U.S. Whovians can finally rejoice: episodes of Doctor Who will return to Amazon Prime before the end of the month.
The past few months have been difficult for U.S. fans of the show after it disappeared from every streaming site in the country. Not only did Netflix drop the series, but Hulu followed suit. For several months, American Doctor Who fans did not have a way to watch the show via streaming.
Things got worse for fans, too, after showrunner Steven Moffat announced that he would step down from the series and that the next season — also his last season — wouldn't air until 2017. That left fans without a way to watch older episodes of the show, but also in the lurch when it came to new episodes, too.
Amazon, though, finally delivered some good news: as of March 27, the series returns to Amazon Prime, with members having access to stream episodes from seasons one through eight. Even better? Amazon's deal with BBC for the series is a multiyear one, so the show won't disappear from the service anytime soon.
"Doctor Who fans rejoice ... the BBC global phenomenon is headed back to Prime Video," wrote Amazon in an email press release. "Today, Amazon and BBC announced a multiyear content licensing agreement to make Prime Video the exclusive U.S. subscription streaming home for the award-winning modern version of the science-fiction series Doctor Who."
Amazon also promises that season nine, along with the 2016 Christmas special, will go up on the service later this year, giving fans full access to Doctors 9-12.
Unfortunately, though, there's no word about what will happen with the classic Who episodes that were once so readily available on Netflix and Hulu. Hopefully, Amazon Prime will get rights to those, too, but the company excluded that from its announcement.
Back in February, Amazon tweeted the return of Doctor Who to Prime, but then deleted the tweet without another word. That suggested that the company had not yet completed the deal with the BBC, but made it likely that Prime would become Doctor Who's new streaming home.
