Why did series 5 experience a dip in ratings?

Most of us here seem to agree that series 5 is more tolerable than the majority of RTD’s output, but why were the ratings noticeably weaker than they were during the RTD era? Was it down to the departure of Tennant’s Doctor? Was it down to Moffat’s initial style somewhat deviating from RTD’s?

I was curious to ponder this, as if the ratings decline was a result of either of the above, it seems to elucidate just how short-term and unsustainable the populist appeal of NuWho always was- an argument raised frequently on the “Success of New Who” thread.

Bernard Marx wrote:Was it down to the departure of Tennant’s Doctor?

Mostly, yes. A lot of non-fans I've spoken to over the years basically regarded it as The David Tennant Show and didn't even like Eccleston despite his era also adhering to the same RTD style.

I think it was a mixture of the departure of Tennant (and inevitable skepticism about his successor), a sense that End of Time had been something of an end-game conclusion, and therefore any further series was just going to be tacked on to a done story, or seem an inferior sequel.

Maybe they were just left tired by the RTD specials. Or maybe a gap year of specials just meant they fell out of the habit of watching the show serially.

Some have suggested maybe they felt there was just no points of familiarity for them in Series 5, because it was different Doctor and different companions, and even River Song didn't feel like quite the same character. Therefore they found it harder to care or invest.

Because RTD was no more....

Rani wrote:Because RTD was no more....

That was the happiest day of my life

ClockworkOcean wrote:

Bernard Marx wrote:Was it down to the departure of Tennant’s Doctor?

Mostly, yes. A lot of non-fans I've spoken to over the years basically regarded it as The David Tennant Show and didn't even like Eccleston despite his era also adhering to the same RTD style.

There's a lot of factors that people like Tanmann have pointed out, but this was probably the biggest one. People tend to forget that Smith was kind of lambasted for either being too young or too ugly to play the Doctor, not even bothering to remember that both Davison played the part (I'd argue that Davison looked younger as the Doctor than Smith) or that most Doctors have distinguished faces, Smith included.

Also, on Eccleston's Doctor, he might as well be a Classic Doctor (for the record, this doesn't equal to the quality of his Doctor/era) due to people disregarding him due to some people saying that he's not hot or too old.

SomeCallMeEnglishGiraffe wrote:

ClockworkOcean wrote:

Bernard Marx wrote:Was it down to the departure of Tennant’s Doctor?

Mostly, yes. A lot of non-fans I've spoken to over the years basically regarded it as The David Tennant Show and didn't even like Eccleston despite his era also adhering to the same RTD style.

There's a lot of factors that people like Tanmann have pointed out, but this was probably the biggest one. People tend to forget that Smith was kind of lambasted for either being too young or too ugly to play the Doctor, not even bothering to remember that both Davison played the part (I'd argue that Davison looked younger as the Doctor than Smith) or that most Doctors have distinguished faces, Smith included.

Also, on Eccleston's Doctor, he might as well be a Classic Doctor (for the record, this doesn't equal to the quality of his Doctor/era) due to people disregarding him due to some people saying that he's not hot or too old.

Good points raised. I suppose the lack of warm reception to Capaldi’s Doctor furthers your last point as well, and I suppose Eccleston wasn’t around long enough for anyone to get too attached or care too much anyway.

On another note (and this may reveal my young age rather noticeably), I recall being ridiculed for enjoying Smith back in 2010 whilst at school, whilst everyone else seemed to stick to the Tennant bandwagon.

Probably a bit too smart and too much like the real show for the fake fans of the fake show.

I do have conflicted feelings about season 5 though and I wonder if other fans did. Whilst Matt Smith was a far more intriguing, alien character than Tennant's lothario Jamie Oliver impersonator, for all the occasional good stories there always seemed a childish element to the series which has often been apparent in pubehead's work before and since. I wonder if, despite some good stories at times, it didn't lure me back in until the damage was done.

I think the young good looking Doctor thing gets a bit exaggerated. Smith had a lot of appeal that way anyway. Personally I've known far more Smith era fangirls than Tennant ones.

I think the main reason was what I have pointed out in previous threads, lack of continuity.

Continuity is NOT just for nerds. Excessive continuity is, but there always needs to be a link in something like DW where it changes all the time.

Lets compare Pertwee to Baker shall we.

Jon was the David Tennant of his era. Everybody loved him, he'd been there the longest, he was also a more straight forward hero like Tennant, he had a huge family around him (Children of Time, UNIT family.) He was more like other contemporary heroes etc.

