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2 million fewer viewers

To put the numbers in perspective (and to convince anyone outside the UK that the British are insane)...

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tv/s215...with-134-million-viewers.html#~pqx2l18vra40Zv

Yup, completely batshit !

I couldn't stand one of the show's hosts, however, the one with black hair and glasses. She was super annoying and I wanted her gone.

Ooh, you don't like Sue Perkins. Better watch out for pitchfork wielding Liberal Elites snaking up on you. :)

Sue's one of my very favourite lesbians...
 
I couldn't stand one of the show's hosts, however, the one with black hair and glasses. She was super annoying and I wanted her gone.

Ooh, you don't like Sue Perkins. Better watch out for pitchfork wielding Liberal Elites snaking up on you. :)

Sue's one of my very favourite lesbians...

I'm sure her sexually suggestive snark works in other venues, but it didn't feel appropriate to The Great British Baking Show.
 
As I've said elsewhere, I don't think quality or complexity is a major issue in the declining viewing figures. There may be some effect of Capaldi's age losing some of the younger viewers

Their loss.

Stupid kids.

Cap is AWESOME and I LOVE that we FINALLY have a doctor again who's older than ME. The doctor should ALWAYS be an older professor type who is older than most of the audience.

Cap is MY FAVOURITE doctor of ALL time!!!!!!!
 
To be fair, he took awhile to get going. Now he's plugging along nicely because the writers have finally pinned down his personality, but for a lot of series 8 it was like they were trying so hard to make him crotchety and dismissive that it wasn't endearing...it was just weird. I get that they wanted to get away from Matt Smith's more "cuddly" Doctor but they went far in the opposite direction and didn't take the viewers with them. It's especially evident when you binge-watch series 8 that it took awhile for the writers to settle on his personality.

Contrast that to Matt Smith, who hooked me inside 30 minutes, it took me most of series 8 to enjoy Capaldi's Doctor. And while I do feel that he's settled in nicely now, I think a lot of viewers are still on the fence. Maybe some of it has to do with age, I don't know.

While I will loyally watch and I still enjoy the show, I haven't been excited for each episode since series 7B. I do like Capaldi and his fun interaction with Jenna but the episodes themselves just aren't as fun anymore. It feels like it did at the tail end of RTD's run. I think the series either needs new blood (showrunner) or a new direction.
 
Different strokes - I couldn't stand Odo Jr. First off, he just looked WEIRD and I couldn't get past that, the fact that he was about thirteen and his stupid affectations like the hipster bow tie nonsense that was designed just to make him kooky.

No - I LOVE Cap and have done since the very first episode I saw him in last series.

He's made the doctor a bit dangerous and unpredictable again.

Hell, i love him SO MUCH, a friend at work recommended another series Capaldi was in called "The Thick of It", which I'd never heard of! I ordered it this morning from Ebay and look forward to seeing it!
 
^ The Thick of It is wonderful. If you think Capaldi's Doctor is grumpy, you haven't seen anything yet. I just hope you don't mind a bit of swearing!
 
Yeah, I've seen plenty Malcolm Tucker clips on Youtube. He's hilarious as that character. If you know "Veep," it was inspired by that show (The Thick of it).
 
Perhaps next year GBBO should be moved to Saturdays and act as a lead in for DW then.

The series already has the second most popular show on Television as it's lead in and it doesn't help.

That's right; in 2015 the two most successful programmes on British TV are (a) People making cakes and (b) Ballroom dancing.

It's like the 1950s never ended.

Says a man who's a fan of a TV show that began in 1963 :)

Ooh, you don't like Sue Perkins. Better watch out for pitchfork wielding Liberal Elites snaking up on you. :)

Sue's one of my very favourite lesbians...

I'm sure her sexually suggestive snark works in other venues, but it didn't feel appropriate to The Great British Baking Show.

We're British, we love a bit of innuendo.


As I've said elsewhere, I don't think quality or complexity is a major issue in the declining viewing figures. There may be some effect of Capaldi's age losing some of the younger viewers

Their loss.

