If you don't watch Doctor Who, tell me why

[UnquietDad]

Everyone knows that, by any measure, "Doctor Who" is doing really well. It's the biggest BBC drama after the soaps and gets, most weeks, around 8 million viewers (including the "time-shifted" ratings for those who have recorded it). In terms of raw ratings this doesn't sound huge, given that it often got 12-13 million in the 60s and 70s, but we live in a fragmented multimedia world and I can understand that, at 7pm on a Saturday some people are plugged onto their Playstations or already largeing it down at their raves with their designer downloaded drugs, or whatever they do these days.

But most people I know - the vast majority of whom are parents of children under 10 - watch it. Just about everyone seems aware it's on. Which rather begs the question not of why 8 million people should choose to watch "Doctor Who" but why 52 million don't?

Let's be charitable and assume that a) 10 million or so are babies and toddlers and so don't have control of the remote, b) another 5 million or so detest "science fiction" (not that it is sci-fi, not really) and would rather pull their own teeth out than ever watch it, and c) about 5 million people don't have access to a telly/assume it rots their brains/ chucked their TV on the skip in 1997 and never looked back. I've no idea if those figures are right, but they don't seem unreasonable...

The next important thing is the audience share - how many people who watched telly were watching a given channel. Anything over 30% is seen as good and over 35% is phenomenal. BBC1 usually gets a 37-39% share when "Doctor Who" is on. So what are the other 60-odd percent doing? Let's assume there really are, as the ratings tell us, 3-4 million ardent Vernon Kay fans in the country who actively tune in for his "Gameshow Marathon" because he is so talented and entertaining. That takes care of about 20%. Where are the rest? I just genuinely can't imagine putting the telly on at 7pm on a Saturday night and choosing to watch a "Two Ronnies" repeat on ITV4, or "Whose Line Is It Anyway" on Five US, or something called "Bridezillas" on some other crappy cable channel, instead of a brand spanking new and wonderful episode of the best thing on the telly.

If you are unmoved by Who, have never watched it, or watched it and gave up with it, or actively hate it - tell me why.

Over to you...

Unquite dad - you asked...

Storylines are often juvenile / uninspired / far fetched (and not far fetched in a 'brilliant sci-fi' way but in a 'really really bad writer' type way)..

Acting is crap. Billie 'over-rated' Piper was bad enough, but this new girl is actually unwatchable. David Tennant is wooden. Most of the other minor actors are straight-out-of-Italia-Conti bad.

David Tennant, aswell as being a wooden actor, is annoying in the extreme. His face just makes me want to waste my extremely expensive M&S honey-roasted cashews by hurling them at the screen.

The BBC are so horribly smug about Doctor Who it makes me want to puke on my TV licence and watch shite satellite channels compulsively in protest.

There you go.

Unquiet dad, even. Although Unquite is better :-)

Oooh yes Robin Hood, we like that too.

TBH there are very few things we sit down together and watch as a family, and Dr Who/Robin Hood is one of them (well 2 but YKWIM).
We do loads of other things together before you all jump on me but I also like the appointment telly aspect of this. There?s not much else TBH that they ant to watch that I will also sit through.
Wish it was on earlir tho, say 6.30 - then I?d have them all in the bath at 6 on the promise of DR Who and in bed before 7.30....

sorry xposted. canadian childhood. i'm pretty sure it didn't exist there

What do you like, LoveAngel?....

The definitive Dr Who to anyone older than 30 has to be Tom Baker - even my 10 yo ds1 recognises his voice as that of Dr Who!

But I am also old enough to remember Jon Pertwee. I remember watching him from my dad's lap. I spent half the time either hiding behind the sofa or hiding my face in my dad's chest. It was great stuff.

I don't go along with people who shield their children from Dr Who these days because it is scary - that is the point! A bit of scariness never did us any harm!

LoveAngel, I'm horrified.

DG, I'm dead on 30, and my fave is still Peter Davison. Dh is a TB loon, though.

It's quite telling that ITV is really struggling to find anything to touch it. And they are meant to be the populist channel! The only show of theirs which even came close in appeal was the Ant'n'Dec thing which went out in 2005 opposite the first series - that pretty much matched it in ratings/share terms, although the Doc eventually came out on top. Every other show they have thrown into the timeslot has tanked. "Celebrity Wrestling", anyone?

Even Vernon Kay, who's meant to be doing quite well, scrapes half the ratings of BBC1.