When he left however the viewers didn't dip at all, because the transition was smooth.

The Brig was there for two stories of Tom's first two years, the Daleks a staple of the late Pertwee era was there, Sarah was there for a year with Jon, UNIT showed up in 4 stories of Tom's first two years.

Sarah didn't leave until the second story of Tom's third year. By that point however Tom was more than established so it could easily severe all ties with the Pertwee era no problem.

Look at Matt's first year however? Humanity being aware of aliens is junked right away. Like it or not, that's a big story people had followed for years. No RTD characters appear to ease the transition. Virtually no other story arcs are continued. The Cybermen, the Daleks (other than a very vague connection in Victory, which even then is quietly dropped.)

Sure some old monsters appear, but even then that's not enough IMO. Smith felt like a totally different show to Tennant. Moffat should have carried on some of the RTD era stories, like Hinchcliff did with the tropes of the Pertwee era, and phased them out slowly.

Doing it in one big royal flush was a mistake.

Look at Matt's first year however? Humanity being aware of aliens is junked right away. Like it or not, that's a big story people had followed for years. No RTD characters appear to ease the transition. Virtually no other story arcs are continued. The Cybermen, the Daleks (other than a very vague connection in Victory, which even then is quietly dropped.)

Sure some old monsters appear, but even then that's not enough IMO. Smith felt like a totally different show to Tennant. Moffat should have carried on some of the RTD era stories, like Hinchcliff did with the tropes of the Pertwee era, and phased them out slowly.

Doing it in one big royal flush was a mistake.

Well, to be fair that wasn't really Moffat's fault.

It was RTD who decided to remove and give a conclusive send-off to all the characters and elements of his era. Moffat simply inherited that clean slate.

Sure, maybe he could've brought back Sally Sparrow and Lawrence, instead of creating Amy and Rory, but I don't know if they were available. Maybe it would've made a difference, maybe not.

The mistake I think he did make however, as I alluded to before, was that the one familiar element from Tennant's era he brought back was River.

Except, rather than her becoming the eyes and ears for the audience to recognize and accept this new Doctor and era as the same one, Moffat decides to treat her as a figure of increasing suspicion at a time when Tennant fans might already have been suspicious about the new Doctor and era.

That, I think was the mistake.

Sorry it was still Moffat's fault.

I wouldn't expect or want him to bring back say Rose or Donna. They are not the type of characters you would bring back anyway.

Captain Jack meanwhile was screaming for a return appearance. He could have been like New Who's version of the Brig, IE his friend he meets in every life.

John Barrowman would have been more than happy for a guest appearance, and he could have been slotted into a story quite easily.

Also a companion should IMO always transition from one Doctor to the next. The only time that didn't happen was Pertwee to Troughton, but even then the Pertwee era is more or less a sequel to the War Games with the Doctor being exiled because of what happened in that story.

Added to that wiping out the earth invasions was a mistake, and being so lazy with the Daleks was another big mistake too.

The RTD era had built the Daleks up to be the biggest threat of all time. If they ever rebuilt then that would be it, no one could stop them. The last time it took the Time Lords, this time no one will be that powerful.

Journey's End for all its flaws wraps this up rather nicely. A full Dalek empire threatens every universe, the cost to stop it is huge, and they only win because one of the Daleks betrays them from the inside.

So with this in mind, why after Victory when they have rebuilt do they just go back to being intergalactic conquerors?

I don't get why the Doctor wasn't desperate to track them down after Victory? He knows they have the power to destroy all life? What makes him think they won't try again?

I always rationalised it that it was because the progenitor came from an earlier point in Dalek history, so these Daleks were now more primitive, but when they are shown to be working with Davros in the season 9 two parter that doesn't make any sense as Davros should have given them the secrets of the reality bomb.

However all of that is just glossed over along with the earth invasions, Torchwood, Jack and anything of note from the RTD era until the 50th all of which made it feel like a different show.

The reason for this was because of Moffat's idea of "treat the show like its yours." And the "each era has to be a total reboot." The old series never really did that the same way.

Sure writers and producers might have had their own takes on it, but they still treated it like the same show.

Hence why Hinchcliff kept Sarah on, why he didn't just dump UNIT right away, hence why Williams followed on from Genesis, why JNT followed on from Hinchcliff RE the Master, and why he followed on from Williams RE Davros being frozen etc.

