TARDIS Report: Weekend Coverage
Sunday, 4 June 2006 - Reported by Shaun Lyon
UK Ratings Update
Friday night's repeat of The Idiot's Lantern continued the 2005/2006 trend for higher BBC Three figures when the BBC One overnights have dipped, with an overnight audience of 407,500, an audience share of 2.6%, enough to top the 9pm non-terrestrial timeslot and fifth-placed in Friday's multichannel Top 10, its nearest rival on the digital channels being ITV3's Audience with Billy Connolly on 332,000. The week's total audience for The Idiot's Lantern in the overnights now stands at 7.34m, ahead of next week's release of the consolidated figures. Once timeshift figures are available, it is likely that the episode's total audience will be a little over eight million, below the series' average this year, but still leaving the show as one television's top performing programmes, even at its lowest audience level.
The rerun of the seventh Doctor Who Confidential Cut Down was watched by 212,800 (1.3% share). Doctor Who's slightly reduced audience this week is more than matched by significant ratings drops across UK television, with Friday's EastEnders for example being watched by only 7.6m, almost a million down on its same-day performance last year. In contrast, The Idiot's Lantern looks set for higher ratings than The Doctor Dances in 2005 (see OG news, 31 May).
The Impossible Planet: Saturday Press
The BBC's television homepage for Saturday was again dominated by a flash animation promoting this week's episode, which was also the BBC One site'sPick of the Day.
A ten-second trailer for The Impossible Planet made its regular Saturday-morning debut at just before 11.30. Reshown throughout the day from midday, it shows Rose and the Doctor being menaced by Ood ("We must feed"). As in the past few weeks, a slightly longer version was shown quarter-screen over the end credits of Neighbours at just before 6pm on Friday.
The Guardian was among Saturday's papers previewing the episode: "Oh, but this is fantastic - it's Alien plus The Matrix divided by The Exorcist, as the Tardis lands on a planet that shouldn't exist, orbiting a black hole. As the human crew of a space station are turned into ageless monsters, their kalimari-faced slaves are having problems with their translators, making them say worrying things like "the beast and his armies are coming." As the Doctor observes, it's all about as ominous as the phrase "this will be the best Christmas Walford has ever had."
Weekend Clips
The Evening Chronicle, Newcastle says, "How much am I loving the second series of Doctor Who (BBC ONE)? I can't even put into words how superior David Tennant's Doctor is to that grinning, gurning fool who went before him. Christopher "I'm a serious actor don't you know" Ecclestone may be gone but he's certainly not missed. The opening episode involving that stupid stretched face aside, this new series hasn't put a foot wrong. Werewolves chasing Queen Victoria, via K9's return, past the fabulous Cybermen double-bill to last week's corker which found an evil Maureen Lipman (The Wire) gobbling up people's faces from inside their TV sets in 1950s London. It's fun, funny and fast-paced ( all in all ideal Saturday-night entertainment. Although Billie Piper is starting to grate on me. I can't help but wonder if in the first series all of my negative energies were so focused on Christopher "I'm a serious actor don't you know" Ecclestone that she slipped under the radar. I think it's her strange Cockney accent that bothers me the most. Or the fact that she's gone a bit smug. You know what I mean, you've noticed it too. That said, I don't particularly want her to leave, so I won't be having words in high places, you know, like I did about a certain Christopher "I'm a serious actor don't you know" Ecclestone. Don't tell anyone though, yeah?"
The Stage said that "Since the weekend's overnight TV ratings came out, the knives have been sharpened for previous golden boy of BBC Drama, Doctor Who. As you can see from the graph (which shows overnight ratings in blue, and the official BARB figures, which factor in timeshifted video recordings, in red), the numbers viewing the nation's favourite Time Lord have dipped in the last couple of weeks, prompting The Guardian's media blog to speculate that the series may be going off the boil. ... Of course, things are rarely that easy. So many factors play into what constitutes a high-rating programme. For example, the huge jump a fortnight ago (which coincides with the return of the Cybermen) benefited from a huge follow-on audience from the FA Cup Final and acres of press coverage, including a rather splendid Radio Times cover. ITV1, which has traditionally played a strong hand on Saturday nights, that week delivered its lowest audience share ever. Contrast that with this week's episode. Instead of inheriting a football-loving audience, it competed with one, as Soccer Aid reached its climatic England v the Rest of the World conclusion, and gained a 31% share of the audience as a result — signs, maybe that Simon Shaps's strategy for the channel may be paying off at last. So, should the BBC be worried? With two Christmas specials and a full series already commissioned beyond this one, they will naturally want to ensure that they're getting the return for their investment. And, despite the quite significant downward trend suggested by the figures, there's no sign that they won't be. Saturday's programme still attracted a very healthy 32% share — a figure that may well grow once timeshifted video recordings are counted into BARB's final figures. It's unlikely that Doctor Who will ever again attain the heights of some of last year's episodes, which secured a phenomenal 45% of the viewing audience — but it's equally unlikely that it should ever be expected to. For those interested in following Doctor Who's ongoing ratings, the fans at Outpost Gallifrey are compiling more statistics than could possibly be healthy."
