joke
/jōk/
Noun
A thing that someone says to cause amusement or laughter, esp. a story with a funny punchline.

Where was your punchline, I've yet to be amused or laugh?

*sigh*

If I have to explain it to you, then you're not worth the effort.

When you look at all the evidence, it's pretty clear that it isn't the BBC who want to "screw around" with the Doctor Who schedule - it's the production team.

Indeed, RTD spelled out in his book exactly how much of a freak-out the BBC had with his 'Specials' plan for 2009. And their reaction to Moffat's plans seems to have been exactly the same.

From everything I've read (on and between the lines), the BBC would love a nice, consistent 13 episodes a year. But they're not getting it - and short of firing Moffat and his whole team, there's not a lot they can do about it.

I'm sorry but if the BBC had wanted a 13 episode run for series 7 like the old days that's exactly what we would have got. It's all about money and not wanting to produce anything new to fill the gaps in the BBC1 schedule. The BBC dictate the budget and scheduling, not Moffat.

Assuming it is true that the production of Who has fallen into chaos under the current production team (as Private Eye has reported), the BBC would have needed to do something fairly dramatic to get things back on track quickly enough to ensure a full season of episodes in 2012 and 2013.

The most obvious being that it would need to sack and replace the entire team, including Steven Moffat.

I don't think the BBC would want to do that, but it does appear to be bringing new people to the Doctor Who team (ironically, some who had been a part of RTD's team) to ensure more consistent production in the future.

I do believe that his/her post was a joke, what with stating 13 episodes, then actually going on to suggest 30...

EDIT: I see clarification was also stated earlier.

Jenna Louise Coleman has confirmed that series 8 starts filming in January, which lends itself to the 12 episodes/ late August start suggested by the leaked email

There are so many conflicting reports about why Series 7 was split but I personally think it had a lot to do with Matt Smith's decision to only do three series but both he and Moffat wanted him to be the Doctor for the 50th Anniversary year so they split his third series over two years to insure this would happen.

What annoys me however is that we did not get a full 13 episode series for 2013 when it's the 50th Anniversary year and we were promised more Who then ever, In fact the only two Doctor Who episodes to be produced and filmed in 2013 are the 50th Anniversary Special and the 2013 Christmas Special.

What I think they should of done is have 2012 as the Specials year for the Moffat era and have two specials to say goodbye to the Ponds, one at Easter (The Power of Three) and one in November (The Angles Take Manhattan) then introduce Clara in the 2012 Christmas Special and Series 7 in Spring 2013 as a uninterrupted 13 episode run.

I really, really hope there's not another split in series 8. Otherwise, what a terrible way to introduce Capaldi's Doctor.

I think after a rather chaotic and disappointing couple of years, the Doctor Who production team will be under no illusions that the BBC is expecting a straight run from now on.

I do hope you're right.