Stupid kids.

Cap is AWESOME and I LOVE that we FINALLY have a doctor again who's older than ME. The doctor should ALWAYS be an older professor type who is older than most of the audience.

Cap is MY FAVOURITE doctor of ALL time!!!!!!!

Surely the Doctor is always older than the audience? I mean he's like 1700 years old or something now? The age of the actor in the role is almost irrelevant, it's his ability to act like he could be a centuries old alien that counts. Capaldi can do that, although it's taken him a series to bed in, unlike Smith who hit the ground running pretty much from the moment he clambered out of the Tardis and asked for an apple.

I'm not sure the fact that Matt Smith is "weird looking" is something that should run him out of being a great Doctor. I mean it isn't like the Doctor has always been played by some kind of matinee idol. Haven't most Doctors been "weird looking"? I mean Capaldi's pretty odd looking, even David Tennant isn't quite your traditional romantic lead (I'd argue in the pantheon of Who only Davison and McGann come close).

As for hipster cool, the whole point about Eleven was that he thought he was cool, but he really, and quite obviously to everyone around him, wasn't, which is a very old man trait if you think about it.
 
To be fair, he took awhile to get going. Now he's plugging along nicely because the writers have finally pinned down his personality, but for a lot of series 8 it was like they were trying so hard to make him crotchety and dismissive that it wasn't endearing...it was just weird. I get that they wanted to get away from Matt Smith's more "cuddly" Doctor but they went far in the opposite direction and didn't take the viewers with them. It's especially evident when you binge-watch series 8 that it took awhile for the writers to settle on his personality.

Contrast that to Matt Smith, who hooked me inside 30 minutes, it took me most of series 8 to enjoy Capaldi's Doctor. And while I do feel that he's settled in nicely now, I think a lot of viewers are still on the fence. Maybe some of it has to do with age, I don't know.

While I will loyally watch and I still enjoy the show, I haven't been excited for each episode since series 7B. I do like Capaldi and his fun interaction with Jenna but the episodes themselves just aren't as fun anymore. It feels like it did at the tail end of RTD's run. I think the series either needs new blood (showrunner) or a new direction.

+1!

I liked, like, and will most likely continue to like Capaldi as the Doctor but I didn't feel like he really was himself until Flatline. Again, not that I didn't like him, but it seemed like it took longer for him to even out from the regeneration, which may not have been an accident being that he's actually on his 13th (that we know of) and it's unusual because his last incarnation more or less died of old age rather than the usual getting killed while "young". So I can see how that might have been a more stressful regeneration. Now, the first 3 episodes of this season I've seen, he's working perfectly and I'm really looking forward to Saturday nights.
 
To be fair, he took awhile to get going. Now he's plugging along nicely because the writers have finally pinned down his personality, but for a lot of series 8 it was like they were trying so hard to make him crotchety and dismissive that it wasn't endearing...it was just weird. I get that they wanted to get away from Matt Smith's more "cuddly" Doctor but they went far in the opposite direction and didn't take the viewers with them. It's especially evident when you binge-watch series 8 that it took awhile for the writers to settle on his personality.

Contrast that to Matt Smith, who hooked me inside 30 minutes, it took me most of series 8 to enjoy Capaldi's Doctor. And while I do feel that he's settled in nicely now, I think a lot of viewers are still on the fence. Maybe some of it has to do with age, I don't know.

While I will loyally watch and I still enjoy the show, I haven't been excited for each episode since series 7B. I do like Capaldi and his fun interaction with Jenna but the episodes themselves just aren't as fun anymore. It feels like it did at the tail end of RTD's run. I think the series either needs new blood (showrunner) or a new direction.
Tennant took a while to get there as the Doctor, I thought. But Eccleston and Smith won me by the end of their respective episodes.

But there is only answer as to what needs to happen: Boot the Moff. Show the door. Thats it.
 
So I don't normally hang out in here or talk to Dr. Who fans much but is that the new internet meme now, that Moffat (once the saviour) is now the devil and should get the boot?

