Andrew Reynolds is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.
Polls, Overnight viewing figures, Audience Appreciation Index scores; but what does it all mean? What’s the big conclusion to take away (or should that be steal?) from Time Heist?
Well firstly, there’s no need to panic.
According to the anachronistic and much maligned overnight viewing figures, 4.93 million people tuned into Doctor Who – a share of 23.8% of the total TV audience – placing it 20th for the week.
That puts the show second for the day just behind ITV’s increasing bizarre and baffling The X Factor which took the top spot with 8.4 million viewers. In direct opposition to Time Heist was The Chase: Celebrity Special, which was third with 4.2 million viewers.
According to our poll, 40.94% of you thought it was ‘A fun adventure’ while 40.09% thought it was ‘Great stuff, loved it’ – a massive 81% in favour!
Now, hang on. I know what you’re thinking: “Doctor Who was almost beat by The Chase! The Chase! The Bradley Walsh innuendo delivery system? The programme you only ever watch for 15 minutes to kill time before Pointless comes on! And you say don’t panic?!”
Well, yes.
Quiz shows and dramas aren’t really comparable and with figures as close as that, in an increasingly diversifying marketplace, I’d call that a big win for commitment to big ideas and thrilling drama over undemanding quiz shows with familiar-faced placeholders.
What’s more, it’s a slight improvement on last week’s overnight viewing figures for Listen which picked up 4.8 million viewers (it’ll be interesting to find out what the accumulative figure for Time Heist will be once you factor in the repeat showings and iPlayer figures), the audience share is also up from 23.5 % to 23.8% when compared to last week and these figures are mostly in keeping with the rest of Series 8’s viewing figures.
Speaking of Pointless, the Doctor Who lead in, Pointless Celebrities, had 3.9 million viewers, giving the programme a higher inheritance than last week.
That’s the basic figures but what about what those people thought of the episode?
The Audience Appreciation Index (or AI score for short) was 84. That score, out of 100, is a measure of how much audiences enjoyed the programme and is compiled by a specially selected panel of around 5,000 people who go online and rate and comment on programmes.
Breaking those numbers down reveals that Time Heist rated slightly higher with women rather than men and scored the highest within the 16-34 age group.
So, taken together, that’s strong showing and a high AI score (AI scores rarely hit 90) to boot. That’s not bad considering the show has shifted timeslot and we are still bedding in a new Doctor (Time Heist was probably the first time the show felt like a Doctor Who episode, if such a standard thing exists.)
So no cause for emergency then.
However, what did you, dear reader, think of Time Heist?
Well according to our time-bending poll, which much to the amusement of you loveable scamps, was published before the episode had aired, 40.94% of you thought it was ‘A fun adventure’, 40.09% thought it was ‘Great stuff, loved it’, 10.87% thought it was ‘Not my cup of tea’, 4.48% of said ‘Roll on The Caretaker’, and 4% said it ‘Could have been longer’.
Some of the best comments included Mugen Pharaoh’s succinct summary of the episodes highlights:
“Great fun…. I loved the Doctor’s comment on his costume ‘I was going for minimalist but ended up magician’.
I’m finding the transition to Capaldi’s era very easy… He seems totally the Doctor to me, with a very classic doctor feel…. I greatly approve.
Yeah it was pretty obvious where the plot was going but it had a bit of a McCoy kind of Big Finishy sort of thing with the Doctor as schemer with a modern twist.
And Keeley Hawes was in it. Case closed!”
But what about the Doctor himself? What has changed and has it indeed, changed for the better? Well Ranger had this to say:
“I loved this episode; it felt like a classic Who story, Capaldi and Coleman are continuing to be superb – especially Capaldi, this really felt like the Doctor of old, where he was the main protagonist and used his brain power to sort things out, rather than much of nuWho where it is mainly focused on the companion and the Doctor often feels like a hanger-on. “Basically it’s the eye-brows!” Great “monster” in The Teller, Karabraxos was exactly like Miss Foster, but I didn’t mind that. The “death” of the shifter lady (whose name I forget! Need to see it again, quick) was a great scene for the Doctor – showing the logic, but also you see a hint of his pain, the uncaring façade is slowly cracking.”
And finally, and more importantly, Ezeggs, said what we were all thinking:
“Abslom Daak is now canonical! YEAH!”
So what do you make of these figures? Should we panic? Is it all Bradley Walsh’s fault? What did you think of Time Heist?
The post What Viewers & Readers Thought Of Time Heist appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.