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Episode 14 is really exceptionally good for something that was written in five days with literal lawyers crawling all over it to make sure it didn't look anything like the Holmes/Saward draft. There are many excellent reasons to hate on PipnJane, but that they wrote 30 minutes of vaguely coherent television without any prior warning and prevented a show-killing failure to deliver a full series of episodes; that's worth some little recognition.
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Sep 18, 2015 14:04
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So, is there anyone here who dares to try answering the question "What was that episode about?" Even if Part 2 turns out as well as possible, I can't shake the feeling that it could be easily watched on its own as long as it has a 15-second recap of last week.
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Sep 19, 2015 22:34
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Overnight ratings: 4.58 million, a 21.2 % share (but it was still 2nd for the day behind only The X-Factor). Ouch. That's not just low for an opener, that's low for NewWho as a whole. I would not want to be anywhere near Steven Moffat until the Appreciation Index appears tomorrow. (And next week it's going head-to-head with England playing in the RWC, so prepare for a mass round of panicked pants-making GBS threads when the sub-4 million overnight number comes in and there's no final number for this week.) If you wish to take up your pitchforks and banish your bog roll against GMS, that's more than enough evidence to do so. On the other hand, if you want to stay calm, lines to take are: "The X-Factor has also lost a couple of million over this time last year." "The consolidated ratings should now include iPlayer views, which they never have done before, and that should provide a big boost to Who because it's always been one of the most-viewed shows on the iPlayer." "We'll be fine as long as overseas ratings remain strong enough for overseas sales to be a cash cow for BBC Worldwide." "It was still 2nd for Saturday evening behind only the X-Factor, not a lot they can do if viewership is down across the board." Brave hearts. We're nowhere near in danger of cancellation, yet.
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Sep 20, 2015 14:51
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I'd happily take Matthew Graham as long as I could whack him with a rolled-up newspaper a few times and say "like The Rebel Flesh, not like Fear Her".
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Sep 23, 2015 15:41
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howe_sam posted:Sure, Eick was in Vancouver, but he also wasn't the show runner, "just" an EP. Really I guess that's my question, Moffat has never been the sole EP of the show, so wtf does Brian Minchin do? I'm pretty sure you want to get a copy of The Writer's Tale, RTD's book about being in charge of Doctor Who, which sheds quite a bit of light on the division of responsibilities between him and Julie Gardner. Or, y'know, just watch this video for the quick version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giaMRyn47Xg
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Sep 25, 2015 20:22
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Kikka posted:why didn't they use actual land mines for the young davros sequence as a callback to the story where we actually see him for the first time? they're trying to go full circle with young and old davros starting at skaro and ending up at skaro, literally showing clips of the first davros story and theyre even using old dalek props as a callback to classic doctor who. why does the enemy need to be a lame pun (although visually effective)? i was under the impression that the warfare of kaleds vs thals was at the level of ww2, even going back to trench warfare. The influence for that sequence seemed to me to be clearly WW1 (I'm pretty sure that Young Davros is wearing puttees); believe me, disembodied hands suddenly appearing out of the mud in the middle of a wasteland is entirely in keeping with the theme.
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Sep 26, 2015 12:34
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Pesky Splinter posted:The biggest difference between Davros and the Daleks is that, unlike them, he possesses a sense of humour. It's normally quite dry or dark depending on the story. "But did you tell anyone that they might be eating their own relatives?" "Certainly not!!! That might have created what I believe is termed...consumer resistance." Join the Revelation Fan Club today, and don't worry if you previously let your membership lapse: we are all past masters at the double entry.
