New Who is not more popular than classic who

[burrunjor]

What's also interesting here is that Matt's viewers on average were higher in the UK than Tennant's.

8.30m
7.75m
8.28m
8.09m

Now to be fair his last season was split over two years, so that may have given him an advantage, but still I don't think it's comparable to Tennant's year of specials as they were all at different parts of the year and overhyped as special events. Matt's two mini series still had to maintain viewers over multiple successive weeks. I did count Jodie for Flux after all.

With this in mind, Matt had three years in the 8 millions, Tennant had one, and then when you factor in Matt being bigger in America, yeah he is actually more comparable to Pertwee, Tom and Hartnell in terms of popularity. Tennant's acclaim really is pushed by hype.

[rushy]

Tennant's wider acclaim imo is largely pushed by two things

1) Him having a much more successful career than Matt post-Doctor Who. Matt's catching up now, with the Crown and House of the Dragon, but he's also been in a load of shite.

2) Playing a less overtly silly incarnation of the Doctor. Everyone remembers Matt goofing around and being eccentric whilst Tennant was all growling and mopey. It gives Tennant more credibility as a serious dramatic actor. 

[iank]

Shame he was very bad at it lol

[burrunjor]

Oct 13, 2023 22:38:23 GMT rushy said:

Tennant's wider acclaim imo is largely pushed by two things

1) Him having a much more successful career than Matt post-Doctor Who. Matt's catching up now, with the Crown and House of the Dragon, but he's also been in a load of shite.

2) Playing a less overtly silly incarnation of the Doctor. Everyone remembers Matt goofing around and being eccentric whilst Tennant was all growling and mopey. It gives Tennant more credibility as a serious dramatic actor. 

Also don't forget I think Tennant is more of a tv personality too. IE you're more likely to see him on panel shows, hosting events. He's kind of a national treasure, where as Matt is actually reclusive at least in the media, so Tennant has remained the face of DW in a number of ways. 

[henshin]

I've been watching Season 9 (Pertwee), and i'm totally loving it.

I haven't seen any NuWho in the longest time but, lately, there have been reruns of the Tennant era on the sci-fi channel. As i've channel flipped, I must admit, i'm hooked. I intend to only watch about 5 or 10 minutes, but i'm into it more than I remember.

[burrunjor]

Quite a cool article from the 60s about Dalekmania. 




Incredible to think that it could become received wisdom that a show like THIS wasn't ever popular until 2005. It just goes to show you how powerful media smear campaigns can be and how little the next generation of fans are willing to look into its past. 

[burrunjor]

Oct 14, 2023 3:32:34 GMT henshin said:

I've been watching Season 9 (Pertwee), and i'm totally loving it.

I haven't seen any NuWho in the longest time but, lately, there have been reruns of the Tennant era on the sci-fi channel. As i've channel flipped, I must admit, i'm hooked. I intend to only watch about 5 or 10 minutes, but i'm into it more than I remember.

Glad you're enjoying the classics and still enjoying New Who. Remember though this isn't about quality. I'm not saying that classic who is better because it was more successful. Again whose to say it was, as we've been over the world and viewing habits change so much that it's hard to determine for sure. The point always was though that it's NOT a given that New Who is the most popular either, and it certainly is a myth that it was the only time it was mainstream and popular.

[UncleDeadly]

Oct 13, 2023 22:38:23 GMT rushy said:

It gives Tennant more credibility as a serious dramatic actor. 

[burrunjor]

Oct 15, 2023 14:37:53 GMT UncleDeadly said:

Oct 13, 2023 22:38:23 GMT rushy said:

It gives Tennant more credibility as a serious dramatic actor. 

To be fair all the Doctors have their silly moments. You could post Pertwee pretending to be an old geezer (well even more of an old geezer LOL) or him in drag, or Tom's bit about the Key to Time, or Hartnell in his bathing suit in The Space Museum. For me Tennant's worst bits are the emo moments, not so much because he's bad in them, but they are a bit out of character like his blubbing over the Masters corpse. 

[UncleDeadly]

Oct 15, 2023 15:49:37 GMT burrunjor said:

To be fair all the Doctors have their silly moments. You could post Pertwee pretending to be an old geezer (well even more of an old geezer LOL) or him in drag, or Tom's bit about the Key to Time, or Hartnell in his bathing suit in The Space Museum. For me Tennant's worst bits are the emo moments, not so much because he's bad in them, but they are a bit out of character like his blubbing over the Masters corpse. 

Not this bloody silly. And if Tennant is worse in the emotional moments (which is arguably true) then it's a combination of the writing/direction and his being too weak an actor to pull them off. Consequently, they ironically become funnier than his attempted humour.

[burrunjor]

Interestingly enough wikipedia has different figures for some of the seasons. The reason for that is because the list I got was looking at it by years, and in classic who some seasons overlapped across multiple years. Hence why the tenth anniversary started in 1972. 