Obviously yes there would be some blips along the way (like how did Davros get the mind control thing in Resurrection?) Still overall it all flowed and felt like one narrative.

With Tennant to Smith however, the earth invasions are quietly retconned out without a proper explanation, Torchwood is never mentioned, the Daleks story arc vanishes, even the Cybusmen arc is quietly forgotten about. It all feels so disjointed and IMO that drove a lot of loyal RTD era fans away.

burrunjor wrote:Sorry it was still Moffat's fault.

I wouldn't expect or want him to bring back say Rose or Donna. They are not the type of characters you would bring back anyway.

Captain Jack meanwhile was screaming for a return appearance. He could have been like New Who's version of the Brig, IE his friend he meets in every life.

John Barrowman would have been more than happy for a guest appearance, and he could have been slotted into a story quite easily.

Also a companion should IMO always transition from one Doctor to the next.  The only time that didn't happen was Pertwee to Troughton, but even then the Pertwee era is more or less a sequel to the War Games with the Doctor being exiled because of what happened in that story.

Added to that wiping out the earth invasions was a mistake, and being so lazy with the Daleks was another big mistake too.

The RTD era had built the Daleks up to be the biggest threat of all time. If they ever rebuilt then that would be it, no one could stop them. The last time it took the Time Lords, this time no one will be that powerful.

Journey's End for all its flaws wraps this up rather nicely. A full Dalek empire threatens every universe, the cost to stop it is huge, and they only win because one of the Daleks betrays them from the inside.

So with this in mind, why after Victory when they have rebuilt do they just go back to being intergalactic conquerors?

I don't get why the Doctor wasn't desperate to track them down after Victory? He knows they have the power to destroy all life? What makes him think they won't try again?  

I always rationalised it that it was because the progenitor came from an earlier point in Dalek history, so these Daleks were now more primitive, but when they are shown to be working with Davros in the season 9 two parter that doesn't make any sense as Davros should have given them the secrets of the reality bomb.

However all of that is just glossed over along with the earth invasions, Torchwood, Jack and anything of note from the RTD era until the 50th all of which made it feel like a different show.

The reason for this was because of Moffat's idea of "treat the show like its yours." And the "each era has to be a total reboot." The old series never really did that the same way.

Sure writers and producers might have had their own takes on it, but they still treated it like the same show.

Hence why Hinchcliff kept Sarah on, why he didn't just dump UNIT right away, hence why Williams followed on from Genesis, why JNT followed on from Hinchcliff RE the Master, and why he followed on from Williams RE Davros being frozen etc.

Obviously yes there would be some blips along the way (like how did Davros get the mind control thing in Resurrection?) Still overall it all flowed and felt like one narrative.

With Tennant to Smith however, the earth invasions are quietly retconned out without a proper explanation, Torchwood is never mentioned, the Daleks story arc vanishes, even the Cybusmen arc is quietly forgotten about. It all feels so disjointed and IMO that drove a lot of loyal RTD era fans away.

This is one of the things I hate most about the Fitzroy crowd. It feels like they think working with characters and story arcs left behind by their predecessors is somehow beneath them, the only exceptions being when there's some major reinvention/retconning involved or (as with Series 12) sheer desperation during a mass exodus of viewers.

ClockworkOcean wrote:This is one of the things I hate most about the Fitzroy crowd. It feels like they think working with characters and story arcs left behind by their predecessors is somehow beneath them, the only exceptions being when there's some major reinvention/retconning involved or (as with Series 12) sheer desperation during a mass exodus of viewers.

Agreed and again what's annoying is that its just one of these myths that refuses to die. People always say that the show needs to completely reboot itself when a new Doctor arrives.

When did it ever do that? Seriously? Name me one change that is a total reboot?

Hartnell to Troughton? No, Ben and Polly are there for a whole year with Troughton, whilst the Daleks show up twice. Hell there is even a Historical in Troughton's first year, whilst the Cybermen were also introduced in Hartnell's time.

Pertwee as I've been over is basically a sequel to Troughton's era via the exile.

Pertwee to Baker, again so much was carried over from the Pertwee era.

Tom to Davison, again Adric was there for a year with Tom, even Nyssa and Teegan joined with Tom, whilst the Ainley Master killed Tom off.

Colin to Davison has Peri, as well as Ainley, and even Lytton. Hell even Baker to McCoy has Maxil's favourite crossing over.

Also look at Mondas being destroyed, the Dalek civil war, the Master looking for new bodies to prolong his life, the Movellan war, the Brig's friendship with the Doctor. These all span multiple Doctors eras with a fair amount of consistency.

