Doctor Who Social Club

The second episode of Doctor Who's 15th season suffered a fairly substantial drop in ratings – with just 1.58 million viewers tuning in to watch Lux on BBC One last night (Saturday 19th April).

That's down from the 2 million who watched last week's season premiere The Robot Revolution and marks the lowest overnight viewership ratings in the show's history, the first time ever that the figures have dipped below 2 million.

Of course, it's worth noting that these figures don't tell the whole story, given the figure doesn't take into account anyone who watched the episode on BBC iPlayer, where it debuted at 8am on Saturday prior to its BBC One broadcast.

The consolidated ratings, which include iPlayer, devices and catch-up, will be released at a later date.

Excerpts from a speech and interview given by Mark Strickson, who played companion Vislor Turlough in the '80s:

The problem with Doctor Who is that it isn't real acting. It does get very boring actually, because by necessity it is two-dimensional acting. You can't have a depth of character because it's a comic strip. […]

When American science fiction fans watch it, they roar with laughter. I suppose it is a comedy. If you try to look logically at Doctor Who you have to look very hard.

I pick these parts out because they line up pretty well (although superficially) with the most recent episode where the Doctor is actually turned into an animated character, but particularly the last sentence feels like a harder jab at the mindset of Who fandom than the depiction of fans in "Lux".

To be fair, Strickson offers suggestions to add more character depth, following the first quoted paragraph:

You think, why can't Turlough and Tegan, or Turlough and Nyssa have a relationship of some kind? Indeed, why can't Turlough have a proper relationship with the Doctor? Why can't they talk? Why can't they sit down in the TARDIS to talk about what they're going to eat that day. I think in a sense it would be an improvement to Doctor Who if you saw a bit of their domestic life on the TARDIS. It might be a bit less action, more humour, and a bit more personal human interest.

Surely, turning Who into a kitchen sink drama in the mid-'80s would have put an end to the show sooner than actually happened 😄 But it is worth noting that a similar sort of base level interaction did sneak into the show in the form of soapier drama from 2005 onward..

Read the transcript, there are loads of entertaining anecdotes from Doctor Who production in the early 1980s!

I admit it, I still browse Doctor Who reddit — using safer frontends, mind — but mostly there is no great reason to crosspost here. People going nuts over leaks or revisiting their distinct lack of enjoyment of one series or another.

This I couldn't resist reposting, though. Somebody made a rather involved defense of the show adapting to the times, including this curiosity:

During 2nd's run, and perhaps also in Hartnell's, I noticed something interesting. Rarely they'd use a sort of opera singing common in "space operas" of the day - a nod to the audience that understood this genre convention meant that they'd be watching high drama, now an obsolete thematic device.

That's... not what is meant by "space opera" at all. Try looking up "soap opera" instead 😂

I'm 85% sure this is a GPT output, with margin for it being some clueless kid instead. There are a couple other tells in the wall of text, but this was pure hallucination.

Funny thing is, nobody calls OP out for this in the comments, which proves that anything past the title is fluff.

Generally speaking, though, I agree with the poster's sentiments, if not their grasp of facts 🙂

Let's get this out of the way – the second episode of this season of Doctor Who, "Lux," is already the best episode of the Disney+ era. Disney has never done anything like this before, and neither has the BBC.

— Bleeding cool

You’ll be so impressed watching “Lux” flit between the real and cartoon world, reality and fiction, that you’ll hardly care about the missing cinemagoers or the dodgy American accents. It’s silly but in a way that is incredibly watchable.

— That hashtag show

'Lux' initially feels like a traditional Doctor Who story, but is anything but. Mr Ring-A-Ding is a great villain, but it's the ambitious script and Ncuti Gatwa's layered performance that make this such a winner.

— Games radar

I remain very...curious about this series. Hopefully "Lucky Day" will serve as a bit of a backdoor pilot that gives us an idea of its look and feel.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/27468401

Season 15 returned to BBC One on Saturday 12th April and received an overnight rating of two million viewers, as per TV Zone. The consolidated ratings, which include BBC iPlayer, devices and catch-up, will be released at a later date.

The viewership marks it as the fourth most-watched programme of the day and second most-watched for BBC One, just slightly behind Gladiators' 2.9 million viewers.

Written by: Russell T Davies

Directed by: Peter Hoar

A rare instance of "UK-based celebrity whom I actually recognize appearing on DW."

Originally posted to X, saved you a visit to IRL Finetime 👍

These episode descriptions all look like they're written by RTD or based off an interview with him, so ignore all "awesomest ever", "most thrillingly amazeballs" hype.

It looks like the embargo on early reviews has lifted, so if you see any you'd like to share, put them in the comments!

Riffing off the high concept nature of the show, Davies mentions (with my emphasis):

a cartoon’s come to life, or we’re visiting the 803rd Interstellar Song Contest, or Boom Beasts have taken over London

Wait, what? The first two are previously announced episode briefs, but... "Boom Beasts"?

Did he just come up with that last bit on the spot or did I miss it in any of the advance promo copy?

Edited to add: Apparently they're Bone Beasts! (Spoiler warning)

RTD also praises the new writers this season:

Inua Ellams just to pick an example, set his episode in Lagos. He’s created a whole history of friendships for the Doctor around a whole new mythology. There’s that lack of fear. There’s not a second of worrying, of him thinking, ’Have they done this before? Did they do this in 1985?’ Although he’s always watched the show, he was completely free of its shackles. What you get is a completely new take on things you thought you understood in Doctor Who. The episode has the TARDIS doing things it’s never done before.

As I recall, getting the Doctor mixed in with African mythology was an explicit wish from Ncuti Gatwa coming in, and this looks like it could be a start.

Besides, frankly — what haven't we seen the TARDIS do yet? 🤯