BBC News reported that "Actress Maureen Lipman, the latest alien on Doctor Who, has praised the sci-fi series as giving hope for family drama on television. Lipman played The Wire in last weekend's episode. She told the Hay Festival: "I think Billie Piper and David Tennant are wonderful and the writing is so good, it gives me hope that these writers are writing for families." Lipman derided much modern TV, including celebrity-style shows. The actress explained her recent part in Dr Who had been that of an alien, feeding off the minds of people watching the Queen's coronation in 1953. "My children seemed to think that was quite normal," she said. "It was very difficult, I didn't see a soul, I was trapped in a TV set in a Alexandra Palace, with a director and producer, it was like doing a Joyce Grenfell sketch. I had to imagine what was being said to me."
The Daily Star on Thursday said that "Doctor Who producer Russell T Davies has labelled the show's latest monster the scariest so far. Davies reckons audiences will be shaking with fear after seeing the Ood, a tentacled alien with evil red eyes. The creature will appear for the first time in Saturday's episode, called The Impossible Planet. ... Davies told the Radio Times: "I loved inventing the Slitheen and Raxacori cofalla-patorius and then I thought, 'Why don't I just call something the Ood?' They're the most brilliantly made monster in the world. I love them." And delighted Davies, 43, added they look like "they're permanently throwing up. It's really disgusting." The monster was created by prosthetics expert Neill Gorton. He added: "There's always a brief description in the script. For this story it was 'bald albino things with tentacles like a sea anemone rather than a mouth'."
Of Friday night's airing of "Bad Wolf", the US TV Guide magazine had this to say: "In the annals of Doctor Who, was there ever a more unsettling sight than the masses of Daleks who surrounded Rose and shrieked "Exterminate!"? And was there ever a cooler response than the Doctor's: "I'm going to save Rose Tyler, I'm going to save the Earth, and then---just to finish up---I'm going to wipe every last stinking Dalek off the face of the Earth!!!" He doesn't have a clue as to how he's going to do this BUT it does scare the Daleks to death. It's the most entertaining thing Satellite Five has had on for, well, 100 years. That was when the Doctor and Rose last visited. They didn't intend to visit again, but they---and Jack---were abducted from the TARDIS by transmat beams that deposited them in various game/reality shows. You think there's a glut of them now? In the year 200,100 there are 60 versions of Big Brother alone. While the Doctor finds himself a housemate ("I don't believe this") Rose lands on The Weakest Link, unaware that she has to win to survive. Jack winds up with robot versions of What Not To Wear's Trinny and Susannah, who frown on his "Oklahoma Farm Boy" look. How did this happen? Where is the history that the Doctor supposedly set right the last time he was on Satellite Five. Where is the Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire? Lynda, his Big Brother housemate, informs him that when the Satellite Five news reports were shut down, the planet's economy and government collapsed as a result. "100 years of hell," was Lynda's terse summation. Oops. Someone had to fill the void. Guess who showed up? Those little pepper shaker bastards. ... However, nothing was more moving than Rose's apparent death. The Doctor's facial expression as he fingered the dust spoke more than volumes---it spoke tomes. We knew she couldn't be dead, but you had to wonder how the show was going to explain her reemergence. Turns out the beam that zapped the poor folks who lost in the game shows was really just a transmat beam. Rose was transmatted to the Daleks who plotted to use her as a hostage to prevent the Doctor from meddling with their master plan. Nice idea, wrong guy to mess with. Again, when the Doctor laid down the gauntlet I wanted to get up and cheer. It was like Henry V's speech at Agincourt. Now as for the Bad Wolf references, I already know what it refers to so I won't spoil it. But I will say that it totally went right under my snout until the Welsh episode two weeks ago. Kudos to those who picked up on it earlier. For now, I must say that Friday night can't come soon enough...a) because I could use another weekend and b) because I have to see how the Doctor deals with those MASSES of Daleks. If there was ever a time he could do with a hand from his other selves, this is it!"
Also... TV Squad reviewed "Bad Wolf" from Friday night's US transmission; and the Belfast Telegraph joins the cavalcade of reports predicting ratings gloom.
