lot of fans and viewers because it often means we don't find anything out till the very last minute and that isn't healthy for the show.  

As for individual episodes and the 'teasing tweets' in the days before hand...maybe just don't do those next series or DO but make them a consistent feature for every episode and tease an element of each episode as suggested to me by a friend of mine on Twitter. It gets fans talking and hyping up a forthcoming episode whilst essentially remaining spoiler (and by attachment, context) free. Let's not do another 'Orphan 55' anytime soon eh?

Everything written above is only my own opinion and and suggestion and should be treated as such. I love this show and anything i've written is done so in suggestion of how to improve. My intention is not to criticise in any way.