Give Doctor Who a chance in TV awards, urges director
Doctor Who director Rachel Talalay questions why the sci-fi series is overlooked by TV judging panels: “I would love to see Doctor Who series 9 honoured by Bafta and Emmy nominations"
Doctor Who director Rachel Talalay has called on Bafta and Emmy Award voters to give Doctor Who a chance.
“I would love to see Doctor Who Series 9 honoured by Bafta and Emmy nominations,” the director of this year’s series finale wrote in a blog post about diversity and the awards industry. “But voters need to watch it.”
She went on to point out that even though Doctor Who tops end-of-year polls such as Rotten Tomatoes, Bafta voters tend to overlook the “kids show” for traditional ‘Bonnets and Bustles’.
“If you’ve never watched Doctor Who, you may be inclined to throw up your hands in terror. But you don’t have to watch 100+ episodes of New Who and 700+episodes of Classic Who to understand how incredible the work this season has been,” the director of series nine episodes Hell Bent and Heaven Sent said.
Talalay made clear she was not “searching for votes”, but simply wanted a fair chance. “I’m just asking the Voters to watch and judge on the work,” she explained, “not on pre-conceived notions of what the show is, as any Oscar contender would hope.”
The director’s pleas came during a discussion on diversity in awards, after the Academy Awards came in for criticism for all-white acting categories.
“Therefore it’s not surprise [sic] – that the nominations are mostly predictable, that they lack diversity. The flaws in the voting system are hardly new. They just haven’t been addressed.”
