As for ratings on BBC America, "The Return of Doctor Mysterio" was BBC America's top-rated program of 2016 with 1.7 million viewers.
The Return of Doctor Mysterio (Grade & Discussion Thread
- Thread starter TommyR01D
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I couldn't find a free video of that scene, but here is the transcript:
WELLS
What's the matter, my dear?
LOIS
You've been to the future, Mr.
Wells, is it true what Tempus said
about me?
WELLS
Yes. You're as highly revered as
any woman in history.
LOIS
No, about being... galactically
stupid.
Wells smiles and looks at Lois sympathetically.
WELLS
Not stupid, Miss Lane. Blind.
It's one of the many things that
makes your story so timeless: why
children never tire of hearing it
at bedtime, why parents never
outgrow it, generation after
generation. We're _all_ blind when
it comes to love, especially that
one great love that will change us
forever.
TEMPUS
Excuse me? But I'm in danger of
choking on my own vomit.
http://www.lcficmbs.com/scripts/txt/218.txt
Actually, it works reasonably well. Remember, her undercover work at the Harmony Shoal building was the first time Lucy met or even saw the Ghost, meaning her dinner with him was the first time she had any serious interaction with the Ghost, and that ends with his identity being revealed anyway. Obviously, up until actually seeing Grant holding a spaceship above himself with only one hand she had no reason to suspect the shy and harmless guy she went to school with and is now nanny to her child is a masked crime fighting vigilante.
Although while writing this post, I wonder, how did Grant deal with bullies while growing up? Being a shy loner kid, he likely was bullied at some point. But even if we assume he never fought back, as presumably he wouldn't want to answer for the potentially serious injuries he'd unintentionally cause, there's the issue of the fact that the typical schoolyard bully shouldn't be able to do anything to him anyway. Pushing him around, or even beating him is impossible, as the bully shouldn't have the strength to do that. But as Grant never aroused suspicion, what? Did he just "play along" and pretend the bullies were hurting him? EG, if a bully pushed him, he'd intentionally fall down to make it look real? Possible and likely, I guess, but eventually he'd get frustrated enough fight back, you'd think.
I learned from FathomEvents that the special was being shown in a movie theater. It was wonderful seeing it this way. I enjoyed the behind-the-scenes featurette after the special. When I was asked later about I felt about the special, I described it as an "enjoyable romp".
The final UK rating was 7.83 million, slightly more (by about 150,000 viewers) than 2015's "The Husbands of River Song."
Damn. After a 1 year hiatus, only 150,000 more viewers for the return. :/
It's like the Colin Baker years all over again.
I hate to say "I told you so" but, I told you so.
Looking at the ratings-over-time chart on the Doctor Who News Page (the link in my post above), I wonder two things.
1) Was "The Time of the Doctor" an outlier (its ratings increased by 1.25 million over the year before) because it was also a regeneration story? If you take that one out, there's a fairly consistent attrition from 2010 to 2014, with 2015 and 2016 apparently at a stable equilibrium.
2) Where, exactly, is the floor for the number of people who will tune in for Doctor Who, no matter what? It's going to be lower than where the Christmas special was, because more people tune in for the Christmas special. But could it be as low as 4 million? Is Doctor Who viable for the BBC for an audience that small?
Okay, I lied. A third thing.
3) Was "The Time of the Doctor" a really bad storytelling choice that drove people away from the series? If you tuned in once a year for Christmas, maybe you had good vibes for the series if you watched "The Day of the Doctor," you heard a new Doctor was starting and you wanted to see that, and you tuned in only to watch the Doctor grow old and feeble in a snow globe village in a story that didn't make a lick of sense at all, would you come back? Wouldn't that just confirm that Doctor Who isn't the show for you?
I guess what I'm saying here is that maybe Capaldi did drive the audiences away. Not him personally, but the way he was introduced and his first season caused the marginal Doctor Who viewers to tune out.
1) Was "The Time of the Doctor" an outlier (its ratings increased by 1.25 million over the year before) because it was also a regeneration story? If you take that one out, there's a fairly consistent attrition from 2010 to 2014, with 2015 and 2016 apparently at a stable equilibrium.
2) Where, exactly, is the floor for the number of people who will tune in for Doctor Who, no matter what? It's going to be lower than where the Christmas special was, because more people tune in for the Christmas special. But could it be as low as 4 million? Is Doctor Who viable for the BBC for an audience that small?
Okay, I lied. A third thing.
3) Was "The Time of the Doctor" a really bad storytelling choice that drove people away from the series? If you tuned in once a year for Christmas, maybe you had good vibes for the series if you watched "The Day of the Doctor," you heard a new Doctor was starting and you wanted to see that, and you tuned in only to watch the Doctor grow old and feeble in a snow globe village in a story that didn't make a lick of sense at all, would you come back? Wouldn't that just confirm that Doctor Who isn't the show for you?
I guess what I'm saying here is that maybe Capaldi did drive the audiences away. Not him personally, but the way he was introduced and his first season caused the marginal Doctor Who viewers to tune out.