To say it rebooted itself completely is absurd. Incidentally as I mentioned before I think this is why New Who gets thumped on DVD by Classic Who every year.

When I was younger I wanted to see all of DW. I had my favourite Doctors and eras, but to me it all felt like one big story. I wanted to see all of it.

New Who however? Why would a Tennant era fan even want the Matt Smith era never mind Jodie's?

None of his characters appear, and even those who do are radically different, no story arcs flow. Similarly look at the Capaldi to Whittaker eras. Missy's story arc is abandoned, no characters cross over, no story arcs continue.

I reckon most New Who fans only like one era of the show.

burrunjor wrote:The RTD era had built the Daleks up to be the biggest threat of all time. If they ever rebuilt then that would be it, no one could stop them. The last time it took the Time Lords, this time no one will be that powerful.

Journey's End for all its flaws wraps this up rather nicely. A full Dalek empire threatens every universe, the cost to stop it is huge, and they only win because one of the Daleks betrays them from the inside.

So with this in mind, why after Victory when they have rebuilt do they just go back to being intergalactic conquerors?

I don't get why the Doctor wasn't desperate to track them down after Victory? He knows they have the power to destroy all life? What makes him think they won't try again?

I have to say I agree with this.

It was clear Moffat didn't really rate the Daleks much as enemies (plus he was probably exercising some damage control after the paradigm Daleks met a backlash), and made no secret of his contempt for them, in a way that kind of broke the fiction.

Moffat may not take them seriously as a threat but the Doctor still should.

And I have to say a part of me was left thinking 'if the Doctor doesn't care anymore, why should I?'

The reason for this was because of Moffat's idea of "treat the show like its yours." And the "each era has to be a total reboot." The old series never really did that the same way.

I'd somewhat disagree there. Spearhead from Space was definitely something of a fresh reboot for the show (indeed Terrance Dicks always said he felt every new Doctor Who story should be treated as though it might be someone's first). So was the Hinchcliffe era (if Pertwee or Tom's era had been the only era of Doctor Who ever broadcast, it would still make sense as a TV show in its own right, in a way none of the eras after would).

The Key to Time season was definitely a reboot of sorts. City of Death also works as one.

Davison's first four stories felt like a clean-slate reboot, and an all-new approach. A shame it didn't last (or possibly that the show didn't end neatly there).

Hence why Hinchcliff kept Sarah on, why he didn't just dump UNIT right away, hence why Williams followed on from Genesis, why JNT followed on from Hinchcliff RE the Master, and why he followed on from Williams RE Davros being frozen etc.

Well to be fair to Hinchcliffe, I think the reason he didn't junk UNIT right away is simply because he'd inherited several scripts from the previous era that were UNIT-centric, and writers who still wanted to do something with UNIT. Plus it just made sense that if Sarah or Harry were to leave, it'd be in a UNIT-based story.

Williams, likewise I think only brought Davros back because Terry Nation insisted on it and he held the copyright to the Daleks' use.

As for JNT's era, I think the way it reached back so far was actually anomalous, and not in a good way. But at the same time, IMO, Romana was removed far too soon.

I'm increasingly of the mind that the era should only ever have brought back continuity elements that had been remembered from Tom Baker's era, and even then it should've really only been elements from the Williams era (Sontarans, Daleks, Guardians). Anything earlier than Season 15 was pushing it.

Beyond that, the focus should've been on building on what they had new, such as the Vampires, the Mara, the Eternals, and any number of the ideas in the Lost Stories.

Simply because some success stories should have their time. The Master was revived, as were Omega, the Silurians, but I would say in the 80's their story was continued, but in a very empty, zombified fashion, because really their story was already done back in the 70's.

With Tennant to Smith however, the earth invasions are quietly retconned out without a proper explanation, Torchwood is never mentioned, the Daleks story arc vanishes, even the Cybusmen arc is quietly forgotten about. It all feels so disjointed and IMO that drove a lot of loyal RTD era fans away.

I think if they'd been quietly faded out it wouldn't have presented the same problem.

I think to a degree the invasion Earth stories were emotionally important to the Tennant fans because to them they were a way of seeing the Doctor, in desperately saving our world, work through the grief and guilt of having lost his own. And I think maybe moving on from that in Moffat's era, a certain poignancy was lost.

