Dr Who And The Credit He Deserves.

[BIAD]

During my sleepy flu-ridden early retirement to bed, I recalled that I had a sh*tty antenna that could possibly pick-up an
odd channel on an old TV set we still had in the bedroom. Failing to locate anything worthy of viewing, I switched it off
and reminisced on programmes of when I was younger.

The next day, I wondered about an episode of Doctor Who that I watched when -wait for it, when I was five years-old!
Realising this may also draw Wallfire's attention, I pushed-on to find the episode's name and when it was broadcast.

I remembered that characters wore ridiculous costumes and it was set on a barren planet. The plot alluded me, but the
outfits were certainly memorable. A guy dressed as bee, something that looked like a cross between a woodlouse and
nail-brush and two guys dressed as giant ants.

Then just by chance, I found the programme's title. 'The Web Planet'.

The crappy 'special-effects' for this episode were sparse -to say the least, but it was 1965 and one might take the rarely
-mentioned viewing figures that today's MSM report as factual and say "See..? quality is the cause here!"
Yes, that was the narrative I grew up with, the series -in its current state drew poor viewership, seemed destined to fade
away from the licence-fee-paying enjoyment of Saturday evenings.

William Hartnell, the time-travelling Doctor and his chums just weren't hacking it with trendy UK public sitting beside their
monochrome sets back in 1965.



Here's some images to display what I mean.



But it was those elusive ratings that caught my attention.
Today we have a multitude of equipment to access our entertainment and I can appreciate that such a range would have
a bearing on current figures. Back then, many families couldn't afford a TV set, however radio was still big in Great Britain.

These are the recent ratings taken from  'Doctor Who TV'
2020-21 Episode Ratings
  Overnight    Consolidated (+7) +4-Screen
Ep 01 4.88m     6.70m                     6.89m
Ep 02 4.60m     5.91m                     6.07m
Ep 03 4.19m     5.25m                     5.38m
Ep 04 4.04m     5.07m                     5.20m
Ep 05 4.21m     5.42m                     5.57m
Ep 06 3.97m     5.09m                     5.22m
Ep 07 3.81m     4.77m                     4.90m
Ep 08 3.86m     4.95m                     5.07m
Ep 09 3.71m     4.85m                     4.99m
Ep 10 3.78m     4.55m                     4.69m
Special 4.69m     6.25m                     6.35m

So back to the weird episode of man-size-bees and shuffling nail-brushes. The poor rating...? 13.5 million.
The BBC is dying, but it wasn't back then, it's now.