Hardly,
TV ratings are down across the board, people simply do not watch TV like they used too when Doctor Who returned in 2005. It may not be the highest rated show on the BBC or in the UK but its far from the worse. The BBC mandate is not to chase ratings and the % audience share is always good. Even more important is the worldwide audience remains high and Doctor Who brings in alot of extra revenue for the BBC. The show is entering its 12th year so it could be in a much worse position in all fairness so I think people need to be less critical of the ratings when taken into the proper context.
Even if you ignore the number of bums-on-seats, the audience share, chart rankings and AI figures are still not what they used to be.
I'd love to be proven wrong but I don't think another series of Capaldi is going to turn the ship around either.
Chibnall should be thinking of some radical ideas to revitalise the series again but I suspect he's too busy trying to find the 2017 equivalent of David Tennant to take over next year...
Of course their not what it used to be...
We are talking about a 12 year old TV show and in this day & age of audience erosion, its a bloody miracle that 7 million people still watch it. Doctor Who is not going be a 10-12 million+ show again during its current run simply because of how people choose to watch TV shows if they watch any at all. The BBC's best chance would be to rest the show for several years and bringing it back but they aren't going to do that because worldwide the show is a bonafide hit and generates far too much revenue at a time the BBC is facing cuts. They will retool the show after 2017 and probably a few years after that over and over until they have no choice but to rest it.
No matter who was playing the Doctor or the show runner, a TV show entering its 2nd decade in today's world is going to see audience drop off's at least domestically.
Also, even if you rest the show for at least another 5 years before trying again, I can practically guarantee that the numbers will not be any higher with the standard bradcast model.
People are moving to on-demand models and that will only be continuing for the foreseeable future.
If anything it would make sense to move Doctor Who to a new business model that matches consumer habits more these days.
But then again that is difficult to combine with the BBC's mandate it still has.
People are moving to on-demand models and that will only be continuing for the foreseeable future.
If anything it would make sense to move Doctor Who to a new business model that matches consumer habits more these days.
But then again that is difficult to combine with the BBC's mandate it still has.
Most shows would be lucky to gain (rather than lose) viewers after a one year hiatus. Long hiatuses are not typically the type of thing that helps viewership.
I fear the same thing. It's such a shame because he's marvelous as the Thirteenth Doctor and has the potential to be one of my favorite Doctors, but is is prevented from being one because the writing he has had to work with has been very inconsistent and often mediocre.
"On-demand" isn't a panacea. The BBC gives license payers the option of watching Who on demand with iPlayer, and the final ratings factor in that and other time-shifting. Maybe more people would watch Doctor Who if it were only on iPlayer or another streaming service, but would that make up for the people who wouldn't watch it at all?
There's still value in being on the air at a set time.
I think this story definitely played a role. As you say, it was a very poor story that really didn't make much sense. It certainly wasn't fun to watch. Ongoing story lines were wrapped up in a rush of words. However, I suspect other stories and decisions played a role. After Day of the Doctor, it appeared like the series was gearing up for a search for Gallifrey. Alas that wasn't meant to be. Instead, that was dropped and then later resolved before we even knew it. Apparently no big deal. The Hybrid thing was just bizarre. The Missy season long thing was a misfire. I could go on but in a nutshell, Moffat likes to set up these complex, ongoing storylines but he is very poor at resolving them in a satisfactory way. There just isn't the payoff for staying tuned and paying attention. So, some viewers stopped doing just that!
I don't know that answer to where the floor is in terms of when would the BBC stop making the series. However, the viewership floor is probably around the viewing numbers of the low point of the classic series. I'm assuming the BBC would stop making the series before that point. However, there really doesn't seem to be a huge drop relative to other shows and it while it may not be at the top, it seems to be near the top. I'm thinking the BBC will keep making the series for the time being. It's actually impressive that there wasn't a drop in viewers given the year gap between Christmas specials!
I would agree that given the age of the new series, it is still doing fairly well. I don't see an immediate threat of cancellation. I'm going to assume that the BBC's biggest concerns are to get DW back to a regular production schedule and to go with a safer choice for the lead from a demographic point of view (i.e., a younger actor more like Tennant). The BBC is fortunate in the sense that going back to a safer choice for the lead also counts as a major retooling of the series at this point given the Capaldi era. If we had 3 straight younger actors in the role, that format might have gotten stale. Capaldi was a break from that even if he didn't raise the numbers.
I'm not quite sure what you're saying the BBC should do? Is there some great series with huge numbers out there that was made possible by an on-demand model? I don't know of one off-hand.
Mr Awe
I don't think that follows. The entire context is different now than it was then -- the viewing population of the UK is different in size and composition, there's more competition from other broadcasters, the nature of TV viewing is changing, the government's budget is probably different, and so forth. So the "floor" would have to be computed based on the current parameters, and it would be quite a coincidence if it came out to the same raw number despite being in such different circumstances.
I must be the only one around here that genuinely enjoys Time of the Doctor. I watched it again, last year!
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