Friday night's repeat of The Idiot's Lantern continued the 2005/2006 trend for higher BBC Three figures when the BBC One overnights have dipped, with an overnight audience of 407,500, an audience share of 2.6%, enough to top the 9pm non-terrestrial timeslot and fifth-placed in Friday's multichannel Top 10, its nearest rival on the digital channels being ITV3's Audience with Billy Connolly on 332,000. The week's total audience for The Idiot's Lantern in the overnights now stands at 7.34m, ahead of next week's release of the consolidated figures. Once timeshift figures are available, it is likely that the episode's total audience will be a little over eight million, below the series' average this year, but still leaving the show as one television's top performing programmes, even at its lowest audience level.
The rerun of the seventh Doctor Who Confidential Cut Down was watched by 212,800 (1.3% share). Doctor Who's slightly reduced audience this week is more than matched by significant ratings drops across UK television, with Friday's EastEnders for example being watched by only 7.6m, almost a million down on its same-day performance last year. In contrast, The Idiot's Lantern looks set for higher ratings than The Doctor Dances in 2005 (see OG news, 31 May).
The Impossible Planet: Saturday Press
The BBC's television homepage for Saturday was again dominated by a flash animation promoting this week's episode, which was also the BBC One site'sPick of the Day.
A ten-second trailer for The Impossible Planet made its regular Saturday-morning debut at just before 11.30. Reshown throughout the day from midday, it shows Rose and the Doctor being menaced by Ood ("We must feed"). As in the past few weeks, a slightly longer version was shown quarter-screen over the end credits of Neighbours at just before 6pm on Friday.
The Guardian was among Saturday's papers previewing the episode: "Oh, but this is fantastic - it's Alien plus The Matrix divided by The Exorcist, as the Tardis lands on a planet that shouldn't exist, orbiting a black hole. As the human crew of a space station are turned into ageless monsters, their kalimari-faced slaves are having problems with their translators, making them say worrying things like "the beast and his armies are coming." As the Doctor observes, it's all about as ominous as the phrase "this will be the best Christmas Walford has ever had."
Weekend Clips
The Evening Chronicle, Newcastle says, "How much am I loving the second series of Doctor Who (BBC ONE)? I can't even put into words how superior David Tennant's Doctor is to that grinning, gurning fool who went before him. Christopher "I'm a serious actor don't you know" Ecclestone may be gone but he's certainly not missed. The opening episode involving that stupid stretched face aside, this new series hasn't put a foot wrong. Werewolves chasing Queen Victoria, via K9's return, past the fabulous Cybermen double-bill to last week's corker which found an evil Maureen Lipman (The Wire) gobbling up people's faces from inside their TV sets in 1950s London. It's fun, funny and fast-paced ( all in all ideal Saturday-night entertainment. Although Billie Piper is starting to grate on me. I can't help but wonder if in the first series all of my negative energies were so focused on Christopher "I'm a serious actor don't you know" Ecclestone that she slipped under the radar. I think it's her strange Cockney accent that bothers me the most. Or the fact that she's gone a bit smug. You know what I mean, you've noticed it too. That said, I don't particularly want her to leave, so I won't be having words in high places, you know, like I did about a certain Christopher "I'm a serious actor don't you know" Ecclestone. Don't tell anyone though, yeah?"
The Stage said that "Since the weekend's overnight TV ratings came out, the knives have been sharpened for previous golden boy of BBC Drama, Doctor Who. As you can see from the graph (which shows overnight ratings in blue, and the official BARB figures, which factor in timeshifted video recordings, in red), the numbers viewing the nation's favourite Time Lord have dipped in the last couple of weeks, prompting The Guardian's media blog to speculate that the series may be going off the boil. ... Of course, things are rarely that easy. So many factors play into what constitutes a high-rating programme. For example, the huge jump a fortnight ago (which coincides with the return of the Cybermen) benefited from a huge follow-on audience from the FA Cup Final and acres of press coverage, including a rather splendid Radio Times cover. ITV1, which has traditionally played a strong hand on Saturday nights, that week delivered its lowest audience share ever. Contrast that with this week's episode. Instead of inheriting a football-loving audience, it competed with one, as Soccer Aid reached its climatic England v the Rest of the World conclusion, and gained a 31% share of the audience as a result — signs, maybe that Simon Shaps's strategy for the channel may be paying off at last. So, should the BBC be worried? With two Christmas specials and a full series already commissioned beyond this one, they will naturally want to ensure that they're getting the return for their investment. And, despite the quite significant downward trend suggested by the figures, there's no sign that they won't be. Saturday's programme still attracted a very healthy 32% share — a figure that may well grow once timeshifted video recordings are counted into BARB's final figures. It's unlikely that Doctor Who will ever again attain the heights of some of last year's episodes, which secured a phenomenal 45% of the viewing audience — but it's equally unlikely that it should ever be expected to. For those interested in following Doctor Who's ongoing ratings, the fans at Outpost Gallifrey are compiling more statistics than could possibly be healthy."