But the act of retconning them out of existence, I think did present a problem. To explicitly say certain stories now never happened and don't matter, and it can happen to any story.... I think that was a breaking of a viewer agreement to the new fans, and left them saying 'okay, I struggle to care now, and I don't think I'm that interested'.

I think even I slowly, subtly felt it.

I don't buy it. I don't think the general viewer would notice or care about that sort of thing, it's a very fannish thing to notice. I think it's more that it wasn't Tennant, and that it wasn't quite as dumb and frenetic as it had been.
I also think the Davies era had pretty much peaked, and would have declined similarly even if they'd both stayed on. Whatever you think of him, Davies was a showman and, like all showmen, he knew when to get off the stage.

Apart from Tinich going and breaking a few fangirl hearts, I do think that when a TV show or film series makes a grand climax, everything that follows it no matter how good is an anticlimax.

I'm not saying End Of Time was good, it was IMO abysmal.
However for the generation that grew up with RTD & Tennant it was an almighty full stop, and what ever followed it may not interest a section of the audience who took that full stop as their leaving point.

I think the MCU could be facing the same kind of drop off after Endgame...

burrunjor wrote:Also look at Mondas being destroyed, the Dalek civil war, the Master looking for new bodies to prolong his life, the Movellan war, the Brig's friendship with the Doctor. These all span multiple Doctors eras with a fair amount of consistency.

To say it rebooted itself completely is absurd. Incidentally as I mentioned before I think this is why New Who gets thumped on DVD by Classic Who every year.

When I was younger I wanted to see all of DW. I had my favourite Doctors and eras, but to me it all felt like one big story. I wanted to see all of it.

New Who however? Why would a Tennant era fan even want the Matt Smith era never mind Jodie's?

None of his characters appear, and even those who do are radically different, no story arcs flow. Similarly look at the Capaldi to Whittaker eras. Missy's story arc is abandoned, no characters cross over, no story arcs continue.

I reckon most New Who fans only like one era of the show.

What you've said here does resonate with me actually.

Maybe I should qualify my earlier point about the 'reaching back' approach in JNT's era.

Maybe it wasn't a bad idea. Maybe (to paraphrase Moffat) it was actually a good idea that, sadly, happened to the wrong team. But occasionally in that period we saw how in Earthshock, The Five Doctors and Remembrance of the Daleks the idea could be done beautifully, vitally right.

You're right that as a kid, at least two of those three stories did leave me with a sense of wanting to see more of the show's history and to know it all.

Maybe you're right, at least concerning the first three and last two seasons of the era, that it was a good way to interest the kids into sticking around, long-term. Unfortunately, there's a horrid, nasty mid-section between them that rather leaves me regretting that I did, and feels more like a nihilistic quagmire than an unfolding silk thread.

As for New Who, it might even be that that linked overstory approach with the Daleks, Time War, Bad Wolf, Fob Watches, and Cult of Skaro, is what made RTD's era appeal to fans and for some, even feel like it was taking a leaf from the JNT approach and doing it one better, at least on that score.

I don't know if Moffat needed to find something in that story to continue. He needed a new story maybe, but I don't think he really had one to offer. Just colliding bits of one he tried badly to streamline into a big, weighty conspiracy.

The cracks in time just didn't build to any greater intrigue in the way the Time War did. It was just something the series occasionally pointed to as a 'notice me!' mystery.

In terms of what to draw from RTD's era, there was River Song and that was it. And frankly there came a point where he was trying to make too much out of her and the conspiracy behind her creation than the character or series was ever designed to sustain.

The Impossible Girl idea kind of worked, but it was a bit too little too late by then.

Then there was the Hybrid idea and, well, the less said about that, the better.....

Why did series 5 experience a dip in ratings?

Pretty easy question to answer.

It was because by that point in time the show had been tailor made and marketed for the most vacuous thicko and shallow audience imaginable and the Ten-squee fangirls didn't like Joseph Merrick being cast in the leading role and all threw their toys out of the pram because they felt that they couldn't finger themselves whilst watching it any longer.

Rob Filth wrote:

Why did series 5 experience a dip in ratings?

Pretty easy question to answer.

It was because by that point in time the show had been tailor made and marketed for the most vacuous thicko and shallow audience imaginable and the Ten-squee fangirls didn't like Joseph Merrick being cast in the leading role and all threw their toys out of the pram because they felt that they couldn't finger themselves whilst watching it any longer.

This was the first thing I read after being off the forum for a little bit. I almost spat my drink out laughing at your post.