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Sep 27, 2015 13:44
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Overnights are out. The panicky may wish to go sit on the throne before they read this. At the very least it's worth going "hmmmm" over. 3.7 million, a 16.6% share. This is the first sub-4 million overnight figure since 3.6 million for Part 3 of Battlefield, almost exactly 26 years ago to the day. The show was also 5th for Saturday, being beaten obviously by the rugby (which it was directly competing with) and by Strictly, but also was pipped by a short nose by Casualty and the evening news, which it usually beats handily. This is potentially significant because I recall a long conversation on the old Outpost Gallifrey forum before NewWho came back, during which someone in a position to know said something along the lines of (yes, there's a lot of IIRCs and conditionals in there) "Producers these days would sell their family to consistently get 4 million on the overnights and an AI over 75; as long as NewWho gets both of those it'll be renewed forever." Of course that was a long time ago, but it's absolutely not good news for the show to be pulling in similar figures to Casualty. Consolidated rating for episode 1 drops in midweek; that's when we really find out whether there's a serious cause for concern.
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Sep 27, 2015 15:19
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Final consolidated rating for episode 1 is now available. Overnight said 4.58 million watching on original broadcast, consolidated says 6.54 million watching within 7 days of transmission (not including an extra 1.3 million iPlayer requests which apparently still aren't being included by BARB despite rumours to the contrary). Promising signs: This carries on the pattern seen last year of the show putting on a solid 2 million extra viewers on the consolidated ratings week-in week-out. Yes, the raw numbers are slightly down by about half a million or so over midseason last year, but in the current Highly Competitive TV Climate I'd say there's a decent chance of some of them coming back when they aren't quite so spoiled for things to watch. iPlayer views remain steady and among the highest for any BBC show; GMS is on record as saying he likes iPlayer views a lot because they're directly tracking the entire iPlayer-using audience, whereas BARB ratings rely on giving the traditional balanced sample of the population a set-top box and/or viewing diaries to fill out. The AI remains firmly above the 80 mark, which is considered "excellent" for a drama show and where Doctor Who has consistently resided since 2005. The episode also did very well in the USA and in terms of social media engagement. Worrying signs: The opening episode of a series often pulls in a higher rating than the rest (especially one with the Daleks in) as a higher-than-normal proportion of the not-we tune in to see what's happening this year, decide they don't like it, and gently caress off again. This number wouldn't have been out of place in midseason last year and it shouldn't be if the show is holding its audience, so if the numbers start to fall away from here that means the audience is potentially beginning to contract. The audience share is down from last year. In the weekly chart Doctor Who was not only beaten by the traditional sport/reality tentpole combo, but by the "mundane" major dramas Doc Martin and Doctor Foster, and by a clear 650,000 or so, which it usually beats. There's still enough here to worry the easily-worried, but unless things fall off a cliff in the next few weeks then we're still good and the show isn't going anywhere. Take two Imodium and eat plenty of rice and potatoes.
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Sep 28, 2015 17:50
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echoplex posted:The UNIT control room took me about 8, maybe 9 solid days of work for something that's on screen for less than 10 minutes. Did you ever consider sacking it all off and turning in the world's most ridiculous misuse of CSO as a tribute to Barry Letts?
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Sep 28, 2015 23:18
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Maxwell Lord posted:But then, how do we even know about the 'two people who were responsible for getting the show done' bit? What are their names? Who fired them? Here you go, a period article. quote:Private Eye states however that delays and budget issues have emenated from executive producer Piers Wenger, who has now stepped down from BBC Wales head of drama, and then left the BBC to work for Film4, and that it was the dismissal of previous producers Tracie Simpson and Peter Bennett by Wenger and fellow exec producer Beth Willis that caused some of the delays and chaos – and who refused to return to work for the pair when the jobs were offered back to them, working on their own show Baker Boys featuring a number of recent Who alumni. Simpson and Bennett learned how you Get poo poo Done through working closely with Phil Collinson, the original day-to-day producer; Simpson was production manager and Bennett was first AD.
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Oct 1, 2015 22:51
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CaptainYesterday posted:(giant shoehorn left over from Planet of Giants) The kind with teeth?
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Oct 3, 2015 11:53
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Phwoar, that was a bit of all right. No DOCTOR'S GREATEST EVER FOE, no HORRENDOUSLY EVIL UNIVERSE-DESTROYING EVIL PLOT, no HERE'S THE REALLY EMOTIONAL SAD BIT, EVERYONE CRY AT THE SAD BIT. Guest characters with a bit of a chance to breathe. Can we play you every week? Of course, it could all go to pot in part 2. Hope it doesn't.