So if going purely by seasons some things change. No Doctors viewers went up every single season. Pertwee's had a slight decline in his last season, though his still went up every year for four years, and Tom also managed to have his go up every year for three years, so they are the kings in that regard. 

Hartnell's meanwhile using this method went down for his third season. Meanwhile Tennant's also went down for his second season too. In terms of overall viewers however even using this different method Tennant is still nowhere near the most popular. In fact less so using this method. Tom got up to 3 million more viewers during his most popular years than Tennant got in his. RTD's meanwhile went down every year for his first three years. Again that doesn't mean he was a flop, but it shows you why you shouldn't be so beholden to the "Only RTD can do it myth." 

Here are the same eras using this method. Again this takes I Player into account for the modern era to overcompensate for Classic Who's big advantage. 

Hartnell's run.

8.08 
10.46 
7.65

Pertwee

7.17 
7.96 
8.30 
8.87 
8.78

Tom

10.00 
10.14 
11.08 
8.98 
8.61 
11.21 
5.82

Peter Davison is exactly the same meanwhile in terms of viewers, whilst poor Colin has been a victim of lies and propaganda. There is a drop from Davison's last season to Colin's first, but it's miniscule. Davison's last season is 7.14, Colin's first is 7.12. That's actually much smaller than the drop from Eccelston to Tennant, yet the official fandom mantra is that as soon as Colin showed up, that was that its viewers were cooked, not the truth of actually Colin did win people round, but the hiatus in between his first and second of 18 months is what caused the big drop. No wonder he's bitter. History is written by the winners in this case. 

Tennant's viewers with this method are a bit different meanwhile. 

7.71 
7.55
8.05

Eccelston's first and only season's viewers were 7.95, so yes over 20 thousand switched off when the Doctor turned into Ten Inch as opposed to 2 thousand switching off when he turned into the loathed Colin. (Though again both are obviously small percentages.) 

Sadly Iank I hate to say this as I'm a huge fan too, but Matt's viewers went down every year using this method as well. They were all in the 7 millions though, he never went below that,

Here are Matt's

7.73 
7.52 
7.44

And remember that's including the I Player figures too. 

Capaldi's are exactly the same meanwhile, whilst Jodie's are the same, except that her last season using this method got 4.95 million, and again that's including the fiddled I Player viewers. 

So yeah using this method, then we can take away the following information. 

Viewers in the 7 millions, regardless of the 60s, 70s, 80s, 00s, 10s is the expected viewers for DW. Anything above that is a bonus. DW has never been a show like the X-Factor, or a soap, IE one that gets viewers in the 15 million range, or the 20 million range. However it is far more popular than the majority of dramas, genre shows and comedies which if they are successful will have viewers in the 5 millions.

If DW dips into the 6 millions mark that is seen as a bit concerning, if it's into the 5 millions mark it's very concerning and into the 4 or 3s it's either cancel it or sack anyone involved territory. In all fairness this may change as we move into the 2020s and viewing habits are once again undergoing a radical change, though remember the 7 millions in the 00s and the 10s still includes 7 million with I Player.

Producers to get seasons over the 7 millions mark for a season meanwhile are, Verity Lambert, Barry Letts, Philip Hinchcliff, Graham Williams, JNT (hilariously enough, JNT also got one season higher than any individual season by Barry Letts OR Russell T Davies, Davison's first season in the 9 millions) and Russell T Davies, NOT Steven Moffat. 

Producers to get over 10 million meanwhile are Verity Lambert, Philip Hinchcliff, Graham Williams (though to be fair that season was the one hit by the strike) NOT Russell T Davies, hilariously enough. 

Viewers to hit the dreaded 5 millions and under mark are JNT, Steven Moffat and Chris Chibnall. To be fair other than his first year, JNT only hit that after the sabotage began. 

Producers to have their viewers go up for multiple years in a row are Barry Letts, and Philip Hinchcliff and surprisingly JNT only. JNT's went up by multiple seasons from Colin's last to McCoy's second. That's three years. A fact that is often overlooked, to be fair they were all low ranked seasons, but still. 

season 23: 4.81 
season 24: 4.94
season 25: 5.34

Those who've had them go down for multiple years in a row are JNT, Moffat, RTD and Chibnall, and hilariously enough, JNT doesn't have the worst record. 

He had them go down for 2 years in a row at the most, (one of which was the hiatus.) Chibbers went down every year for three seasons to catastrophic levels, RTD's went down though only in a minor way for three years, whilst Moffat's went down every year for six years! That said however JNT had the biggest drop from the end of Williams last season to his first which literally took away more than half of the viewers for the show, whilst Moffat's viewers only went down a tiny bit for the first four years, with the first big drop happening after Capaldi's first season. 