Kinda reminds me of Michael Eisner, Disney's saviour from corporate raiders in 1984, by 2003, the company co-founder's son was routing a campaign to oust him and bring in Iger!

The internet teaches me lots of things - I found out a few years back that we all hate ROTJ now. Oh well, I guess we all hate Steven Moffat now, too?
 
As far as I can see it, RTD is the only one who can be considered as a solid saviour. He literally resurrected the show in a radically new way, and make it accesible to a whole new generation in a way that the show hasn't enjoyed since the Hintchcliffe and the early JNT days.
 
I'm not angry at anyone and I like Capaldi. I stopped watching because I was tired of Clara. No hate. I liked her with Smith but I wish they had started this Doctor with a new Companion. That's just me and it says nothing about whether Moffat is better than RTD or Smith better than Tennant or anything at all. Maybe I'll start up again when a new companion shows up.
 
Yes RTD deserves a huge amount of credit for bringing the show back and for making it both popular and accessible.

However… RTD was fortunate to resurrect the show at a time when the BBC were happy to spend a lot of money and give him a lot of autonomy to produce the show. He also had the benefit that the show was new and vibrant and like nothing an awful lot of people had seen before. He had a blank canvas (which is why I’d respectfully argue that Hinchcliffe had a much harder job in drawing in a new audience because the show had been running over ten years by that point).

I’m a big fan of Moffat but even I think he’s probably been in the job too long, however I hope, in the grand scheme of things, that his contribution is valued. After RTD and Tennant left it would have been very easy for the whole kit and caboodle to fall apart. That it didn’t is down to Moffat and Smith. Yes ratings had begun to tail off, but I firmly believe that would have happened anyway, even if RTD, Tennant and Billie Piper were still incumbents (in fact I suspect it would have happened sooner) Moffat’s got a lot of things wrong, but he’s got an awful lot of things right.
 
^ Agreed on all points. Both deserve a huge amount of credit and both have contributed a ton to DW. I've consistently enjoyed most episodes during both eras.

Although, as with the original series, there comes a point when a new showrunner is needed to freshen things up. I think we're at that point. But, no hate towards anyone involved.

I hope Capaldi has a chance to stay for awhile longer. I think they've gotten his character right and hopefully he (and we) have a chance to enjoy it for awhile, even if Moffat leaves earlier.

Mr Awe
 
So I don't normally hang out in here or talk to Dr. Who fans much but is that the new internet meme now, that Moffat (once the saviour) is now the devil and should get the boot?

Kinda reminds me of Michael Eisner, Disney's saviour from corporate raiders in 1984, by 2003, the company co-founder's son was routing a campaign to oust him and bring in Iger!

The internet teaches me lots of things - I found out a few years back that we all hate ROTJ now. Oh well, I guess we all hate Steven Moffat now, too?
Criticising some aspects of Moffat's running of the show doesn't mean people hate him. There are those that do, absolutely, but there are others (like me) that recognize what he's brought to the show, appreciate it, but are starting to get the feeling that a new showrunner would re-energize things.

I don't hate Moffat by any means. I like how he changed the *look* of the show. It felt less juvenile (I often called RTD's Who "Saturday morning" in feel) after he took over. I liked the tone he brought to the whole thing. But the British model means there is no writers room. There are no ideas being bounced around, creative discussions...you've got one guy who maps out the arc for the season, writes half (or more) of the scripts, and over time, that amount of influence begins to tell. The same old tropes. We know by now what he likes to do, the same cards he plays over and over, the variations on the same thing.

Sometimes it's neat, I'll grant. I liked how he brought back the clockwork aliens from "Girl in the Fireplace" in Series 8, and made them different. "Day of the Doctor" was a success in my opinion. I liked the fact that the 12th Doctor is the first in a whole new set of regenerations, and that Moffat finally addressed timelords choosing to regenerate into women, the Poternoster Gang, among other things.

But I do think that a change would do the show good. Fresh ideas, get the creative juices flowing, let someone else play in the toybox for awhile. They might take the TARDIS to some new places.
 
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