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Oct 4, 2015 03:51
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Overnights: 3.7 million, 16.3% share, 5th for Saturday, but once again directly competing with the wheels coming off England's sweet chariot. That at least will not be a problem in upcoming weeks!
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Oct 4, 2015 10:18
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SiKboy posted:Yeah, I was kind of against the idea (because then it becomes an easy bill and teds bogus journey solution to a lot of problems) but I think i'm okay with it in this particular case; he isnt going to the past to fix things, just to get information. He's going far back enough that he cant set up the cage and the key and the net and the gun because the base wont exist yet. I just hope there's someone he can go and have dinner with 
Trin Tragula fucked around with this message at 00:23 on Oct 5, 2015 |
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Oct 5, 2015 00:05
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Consolidated rating for The Witch's Familiar: 5.71 million, the lowest since 2005. Or, put another way, a show that used to sit up with Coronation Street and EastEnders in the weekly charts is now being handily beaten by loving Emmerdale. Once again, the limit of timeshifting appears to be about 2 million regardless of whatever else was going on during original broadcast. If ratings stay at this level I wouldn't be surprised if something happens in time for the next series. Meanwhile, Under the Lake got an AI of 84, so at least the people who are left are still enjoying it.
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Oct 7, 2015 00:40
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MrL_JaKiri posted:Contemporary sources show Saward decided very early on that Davros must be included because he found dalek dialogue to be dull. This is the same Eric Saward whose only problem with writing for the logical, emotionless Cybermen was that they were logical and emotionless, correct?
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Oct 7, 2015 12:07
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egon_beeblebrox posted:Man, "The Happiness Patrol" is a Hell of a Thing. Happiness will prevail.
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Oct 9, 2015 03:07
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That'll do, pig. That'll do. If that's the new normal, then the good stuff is going to be mindblowing.
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Oct 10, 2015 22:41
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Overnights: 4.38 million and a 21.5% share, which is good; but still just beaten slightly by Casualty, which is not. Keep it there and Moffat's likely back in the "the job's yours as long as you want it" zone.
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Oct 11, 2015 13:08
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Wheat Loaf posted:I remember hearing it was "every English actor inevitably appears on The Bill and every Scottish actors inevitably appears on Taggart", but I've also heard that David Tennant auditioned for a part on Taggart something like four or five times and still never made it on. David Tennant was, however, on The Bill. A real one with the proper theme tune and opening sequence, too. And it opens with Polly Page being nice to someone in trouble. You can't get more proper The Bill than that. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBUDTNsADxc And he was so good they gave him a double-length special episode instead of the regular half-hour shots they were doing at the time. Trin Tragula fucked around with this message at 19:47 on Oct 13, 2015 |
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Oct 13, 2015 19:45
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jivjov posted:That is literally why overnight ratings have gone down though. Figures that factor in time shifting with DVR or watching online show that the show is doing pretty much just as good as it has been. No it isn't. Everything in this post deals in final numbers with timeshifted viewing included. Matt Smith's tenure had a pretty consistent final ratings average of about 7.5 million, with individual episodes mostly coming in at somewhere between 8.5 and 6.5 million (it was also less volatile than the Tennant years, which could see numbers jumping wildly from 10 million to just over 5 million in the same year). Capaldi's first year only got over 7.5 million as a peak for the first and last episodes, and this year it's looking like the high is 6.5 for the opening episode and everything else is going to be sub-6 million. The audience shares are also leaking from 30-35% down to 20-25%, so it's not like there's fewer people watching TV. In line with this, the show's also sliding alarmingly in the weekly charts. For the second week in a row (Under the Lake's final rating is 5.63 million) it's slid out of the weekly top 20 (in years gone by it was more normally found on the edges of the top 10, bringing in numbers similar to those currently watching Doctor Foster and Doc Martin), and never mind beaten by Emmerdale, Under the Lake nearly got beaten by the sodding Antiques Roadshow. Big tentpole dramas should not be grubbing around at the level of the Antiques Roadshow. Just about the only good news for Under the Lake is that it did manage to put on enough timeshifted viewers to beat Casualty to 3rd place for Saturday; the daily chart is one of the few places (along with the Appreciation Index) where things are "as you were" from previous years. Like it or not, the simple facts are that under RTD the numbers trended gently upwards; under GMS they held more-or-less steady for Matt Smith and are now dropping off gently for Peter Capaldi. There's still the chance of a mid-season rebound now that England are out of the RWC, or alternatively after the tournament ends, but I'm skeptical about that. If you want to check this for yourself, you can pull the numbers from Wikipedia, A Brief History of Time (Travel), or the Doctor Who News Page. As I've been saying, there's no Doctor in Distress just yet, next year's series is already bought and paid for, and we're not in "sack everyone and change everything!" territory; but as a general principle, declining numbers is only a good sign if you're Michael Grade.
