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March 12

Why were pre-2005 Doctor Who episodes grouped into seasons instead of series?

If I understand correctly, what Americans call "seasons", the British usually call "series", pre-2005 Doctor Who being an exception. Why was an exception made for that show? ZFT (talk) 06:30, 12 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

We covered this one a few weeks ago. See Feb 23 archive.

Wait a minute, that was you. Did you not see my reply last time, or was it insufficient? OK, I guess you're asking why the 1960s Brits chose to use "seasons". It's a fair question. I suspect other examples of "season" from the era could be found.

Somebody at Talk:List_of_Doctor_Who_episodes_(2005–present)/Archive_3#Series.. suggests that it was to do with the production model. (I'm actually not finding examples of its use in the 60s, so far, although an example from 1981 was mentioned on the linked talk page's linked talk page.)

I searched extensively (but not very methodically) through the scans at cuttingsarchive.org, and the earliest use of "season" I encountered was from the Daily Mirror in 1974. I notice that series is used interchangeably with serial in the earlier cuttings, and refers to a collection of episodes forming a single story. (But both these words are sometimes used to describe the entirety of Doctor Who!) In the 1974 cutting, the season contains several series. Card Zero (talk) 07:01, 12 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Conjecture: Doctor Who was conceived for children. If there were uncertainty about when the show would come back, as for other shows that are broken into "series" with intervals that might be a few months or a few years, the audience might be lost (in two senses). Hence a stricter "seasonal" scheduling. —Tamfang (talk) 01:44, 14 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Madonna & San Pedro

About La Isla Bonita's name San Pedro, Madonna said: "I don't know where San Pedro is. At that point, I wasn't a person who went on holidays to beautiful islands. I may have been on the way to the studio and seen an exit ramp for San Pedro." Apparently Madonna lived in New York at that time, but according to San Pedro#United States there is no San Pedro close to New York?! Did she live in Los Angeles at the time she wrote the song, so she means San Pedro, Los Angeles? --KnightMove (talk) 09:27, 12 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

True Blue was produced at Channel Recording Studios, Los Angeles (studio may no longer exist?) - so it's reasonable to suppose Madge was staying in LA for a while to record it, or prior to recording. Card Zero (talk) 10:20, 12 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, thank you. --KnightMove (talk) 10:38, 12 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]