The top ten highest rated seasons are all Classic Who meanwhile. 

So yes overall even with these different methods, then the high points are still classic who, but overall I'd say both new who and classic who, with I Player, fewer channels etc, it averages out at in the 7 millions for the most part, with the odd burst and decline. One again it's certainly not a case of Tennant is the most popular, or the first mainstream Doctor. In fact his era lags behind Hartnell, Pertwee, certainly a good bit behind Tom and even Davison. (Having lost his only advantage of going up every year.)  

[iank]

Looking at Tom's list, aren't you just so glad JNT came along to "save the show" from Williams by... er... halving his audience figures? lol

[rushy]

I mean, I WOULD have been glad if I lived back then. Watching the show for the first time, I thought Season 17 was kind of an embarrassment. Production-wise, it's one of the most half-baked seasons, led by a diva actor completely out of control and with no f*cks left to give. Destiny of the Daleks, Nightmare of Eden, Creature from the Pit, Horns of Nimon?? They're all practically unfinished. The only story truly worth watching is Shada, which is a genuine masterpiece, but even then I suspect it's largely because of the 2017 segments, which are more professionally made (you only need to see Christopher Neame's improved performance to recognise that).

State of Decay, Full Circle and even Keeper of Traken all tower over season 17. A more polished direction, a thematic throughline, grounded script editing from Bidmead and Tom being forced to tone it down (either by illness or JNT or both) did the show wonders.

[iank]

lols What? Where the f*ck is Destiny is "unfinished"? Get a grip, man. It's one of the best directed stories in the history of the show.
And Traken is not better than ANYTHING in season 17, or much else. It's completely boring as f**k, saved only from its own banality by JNT's 11th hour insertion of the Master. And I'm afraid I'll always prefer "out of control" Tom to the bored shadow of his former self in most of 18, who looks like he'd rather be anywhere else and can't get wait to get down to the pub or back home to shag Lalla (and who could blame him) than continue hanging around with the miserable buggers that have hijacked his show.

It's telling that you wilfully avoid the point of my post though, that Williams' first two seasons get three million higher than season 18 and season 17 double. And no, the "it was the strike" argument doesn't wash. Nimon got over 10 million alone and the strike was long done by then. The reality Williams bashers can never get their tiny little brains around is that the general audience preferred the wit and wonder of season 17 to the po-faced dreariness of its successor. 

It's funny but your comments just sound like typical, learned-by-rote fansheepisms. Especially funny, given the entire RTD era was completely out of control and up its own anus by series 2...

[rushy]

Oct 15, 2023 20:57:20 GMT iank said:

lols What? Where the f*ck is Destiny is "unfinished"? Get a grip, man. It's one of the best directed stories in the history of the show.
And Traken is not better than ANYTHING in season 17, or much else. It's completely boring as f**k, saved only from its own banality by JNT's 11th hour insertion of the Master. And I'm afraid I'll always prefer "out of control" Tom to the bored shadow of his former self in most of 18, who looks like he'd rather be anywhere else and can't get wait to get down to the pub or back home to shag Lalla (and who could blame him) than continue hanging around with the miserable buggers that have hijacked his show.

It's telling that you wilfully avoid the point of my post though, that Williams' first two seasons get three million higher than season 18 and season 17 double. And no, the "it was the strike" argument doesn't wash. Nimon got over 10 million alone and the strike was long done by then. The reality Williams bashers can never get their tiny little brains around is that the general audience preferred the wit and wonder of season 17 to the po-faced dreariness of its successor. 

It's funny but your comments just sound like typical, learned-by-rote fansheepisms. Especially funny, given the entire RTD era was completely out of control and up its own anus by series 2...

If "best directed" means you can literally see Davros pedalling his chair and the Daleks tip-toeing across the desert, then sure, it's best directed. Destiny looks like shit. It has no atmosphere at all. The Movellans look ridiculous. Everything's filmed under a pleasant blue sky (a big contrast to every other time we've seen Skaro, where it's a gloomy atmospheric jungle/war zone). The script is tonally clashing, because Adams and Nation are two incredibly different writers. I actually feel bad for Tom, because I feel like he tries to take it seriously in the first episode, but ultimately succumbs to buffoonery. 

It's fair that you prefer the season 17 take on Tom, that's purely a matter of taste. I just like him brooding and cantankerous, and looking tired because I feel it reflects the Doctor's age and melancholy. 

I avoided the point about the views, because I have no interest in them, or the general audience opinion. I judge the quality of television purely in terms of how it affects me. If the general audience preferred/prefers season 17, that's great. I'm glad they liked it. But I won't start pretending that makes me think it's good when that wasn't my experience. I'm sure there's a lot of TV out there that the general audience thinks is good but you still think it sucks. Same principle.