Some Doctor Who fans haven’t taken any notice of football since Matt Smith played the character.
In 2010 episode The Lodger, Smith’s incarnation of TV’s Time Lord joins a pub team on Earth that includes James Corden – no, we’re not making it up – but this weekend, plenty of Whovians (real fan name, yes) will be keeping an eye on the football once more.
Because this weekend, the fate of the universe lies with the likes of Pep Guardiola: no pressure…
Doctor Who is relying on events at the FA Cup final, simply to be broadcast
It’s a busy afternoon on BBC One, with the FA Cup final kicking off at 4:30pm between Manchester City and Crystal Palace – and Doctor Who finding the sixth episode of its current series falling immediately after the football ends.
So what happens if City and Palace go to extra-time? Well, usually, everything shifts back… except it can’t this week.
The Eurovision Song Contest is due to be shown immediately after Who – and obviously that can’t be moved. The BBC actually asked for the Cup final to be played at 3pm, but co-broadcaster ITV refused, leaving the Beeb with little option other than to postpone Doctor Who altogether in case of penalties.
No matter, that’s happened to plenty of shows in the past – including BBC hit Gladiators earlier this year, which was broadcast around FA Cup action that the channel had the rights to.
The one issue? The Doctor Who episode set to air is called ‘The Interstellar Song Contest’.
Series showrunner Russell T Davies has seemingly put all his eggs in the basket of showing that episode on Saturday night – with lead actor Ncuti Gatwa due to be delivering the votes for the United Kingdom this weekend, until he pulled out, due to unforeseen circumstances. And to add further pressure to it all, the whole series is leading up to the plot point that the world is ending on May 31 – the date that the eighth and final episode of the series is due to be broadcast.
While FourFourTwo are by no means experts on TV scheduling, we would expect ‘The Interstellar Song Contest’ to be moved to BBC Two, though nothing’s been confirmed as yet: and with BBC iPlayer showing the episode from midnight on Friday night, fans will still be able to catch up, even if it’s not actually shown on television.
With the future of Doctor Who uncertain following drops in ratings, however, the show could really do with a big hit this weekend – perhaps even that small Venn diagram sweet sport between football and Eurovision fans keeping the TV on between the two events.
If a Doctor Who fan you know is cheering for a Manchester City win, anyway, you now know why.