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Oct 15, 2015 12:11
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Jerusalem posted:Bernice Summerfield, a character that can be vaguely (though not accurately) described as a proto-River Song River Song is a pound-shop Benny Summerfield
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Oct 16, 2015 11:58
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The original concept was to alternate history stories with science stories, which is why Chesterfield is a science teacher, so he could talk somewhere vaguely near the Doctor's level about the sciency things that he was going to find in the future (and presumably have his mind blown when he learns about plate tectonics and seafloor spreading). I'd have preferred to do without the silly horned helmets, but I can live with it if it's in the service of something that was that good otherwise. I do like the idea of really experimenting and pushing the boundaries of what a two-part story actually is.
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Oct 17, 2015 23:27
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Overnights: 4.7 million (ish, the slightly odd timeslot has made the numbers go a bit screwy), second for the day behind Strictly. No audience share or AI yet, but it's the best overnight of the year so far.
Trin Tragula fucked around with this message at 21:15 on Oct 18, 2015 |
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Oct 18, 2015 20:33
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Jerusalem posted:Was anybody REALLY intrigued/desperate to find out the reason why the Doctor had the same face as Caecilius? I am suddenly very grateful that JN-T/Ian Levine never felt the need to have it explained why Colin Baker's face looked suspiciously like that of Commander Maxil.
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Oct 19, 2015 02:46
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- I mean as "explanations" go it was perfectly fine and a nice little moment, but did anybody really think it was a question that NEEDED to be answered? Or even asked?
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Ratings news continues unabated. AI for The Girl Who Died is 82, a couple of points lower than normal but comfortably over the 80 "excellent" bar for a drama. Before the Flood's final consolidated number is 6.05 million, which should see it about 20th for the week. Mildly interesting that timeshifting only added 1.6 million rather than the more consistent 2 million it has been doing recently. In more interesting news, here's Maisie Williams with a camera on location, watching Peter Capaldi demonstrate his yo-yo skills: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWpwNi7cleY
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Oct 19, 2015 21:04
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RunAndGun posted:You gotta read (watch?) between the (lines?). Does that mean I can read between the lines and say the Doctor deliberately murdered Adric for being too annoying to live?
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Oct 24, 2015 18:40
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I wonder how that two-parter might have come across if they'd gone one step further and split it round another two-parter? I'm not quite sure that it's as profound and meaningful as they thought it was, but it was still very well done.
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Oct 24, 2015 21:15
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As long as in any given story they're treating "The Past" in the same way that Shakespeare treated The Past, sure, historical accuracy is not important. That part 2 was set in The Past, and when exactly it is is in no way important, so fine, cast whoever you want. I can (for instance) go to the Globe and watch them doing Julius Caesar and it doesn't matter that they've got black actors as Cassius and Mark Antony; everything else about "The Past" is so far abstracted that the casting doesn't matter. Where racially-accurate casting becomes important is when the exact period is important somehow to the story, which Doctor Who does far, far more rarely than you might think. Take Human Nature, for instance. Even if you switch in another companion for Martha and ditch her racism subplot, it now detracts greatly from the period setting if you have a couple of black kids as background students at the school and an Indian guy as the mathematics master; the exact period in that story is important enough that everything has to be right, and casting it race-blind then becomes as jarringly anachronistic as giving them all mobile phones. Trin Tragula fucked around with this message at 19:23 on Oct 25, 2015 |
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Oct 25, 2015 19:19
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Overnights: 4.34 million, 20% share, behind Strictly and X Factor, comfortably clear of Casualty. Looks like this is the new normal.
