The Sarah Jane Adventures on SCIFI

The Sci Fi channel has a web page up with the press release about the The Sarah Jane Adventures starting on Sci Fi in April. Apparently they've also purchased some little known program called Doctor Who to air in April as well.

From what I understand Sarah Jane starts on April 11th and the new series of Doctor Who starts on April 18th.

The American Success of Doctor Who

Considering how long it took the first season to cross over -- Doctor Who fans have long memories, after all -- it's very nice to see an article about the success of the Doctor Who franchise in the US.

It's interesting that the success of Torchwood on BBC America is what led The Sarah Jane Adventures to Sci Fi. When it first was in production, we were led to believe that Sarah Jane wouldn't be exported at all, and certainly a children's show is going to be an interesting sell on Sci Fi.

My favorite quote from the article is that Doctor Who has "a loyal viewership so fanatical that most of the show's entry on Wikipedia actually appears to be correct".

The other big part is that like Torchwood series two, the window between the UK and US airings of the next year of Doctor Who has shrunk a great deal. This is certainly a good thing -- for example, the window means that the cover of Doctor Who magazine won't be a spoiler, as it takes DWM a couple of weeks to get on the shelves over here.

Moving On Up

I think one of the exciting things about the new Doctor Who's success is how it is positively impacting the careers of many of the people involved. Where in the 1980s Doctor Who might have been a career dead-end, seeing Phil Collinson getting promoted to Head of Drama at BBC Manchester is very nice.

Also, it is incredible to see the reports that The Sarah Jane Adventures will be airing on Sci Fi this spring along with the next episodes of Doctor Who. I'll be interested to see how a show that is targeted for younger audiences is marketed here, because I think that while it is generally a good show, it's definitely targeted for a younger audience.

But it is still incredible to see how well Doctor Who is doing right now, as well as the people attached to it.

When will Torchwood air in the US?

With articles like this appearing in some of the American press, I don't think the question is whether or not we'll see Torchwood distributed in the US -- just a matter of when.

I think the interesting observation is that the CBC in Canada hasn't made any announcements with regards to when they're airing Torchwood either, to my knowledge. I wouldn't be surprised if there is some desire to have them on roughly the same schedule in both countries; after all, the release date of the DVD will presumably be the same region wide. And I suspect the DVD release is the bigger concern as far as BBC Worldwide goes -- I know that the DVD releases have been very important to their Doctor Who plans.

My instinct and hope is that we'll see it sometime in the spring -- roughly at the same time of year as the Christopher Eccleston Doctor Who series aired this year.

Of course, what I really wonder is if there's going to be any way for the Sarah Jane Adventures to cross over. My thought might be that it will be DVD only... (I am confident that it'll make it on DVD, as there are enough Doctor Who fans that will want to buy it.)

The Sarah Jane Adventures

The BBC finally released a press release about the long-rumored The Sarah Jane Adventures. If Torchwood is the "adult" Doctor Who, Sarah Jane Adventures is going to be the "kids" Doctor Who spin-off.

This isn't a brand new concept -- Big Finish has done several series of audio adventures with Sarah Jane as the central character. But this will be a little different, as this will be primarily targeted towards an audience of children instead of nostalgic adults.

I'm curious about how this series might cross over to the US. Unlike Torchwood, I'm not sure I can picture a solidly children's series crossing over to the Sci Fi channel. And I'm not sure how it fits on BBC America either. I'm sure there are enough American Doctor Who fans that it'll find some way of making it over, but how.

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In other exciting news, we're seeing a series of Doctor Who audios made by Big Finish go direct to BBC7 as audio dramas starring Paul McGann. And BBC7 is available online as well.