So are people still watching Doctor Who?

R

robot monkey

Hunter
Just wondering with all this talk of reduced viewing figures if people are still watching it?

Though for a ten year old show, as it is since its resurrection, it seems too be doing not too bad in my books. There does seem to have been more of a decline this year. Could be a whole host of factors, but I am going to say it is on just too late for the family audience. I think they will have to move it back to spring in order to get an earlier time as Strictly isn't going anywhere because of the way it is recorded.
 
I get annoyed at people blaming on Peter Capaldi saying he is too old. Utter rot & ageist too. Why should younger people have trouble relating too an older Doctor when the young Doctors have been the exception not the rule over the years.
 
robot monkey said:
I get annoyed at people blaming on Peter Capaldi saying he is too old. Utter rot & ageist too. Why should younger people have trouble relating too an older Doctor when the young Doctors have been the exception not the rule over the years.
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Well I know a middle aged woman who watched the show pretty much for the "eye candy" Guess that demographic got a bit alienated with the Capaldi move. Personally (I don't watch the show but have seen the odd episode) I prefer Capaldi for this same reason - skip the "eye candy for the middle aged women" and focus on the sci-fi...
 
I think the show in in dire need of a new showrunner. Moffat has clearly ran out of ideas. Almost every season, he has used either The Doctor dying in some way shape or form or a new creature that requires you to not do something (Blink/Think/Breathe) and it's wearing very thin. He's a good writer for single episodes but he is really lacking when it comes to arcs IMO.
 
I'm still watching it but I haven't found the stories this season that interesting. I really like Capaldi, but the writing is lacking and I think the move to make nearly every episode a two-parter has been a bad one as the stories don't really hold out for two 50 minute episodes. Dr Who has had the writing problem for me since Matt though, so it's no surprise it's beginning to wear thin here.
 
This reduced viewing figures thing is a bit of misdirect, as I understand it live viewing figures for Doctor Who have been on a downward trend for years now, but once you factor in iPlayer viewing the drop-off is actually very slight. So the show probably isn't in as much trouble as newpapers are trying to make it look.

I'm not watching it. I was never that keen on it, and since Moffat's taken over it's been a bit up itself with all the continuing stories and it seems to have lost the sense of wit it had when RTD was in charge. It's not that Moffat is a bad writer (Sherlock is very well written), I just think he's a bit too much of a Who fan, and maybe if he approached it objectively as a writer we'd get a different, better show.
 
Demelza said:
I'm still watching it but I haven't found the stories this season that interesting. I really like Capaldi, but the writing is lacking and I think the move to make nearly every episode a two-parter has been a bad one as the stories don't really hold out for two 50 minute episodes. Dr Who has had the writing problem for me since Matt though, so it's no surprise it's beginning to wear thin here.
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I have much preferred this season to last year's. I thought the initial pair of two parters were pretty strong, though these last two episodes weren't as good. Last year was lumbered with stinkers like Kill The Moon & In The Forest Of The Night.
 
robot monkey said:
Demelza said:
I'm still watching it but I haven't found the stories this season that interesting. I really like Capaldi, but the writing is lacking and I think the move to make nearly every episode a two-parter has been a bad one as the stories don't really hold out for two 50 minute episodes. Dr Who has had the writing problem for me since Matt though, so it's no surprise it's beginning to wear thin here.
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I have much preferred this season to last year's. I thought the initial pair of two parters were pretty strong, though these last two episodes weren't as good. Last year was lumbered with stinkers like Kill The Moon & In The Forest Of The Night.
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Last year was definitely my favourite season for awhile, although I agree that a few episodes were just stupid (although I personally liked Forest of the Night). I liked the first two parter this season, second I hated, liked the episode last week and ultimately felt Ashildr was let down this week by poor acting in places and thus the episode wasn't as fun as it could have been. Next weekends ep looks pretty fun though :)
 
Demelza said:
robot monkey said:
Demelza said:
I'm still watching it but I haven't found the stories this season that interesting. I really like Capaldi, but the writing is lacking and I think the move to make nearly every episode a two-parter has been a bad one as the stories don't really hold out for two 50 minute episodes. Dr Who has had the writing problem for me since Matt though, so it's no surprise it's beginning to wear thin here.
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I have much preferred this season to last year's. I thought the initial pair of two parters were pretty strong, though these last two episodes weren't as good. Last year was lumbered with stinkers like Kill The Moon & In The Forest Of The Night.
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Last year was definitely my favourite season for awhile, although I agree that a few episodes were just stupid (although I personally liked Forest of the Night). I liked the first two parter this season, second I hated, liked the episode last week and ultimately felt Ashildr was let down this week by poor acting in places and thus the episode wasn't as fun as it could have been. Next weekends ep looks pretty fun though :)
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I thought this week's was better than the preceding episode, though they really didn't need Lion-O from the Thundercats in it.
 
I'll have to confess, I'm still in the middle of watching Series 5 and I have no idea what everyone's talking about but I'll say that yeah, Moffat's pretty overrated.
 
I'm still watching as well, i don't watch it live anymore though as i'm usually busy on saturday nights and with it being on quite late now (8-9pm) i can't wait in for it to start, if was on around 6-7pm like it used to i'd probably watch it live.

Personally i've been finding this series much better than the last. The first 4 episodes were great, episode 5 not so much and episode 6 was better but still not that great. When i saw that Maisie Williams (Ashildr) was going to be in the series i was really looking forward to her episodes as she's great in Game of Thrones but her episodes were quite disappointing and not as good as they should have been.

I do agree that the show needs a new showrunner, Moffat just isn't good anymore, we need someone with fresh ideas. Tbh i think that should have happened when Capaldi was cast, a new showrunner for each new doctor would work best to make it feel different each time. Hopefully with Moffat saying that he won't be able to handle both Sherlock & Dr Who next year he'll hand over the showrunner reigns for Dr Who to someone else. Although there was rumours that there would be either a shortened series or a series of specials instead of a proper series next year because of this, i hope it's not true though as Dr Who shouldn't suffer just cuz Moffat won't let it go.
 
I'm a massive fan and feel guilty admitting I feel it's been in decline for a long time now. It still astounds me Moffat can do stuff as good as Blink / Sherlock yet mishandle Doctor Who so badly recently. Capaldi is a fantastic actor but they've mishandled him so badly. I was tired of Matt Smith by the end of his run but I'd go back to him in a flash compared to how they're portraying the Doctor at the moment.

That said, I did think episode two and three of the current series have been very strong - but the others have been rather off.
 
I think the thing with Moffat is that he's really good at Sherlock because there is very little of it and not that often, so he has plenty of time (and co-writers), to make that work. With Dr Who he does tend to have the odd stroke of genius, like with Blink, but overall he just tries to make the overreaching plot too complex and has too many stories to be in-charge of. He'd be much better just coming in to do a single episode or two a season.
 
I would recommend to anyone who isn't to certain about the show these days to watch the next two episodes, as they are supposed to be very good. Possibly the best two twelfth Doctor episodes.
 
Well that was the best episode last night so far in this season. Acting wise PC knocked it out of the park, especially on the big speech. But to be fair the whole cast were good.
 
I also thought the two parter was very good. Glad to see Who not being afraid to tackle some more sensitive issues and I'd like to see that kind of thing more often. Gives the show a bit more weight.
 
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