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Throughout New Who's run, it's almost been impossible to escape a kind of hyper-vigilance among fans about how well each episode did in the ratings.
At first this seemed understandable. Ratings were often given as the official reason the show was originally first suspended and then taken off air (or going further back to Season 18, the reason it was first moved in the schedules from its secure slot). And it was often preached that fandom couldn't repeat that hubris folly of ignoring what the general public thought, and letting noxious fan politics take hold of the show again.
(Though that said, there are quotes from Levine even before the suspension crisis, using falling ratings to vindicate his disdain for Season 17)
I perhaps naively thought that it was a concern that would die down after the first two seasons or so. That fans would simply trust after a year or two of good ratings that the casual audience wasn't going anywhere and the show was secure.
But by Series 5 I noticed this seemingly neurotic anxiety wasn't going away. I remember even The Beast Below, Girl Who Waited and even Vampires in Venice, being talked of as being potentially dangerous to the ratings for the risk of being too clever for the masses and likely to make them lose interest.
As if the moment in Vampires in Venice where Matt Smith reveals William Hartnell's library card was instantly going to make viewers who'd loved Tennant have a fit of confusion and decide to suddenly switch off in an allergic reaction.
This ratings anxiety was promoted constantly through fandom in order to try and make us all toe the line and accept that the trash elements were a necessary evil to keep people watching.
I'm now at a point however where I feel rather bitter about the fact this harping about ratings was clearly all for nothing. It seems to be becoming clear now that no matter how bad the ratings get, the BBC just do not want to kill the show. They're determined to keep it alive.
Certainly times have changed since the 80's when the BBC only seemed to keep it on at all begrudgingly but were not interested in ensuring it's a success.
Now it's the opposite. Now it's the flagship show and they will not let it sink.
Sure the BBC are clearly concerned about the ratings and are trying to boost them (hence the changing of the timeslot), but even then it seems with the evidence of bad ratings they still want to find ways to keep it alive for the last viewer standing regardless, rather than reach for any excuse to kill it.
Maybe because the BBC still hold out hope it can be so successful again. And they are more interested in worldwide success and sales than they used to be, and Doctor Who has obviously more international appeal than Eastenders. Which is also a turnaround from the classic era.
But isn't it frustrating that we were warned for so long about the need to not let the show slip in the ratings, and the anxiety it whipped up in the fanbase, and all apparently for nothing, and that it was all just empty fearmongering?
At first this seemed understandable. Ratings were often given as the official reason the show was originally first suspended and then taken off air (or going further back to Season 18, the reason it was first moved in the schedules from its secure slot). And it was often preached that fandom couldn't repeat that hubris folly of ignoring what the general public thought, and letting noxious fan politics take hold of the show again.
(Though that said, there are quotes from Levine even before the suspension crisis, using falling ratings to vindicate his disdain for Season 17)
I perhaps naively thought that it was a concern that would die down after the first two seasons or so. That fans would simply trust after a year or two of good ratings that the casual audience wasn't going anywhere and the show was secure.
But by Series 5 I noticed this seemingly neurotic anxiety wasn't going away. I remember even The Beast Below, Girl Who Waited and even Vampires in Venice, being talked of as being potentially dangerous to the ratings for the risk of being too clever for the masses and likely to make them lose interest.
As if the moment in Vampires in Venice where Matt Smith reveals William Hartnell's library card was instantly going to make viewers who'd loved Tennant have a fit of confusion and decide to suddenly switch off in an allergic reaction.
This ratings anxiety was promoted constantly through fandom in order to try and make us all toe the line and accept that the trash elements were a necessary evil to keep people watching.
I'm now at a point however where I feel rather bitter about the fact this harping about ratings was clearly all for nothing. It seems to be becoming clear now that no matter how bad the ratings get, the BBC just do not want to kill the show. They're determined to keep it alive.
Certainly times have changed since the 80's when the BBC only seemed to keep it on at all begrudgingly but were not interested in ensuring it's a success.
Now it's the opposite. Now it's the flagship show and they will not let it sink.
Sure the BBC are clearly concerned about the ratings and are trying to boost them (hence the changing of the timeslot), but even then it seems with the evidence of bad ratings they still want to find ways to keep it alive for the last viewer standing regardless, rather than reach for any excuse to kill it.
Maybe because the BBC still hold out hope it can be so successful again. And they are more interested in worldwide success and sales than they used to be, and Doctor Who has obviously more international appeal than Eastenders. Which is also a turnaround from the classic era.
But isn't it frustrating that we were warned for so long about the need to not let the show slip in the ratings, and the anxiety it whipped up in the fanbase, and all apparently for nothing, and that it was all just empty fearmongering?
