Doctor Who season eight

[Aractus]

It's not really artificial - the original doctor who series was cancelled in 1989.

I'm not really impressed by the comments that the BBC makes (see here and here):

• A major justification for why Australians turn to websites such as The Pirate Bay and other copyright-infringing methods to obtain TV shows and films is because of the lack of availability of content in a timely and affordable manner. However, Doctor Who is one of the few overseas shows in Australia that is broadcast at the same time as it airs in the UK, at 4.30am AEST every Sunday morning on the ABC, before being put on ABC's catchup service iview, and rebroadcast on Sunday evening.
  
  The ABC and the BBC have done this in a move to please fans of the show, and deter customers from resorting to BitTorrent to see the show when it airs.
  
  ...
  
  "Despite the BBC dedicating considerable resources to taking down and blocking access to these Doctor Who materials, there were almost 13,000 download attempts of these materials from Australian IP addresses in the period between their unauthorised access and the expiration of the usual catch-up windows," the BBC said.

Okay, firstly - no one, and I mean no one, not even die-hard whovian's are going going to get up at 4:30 AM to watch doctor who. Secondly, TV quality in Australia is terrible. Everyone has HDTV's and there's very little HD broadcast on free to air. Delivering an inferior quality product - that is 576i when it is broadcast in the UK in HD is enough to motivate any fan to download a higher quality product.

• “ISPs should warn any alleged copyright infringers through a graduated notification system that what they are doing is illegal and, at the same time, educate them about the law, the importance of copyright to funding content and services they enjoy and where they can access the material they want legally. However. if the consumers do not abide by the notifications then more serious action may need to be taken,” the BBC note.
  
  ...
  
  “Since the evolution of peer-to-peer software protocols to incorporate decentralized architectures, which has allowed users to download content from numerous host computers, the detection and prosecution of copyright violations has become a complex task. This situation is further amplified by the adoption of virtual private networks (VPNs) and proxy servers by some users, allowing them to circumvent geo-blocking technologies and further evade detection,” the BBC explain.
  
  “It is reasonable for ISPs to be placed under an obligation to identify user behavior that is ‘suspicious’ and indicative of a user engaging in conduct that infringes copyright. Such behavior may include the illegitimate use by Internet users of IP obfuscation tools in combination with high download volumes.”

1. Australia doesn't have and nor do we want to have a filtered internet.
2. ISP's do not have the power, nor should they have, to take the action that the BBC believes they should take against their customers. AFACT v iiNet has proven this in the high court. It is expected that they will lobby the government just as the MPAA did in the USA, but they have no legal power whatsoever to interfere with services provided by ISPs to their customers.
3. ISP level blocking is ineffective anyway. For this reason, ISP's in the Netherlands are no longer required to block access to TPB - "In its ruling the Court states that the Pirate Bay blockade is disproportionate and ineffective, citing TNO research and the Baywatch report of the University of Amsterdam".
4. Censoring the internet is a very serious matter. The BBC's claims are purely political in nature, just like every other example in the world of internet censorship including China, etc.

Moffat himself says just as stupid things: “Ah, 50 years. What can one say about 50 years of Doctor Who? Well, first of all, one can be pedantic. Doctor Who hasn’t been on for 50 years – owing to the outright stupidity and unforgiveable blindness of the BBC (sorry guys, it needs to be said), there was a 16-year gap.” (link) - yeah I don't think so Moffat, I agree with Grade's assessment the show was going downhill.

The show was nearly cancelld in 2009 after Tennant left, and it probably wouldn't have hurt to be honest. First, RTD was a much better lead writer and exec. producer than Moffat will ever be, and second because Matt Smith is one of the worst doctor's ever. It has to be said - he was way too much like Tennant. Moffat's meta-stories (since 2010) have all been total shit. Tennant's first episode "the Christmas Invasion" was way better than Smith's first - AND the anomalies in that episode that everyone noticed, including me, were never explained. Like Rory's hospital ID badge being dated the 30th of November 1990 - and the fact that they go to great lengths to avoid showing any reference to a possible year when Doctor Who meets little Amy. That would have meant that Amy and Rory were "out of time" ie had somehow jumped forward in time from their own time, possibly due to the cracks. Yet nothing ever came of it.

Leaving this loose end was just one of many of the problems that plagued the meta-stories by Moffat, the other being that they're all utterly ridiculous especially showing a "robot" version of the doctor begin a regeneration. By far the best season finale was Army of Ghosts/Doomsday written by RTD. That was the kind of episode you just wanted to watch again, not like any of the finale's by Moffat.