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Oct 26, 2015 00:36
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After The War posted:
You have the avatar of a prattling jackanapes. But your posts, they tell a different story.
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Oct 29, 2015 00:44
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CLARA OSWALD IS A ZYGON That's about all I've got to say about that; it was so utterly unengaging and disjointed as a story that I almost missed whatever the hell point it was trying to make. Except that Peter Capaldi should get more scenes where he delivers passionate speeches in a children's playground. Oh, you know what we need now? The overnight ratings! I'm sure these will be a welcome and improving addition to the ongoing discussion! We are looking at 3.87 million, a 19.4% share, and 5th for Saturday. AI was 82, so at least those who are watching are apparently still enjoying it, but we've dipped back under 4 million/20%. That's a loss of a million on the overnights since The Girl Who Died, at 4.85 million. (That then put on over a million and a half after timeshifting to finish at 6.56 million; The Woman Who Lived went from 4.34 million to 6.11 million. It's going to be very interesting to see next week's overnight and this week's timeshifted number.)
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Nov 3, 2015 22:44
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You Johnny Foreigner types probably all think we're joking, but we're not. Of course, it really hasn't been the same since they ditched the old balloon idents. Magnificent.
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Nov 5, 2015 23:03
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He's less bouncy/hyper/frothy than the previous two, but more intense. Nobody ever complained that Christopher Eccleston didn't have enough energy; it's just a different kind of energy.
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Nov 6, 2015 13:26
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Well, that was interesting enough to make me want to go watch last week again and try to pay attention this time. What an odd little story. Next week looks like some more lovely classic-style goodness.Mr Beens posted:That was a good episode. With some shuffling of stuff and tight editing I reckon you could boil this whole 2 parter into 1 episode. Cut all the running about all over the world cruft, spend 25 minutes at the start getting Clara captured and the zygons in the room with Kate and Osgood setting up the standoff, Doctor arrives in the tardis, proceed as it was. This sounds like a challenge, and I've got far more pressing things to avoid doing. Watch this space.
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Nov 7, 2015 23:50
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I liked it, I think, although it's far too weird to be flawless and perfect, and am making a loud farting noise in your general direction. At least it wasn't dull like the Zygon part one. Worth watching again in 48 hours to examine the Emperor's sense of haute couture more closely.
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Nov 16, 2015 01:53
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MrL_JaKiri posted:I should do my own version of the Editorium but without being Phil Sandifer, which I hope everyone can agree is a massive natural advantage from the off I would absolutely read on a regular basis long-winded thoughts about Doctor Who that weren't being written by a completely insufferable grandiloquent twerp, just in case anyone's thinking of seriously doing this. Actually, you know what else I'd like to see? A "First Law of Doctor Who Fans" blog, where all the entries are split 50/50 between "I really liked this!" and then someone else gets to go "Nah mate actually it's like this".
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Nov 18, 2015 21:01
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MrL_JaKiri posted:Is it the reliquary containing a genuine finger bone from our lord Billy Hartnell I stand amazed. I thought they only came in boxes of ten! http://dai.ly/xjemxb?start=1284
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Nov 19, 2015 21:43
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| # ¿ Apr 19, 2024 08:18 |
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And a very happy 52nd birthday to all of you at home! There is only one way to celebrate. http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x23j8l3_an-unearthly-child-1-an-unearthly-child_shortfilms The exact time to watch this, if you're a real stickler, is 5:16pm in the Queen's Own Time Zone, which is 12:16 Eastern (any other Johnny Foreigner types can work it out for themselves). It's still the best 23 minutes the show's ever done.
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Nov 23, 2015 14:29
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