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.

[VioletDove]

I love me some Doctor Who!!!

I remember being around five or six staying up what seemed really late back then but was only 10pm. My brother and I would sit there in front of the tv filled with static and watch the reruns on channel 13. Some of the episodes were kind of scary but I couldn’t get enough. Back then the costumes didn’t seem so bad but looking back they were pretty bad.

We just celebrated my brothers 50th birthday and I’m a few years behind him but it is still something that we both enjoy to this day. I even knitted him a scarf one Christmas a few years ago that looked like the 4th Doctor’s.

[kdog]

I remember back in the mid to late 70's watching Dr Who with Tom Baker on BBC that can on in the US via the PBS channel. Sam many BBC shows on there.

[MisterSpock]

I'm a new who'er. Didn't watch the old ones, but watched the 05 reboot "live"(as in weekly when aired). I loved it and it was hands down best thing on tv. 

I'm a big fan up until matts dr. After that, it's hot garbage. 

Still love rewatching the first 3 "new" doctors though.

[Wallfire]

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.

I had to hunt for that Dr Who, its an old one. But I love the ants   .  At the start of the week I was a bit under the weather so I watched Planet of the spiders (Jon Pertwee ). The spiders were shall we say, in a class of there own   . But it was all part of the charm. There was another one were people were covered in bubble wrap painted green, I will have to search for its name

[BIAD]

I'm a new who'er. Didn't watch the old ones, but watched the 05 reboot "live"(as in weekly when aired). I loved it and it was hands down best thing on tv. 

I'm a big fan up until matts dr. After that, it's hot garbage. 

Still love rewatching the first 3 "new" doctors though.

It must be forty years ago that I stopped being an avid watcher of Dr Who, merely because of other commitments
that we all have. Don't get me wrong, I still believe the series was part of the 'British culture' and because of its
poor budget, reflected the realities of that time.

Other BBC 'sci-fi' programmes also endured the flimsy walls, bouncing polystyrene rocks and questionable fashion
sense! Plot lines may fluctuate as actors came and went and the 'origins' of a character wasn't really important to a viewer,
the programme was.
In Wikipedia, it states:
"...The Doctor was originally known as the Timeless Child, as revealed in "The Timeless Children" (2020)"

What the hell? I don't recall William Hartnell's character stating this. From my memories, he was a grouchy guy from another
world who was smarter than humans. That was it! There was no continuity concerns until Hartnell became too ill to perform
and only then did they come up with the idea of 'regeneration' with Patrick Troughton. The second Doctor never mentioned
he was 'the Timeless Child' either and the idea of canon was obviously way ahead in the future.
(In fact, apart from the name 'Gallifrey', I'd suggest the majority of the Doctors never went into this own personal history.)
...................

Steptoe and Son -a weekly comedy about a father and son rag-and-bone (scrapyard) business, brought in around twenty
million viewers for one its episodes in 1964 and the Royal Variety Performance captured 24.2 million a year later It seems
the adult viewership level was accepted considering the 'Swinging Sixties' was supposedly happening, which rarely involved
sitting in front of a TV set!

Steptoe and Son was the BBC's offering to the working-class, where as Dr Who catered for young minds of all social levels.
Ironically, the two Steptoes lived in a hovel filled with unwanted junk and the son wanted a better life that the middle-class had.
It's another insight to how the BBC saw their diverse audiences.

But dumping the Dr Who series  in 1990 -with a paltry audience of 4.5 million, might seem a wise decision when dealing with
ratings, but couldn't it be also argued as a means of escape in a time of high inflation and high unemployment?

In my humble opinion, Dr Who was the vanguard of youngster-interested programmes, but then -as now, the public's
influence and desires were never taken into consideration and I believe the decision to drop the series in 1990 had more
to do with in-house wrangling at the BBC, rather than taking into consideration the country's political and economic situation.

There's more to this than meets the eye.

[BIAD]

I had to hunt for that Dr Who, its an old one. But I love the ants   .  At the start of the week I was a bit under the weather
so I watched Planet of the spiders (Jon Pertwee ). The spiders were shall we say, in a class of there own   .
But it was all part of the charm.

There was another one were people were covered in bubble wrap painted green, I will have to search for its name

Yes, special-effects in the Who series involved materials that would now have a warning comment before the start
of the programme! There's enjoyment to be had in just searching for the old images too!

[Wallfire]

I always thought that the term "Timeless child" referred to his earthly granddaughter or something, but not to him

[BIAD]

I always thought that the term "Timeless child" referred to his earthly granddaughter or something, but not to him

Yep, but if a person who looked into the Doctor had never actually seen the first... let's say three series, a look on
that Wikipedia page would give them the impression that the Timeless Child title was a prominent feature in the
canon.
History rewritten.

[Wallfire]

Here we are talking about a program that was on TV over 50 years ago. God we are



                                                                  OLD

[Michigan Swamp Buck]

I remember back in the mid to late 70's watching Dr Who with Tom Baker on BBC that can on in the US via the PBS channel. Sam many BBC shows on there.

I had the same experience. I lived in the Detroit area, and I remember that in 1978, when I was in middle school, our family moved to another house. Analog satellite TV was being scrambled and basic cable services were expensive and sucked. So we put up a good antenna way up at the peak of the roof (2 stories) and would watch broadcast TV.

The Detroit area had plenty of stations, ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS-USA, PBS-Canada, CBC from Canada, and a couple of independent stations like WGPR (a black owned and operated station) and a couple of religious networks. On good days I could pick up even more. So I had every possible station tuned in on my channel selection and got hooked on Monty Python, The Goodies, and of course Dr. Who played by Tom Baker (my favorite Dr.). Not many people I knew watched any Canadian stations other than occasionally CBC channel 9 that didn't have too much British programming really. Few people I knew heard of Monty Python and even less about the good Doctor.

I then leaned about the whole Dr. Who series and watched the early movies with the Daleks and Peter Cushing as the Doctor. I've seen the latest Doctor and even the episode with his new regeneration as a woman. Not much of a fan of the new stuff after that, "I say! Not very traditional this new doctor. The Queen should hear about this. Pass us the tea will you Mum?"