Agree with your last post entirely Clary (we are obviously kindred spirits). Both Dr Who and Robin Hood deserve praise simply for being programmes that children and adults can watch together.

pph, that's quite an interesting theory (having to have watched it as a child). Like others, I have memories of watching the Daleks (from behind the couch!).

Dumbledore/Clary: "family" TV was a bit of wilderness in the 90s. It's become the Holy Grail - to find something the whole family can sit and watch together at a suitable time on a Saturday night. The obvious answer was staring the BBC in the face for a few years before they grasped the nettle.

To be fair, Mal Young (of "Brookside" fame)kept going back to the BBC every year from about 1998 onwards with the pitch for a new "Doctor Who" and kept being told to go away and re-think it. It was only when they finally poached Russell T Davies from ITV that it really took off.

Well, that was it, wasn't it, UQD, the death of 'family telly' was supposed to be a fact with all the new technology and the multi channel age.

I love sci-fi and use to always watch Dr Who with Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker. I intensely dislike David Tennant. His acting style irritates me immensely. Even his enunciations leave me cold.

IMO, the story lines should be more centred around Dr Who but when Rose was it, it seem to me that she was the central character and not Christopher Eccleston.

The Tardis should be zooming across the galaxy so that we have more adventures in different worlds but most of the adventures of the new Dr Who (including Christopher Ecclestons) are Earth based.

The only scary advesaries are the Daleks and the Cybermen, ie the old baddies. The new ones are just feeble.

Overall, the stories do not enthrall me in the same way as the ones with John Pertwee and Tom Baker.

Finding suitable family tv for saturday night is such an obvious winner, I wonder they don't put more money into it. Let's face it, if you don't have small children keeping you home, you are most likely to be out on a Saturday night, so it was about time they started providing good entertainment for the poor beleaguered parents.

I like what they have done with Maria and Joesph too, but I loathe the Lottery shows and those awful thick quiz shows.

When Robin Hood runs its obvious course, what else could we put in its place?

it is not on tv here

my two like Wizard of Oz

even the scary witches (but not the flying monkeys)

Start out with all giood intentions of watching it, but drift away, bath, MN, other side.

They were meant to be developing a "Merlin" series. Not sure how far that has got. There was talk of four 13-part family series, so that the BBC had something for all year round - Who, Merlin, Robin and another which was going to be a moder-day "spy kids" type thriller? Don't quote me on that. (Maybe that evolved into "MI High".)

How much further can thay go with the "find an unknown and cast them in a musical" format? I think people's patience will start to run out when they get beyond the inevitable "Cats" and "Starlight Express" revivals...

I can't bear any of those - the dancing or singing ones. Watching those would be a form of torture for me. Then again, I feel that way about Robin Hood (and I did try).

I'm trying to think what we watched with our parents (it was a bit different for me because my parents let us pretty much watch what we liked) - I seem to remember the Generation Game, 3-2-1 and things like Dallas being family entertainment in the evening (and of course, Dr Who!).

I suppose some people's "Who"-watching is a bit like my approach to "Midsomer Murders". I know it's there, I know it's quite good, I know vaguely when it's on and I will watch it if I find myself on the sofa with nothing else to do, but if I miss it I don't really even notice.

I haven't read all the responses, so may be echoing someone else, but.

I don't watch, because having watched the first 2 'NEW' generation episodes with Christopher Eccleston I actively decided that it wasn't suitable viewing for ds or me.
I am amazed that it continues to be promoted as suitable viewing for children. The episodes I saw involved people being 'eaten by wheelie bins, and shop dummies coming to life. I can see these type of things bein fixed into ds's brain, to cause him (and hence me) all sorts of problems in the middle of the night. DS is a bright little boy (aged 7) with a good imagination. It gets fed quite well with Roald Dahl stories etc. I believe Dr Who is just one step beyond reasonable for his age. I am really surprised by the number of his peers who watch it (including my best friend's son aged 6, who is allowed to watch it, and has developed nightmares over the last few months).

I can see it is a well made programme, and dh loves it (records it to watch during the week when he is away from home). I just wish that it was shown later, and was not promoted as a kids programme, along with the annual/toys that are sold to increase that impression.

and they had stuff like Jim'll Fix It (and a few programmes of similar ilk - what was that one with the annoying woman? oh yes, That's Life). Think there was talk of bringing something like that back, wasn't there.

and I seem to remember some Nancy Drew programme.

Oh I'll tell you what I miss, Blind Date!