BBC News reported that "Actress Maureen Lipman, the latest alien on Doctor Who, has praised the sci-fi series as giving hope for family drama on television. Lipman played The Wire in last weekend's episode. She told the Hay Festival: "I think Billie Piper and David Tennant are wonderful and the writing is so good, it gives me hope that these writers are writing for families." Lipman derided much modern TV, including celebrity-style shows. The actress explained her recent part in Dr Who had been that of an alien, feeding off the minds of people watching the Queen's coronation in 1953. "My children seemed to think that was quite normal," she said. "It was very difficult, I didn't see a soul, I was trapped in a TV set in a Alexandra Palace, with a director and producer, it was like doing a Joyce Grenfell sketch. I had to imagine what was being said to me."
The Daily Star on Thursday said that "Doctor Who producer Russell T Davies has labelled the show's latest monster the scariest so far. Davies reckons audiences will be shaking with fear after seeing the Ood, a tentacled alien with evil red eyes. The creature will appear for the first time in Saturday's episode, called The Impossible Planet. ... Davies told the Radio Times: "I loved inventing the Slitheen and Raxacori cofalla-patorius and then I thought, 'Why don't I just call something the Ood?' They're the most brilliantly made monster in the world. I love them." And delighted Davies, 43, added they look like "they're permanently throwing up. It's really disgusting." The monster was created by prosthetics expert Neill Gorton. He added: "There's always a brief description in the script. For this story it was 'bald albino things with tentacles like a sea anemone rather than a mouth'."
Of Friday night's airing of "Bad Wolf", the US TV Guide magazine had this to say: "In the annals of Doctor Who, was there ever a more unsettling sight than the masses of Daleks who surrounded Rose and shrieked "Exterminate!"? And was there ever a cooler response than the Doctor's: "I'm going to save Rose Tyler, I'm going to save the Earth, and then---just to finish up---I'm going to wipe every last stinking Dalek off the face of the Earth!!!" He doesn't have a clue as to how he's going to do this BUT it does scare the Daleks to death. It's the most entertaining thing Satellite Five has had on for, well, 100 years. That was when the Doctor and Rose last visited. They didn't intend to visit again, but they---and Jack---were abducted from the TARDIS by transmat beams that deposited them in various game/reality shows. You think there's a glut of them now? In the year 200,100 there are 60 versions of Big Brother alone. While the Doctor finds himself a housemate ("I don't believe this") Rose lands on The Weakest Link, unaware that she has to win to survive. Jack winds up with robot versions of What Not To Wear's Trinny and Susannah, who frown on his "Oklahoma Farm Boy" look. How did this happen? Where is the history that the Doctor supposedly set right the last time he was on Satellite Five. Where is the Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire? Lynda, his Big Brother housemate, informs him that when the Satellite Five news reports were shut down, the planet's economy and government collapsed as a result. "100 years of hell," was Lynda's terse summation. Oops. Someone had to fill the void. Guess who showed up? Those little pepper shaker bastards. ... However, nothing was more moving than Rose's apparent death. The Doctor's facial expression as he fingered the dust spoke more than volumes---it spoke tomes. We knew she couldn't be dead, but you had to wonder how the show was going to explain her reemergence. Turns out the beam that zapped the poor folks who lost in the game shows was really just a transmat beam. Rose was transmatted to the Daleks who plotted to use her as a hostage to prevent the Doctor from meddling with their master plan. Nice idea, wrong guy to mess with. Again, when the Doctor laid down the gauntlet I wanted to get up and cheer. It was like Henry V's speech at Agincourt. Now as for the Bad Wolf references, I already know what it refers to so I won't spoil it. But I will say that it totally went right under my snout until the Welsh episode two weeks ago. Kudos to those who picked up on it earlier. For now, I must say that Friday night can't come soon enough...a) because I could use another weekend and b) because I have to see how the Doctor deals with those MASSES of Daleks. If there was ever a time he could do with a hand from his other selves, this is it!"
Also... TV Squad reviewed "Bad Wolf" from Friday night's US transmission; and the Belfast Telegraph joins the cavalcade of reports predicting ratings gloom.
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