Your first claim is entirely without evidence. If anything there has been in recent years a shift towards gleefully tearing apart TV ahows and movies for sport. There is no reason to suspect 'bias' in most of the publications sourced for the Rotten Tomatoes data.

Also sites like the AV Club are notoriously picky with their reviews. They have routinely given very low scores to many high profile US network shows (Gotham/Heroes/Supernatural/The Walking Dead to name a few) and yet rated DW S9 as one of the best in the shows history.

I don't remember any of the very good reviews for Heaven Sent talking about 'good graphics' or 'nostalgia'. Most were busy focussing on the incredible acting from Peter Capaldi, a brave and clever script from Moffat and masterful direction from Rachel Talalay. Maybe we peruse different periodicals?

Also, Love and Monsters is a brilliant script without any throwbacks to the old series. And with virtually zero CGI/special effects (I am assuming thats what you meant by 'good graphics?')

I think you misunderstand me. I do hold DW in high esteem, but for other reasons than that it breaks boundaries and boldly goes where no sci-fi has gone before.

It's a great sci-fi/fantasy adventure programme. When it's good it's magic. It's excellent at what it does. It's not just fluff. But it has, or should have, appeal across the board. It shouldn't appeal just to the intelligentsia who can then sneer at us mere mortals who just want a good story, believable within it's own framework, which takes our breath away with the wonder of it. Why does it need to be more than that?

It's funny that the positive critical reviews are mentioned at all. I don't remember anyone on here bothering about them when the ratings were through the roof. Suddenly the show sheds viewers like dandruff but the critics say it's wonderful - so that's all right then.

I found series 9 boring. There were bits of it I found ridiculous. (Much of DW is ridiculous by it's very nature, but there are limits). If others enjoyed it, then I'm glad for them. Even if they are critics by profession.

There will probably be a couple people yes who would moan, but at least for me i can still enjoy the episode even if i am being critical of it because it has its flaws. I don't see how it is beneficial just looking over things that happen because it isn't putting the episode in good light.

I wasn't talking about Rotten Tomatoes specifically, but yes every show and the ones which are easily found and out in the open are bias reviews. Something in Doctor Who Magazine isn't going to say this is a poor episode. This is also backed up by the fact that almost every episode is around the 9/10 mark. That is near perfect level, and every story doesn't reach that heights.

And Love and Monsters is one of the most disliked episodes of the series, i wouldn't be calling it brilliant. And oops did i say Heaven Sent i meant Hell Bent.

Because it is a pointless waste of time.

Instead of talking about things that have happened in the episode - ie the interesting bits - the people seem far more interested to talk about banalities.

This whole season has been about the inevitability of death and how people deal with the death of loved ones and people only seem to want to talk about plotholes and the like. Instead of talking about the big ideas they talk about the smaller ones.

We saw the Doctor trying to break a fixed point in time because he couldn't allow the death of Clara and people want to use ratings to have a pop at Moffat as they don't like him.

It is also a way people view life. Are you someone who is going to enjoy life or pick holes in every little thing.

I don't understand the business of rating things out of 10. Would you rate your dinner out of ten, or sex with your partner, or the clothes ensemble a friend wore. It is a bizarre way of living life.

Personally I think the problem with pandering to the casual audience too much like RTD did, and at times even Moffat, is that the show sheds a lot of quality and loses its charm. It feels more like a rom-com with historical and sci-fi backdrops because you have romance and sex appeal shoehorned in for the sake of it, and the plot is toned down often to the point of non-existence (and then there's the problem that the show seems to be caught in a trap where casual viewers only care for a lead who is young and cute now).

Classic Who managed to hold a lot of casual appeal while still giving interesting sci-fi settings, all with their own plots and characters enough for a story of it own, without any dumbing down or soap opera elements to keep people going. It was all fun that balanced itself between the range of viewers perfectly, instead of "fart jokes for the kids, sex for the adults" Unfortunately the masses just don't seem to care anymore and what would have captured them 40 years ago is now just "boring"

(Granted, Classic Who had a thing about giving the women revealing clothing "for the dads", particularly when JNT took over)

It's only my opinion and yes, I feel that the modern show becomes a little mindless when it goes deeply down the mass appeal route. But ideally, instead of appealing to just the masses and not the hardcore fans, or even vice versa, it would be great if the show could find that balance it did in the 60's and 70's.

But it isn't little things which bug me, it is simply poor story. And to be honest looking over everything bad which happens i'd say isn't good either.

Hell Bent was a very character related episode, so in that type of episode we have the Doctor act out of character, have another over long goodbye. Not to mention the first 10 minutes of the Doctor running into Clara they were literally mentioning things we already knew, then they repeated the same type dialogue with couple differences here and there. So that was ultimately like a highlight of the series not something new.

Then the arc conclusion was guesses, and then as you say this season is about how people deal with death we have a cop out and an essential emotion wipe for the Doctor. I could also talk about how it lessens what happened in the previous 2 episodes.

These aren't tiny little plotholes, they are the entire story. You enjoyed it which is fine, but to say people should essentially switch off there brains and enjoy everything put in front of them is absurd.

"But some of us have more developed cultural taste buds"

Hilarious! Sums up my point perfectly about the self proclaimed elite! Nothing more to say. Anyway, I'm out of here before I get reported for daring to criticise a poster who can hand it out but can't take it.

The idea behind the mindwipe was that the Doctor could not let go of Clara without it. There is a similar problem in real life where people, especially if they have been married a long time, can actually die of a broken heart. In the Doctor's case he tried to circumvent the laws of time as he felt responsible for her death. This also brings into the arena the idea of people who causes other people's deaths and how that affects them. These people do many things to try and live with the death they have caused and methods to try and blank out what they did. The finale has a lot of parallels with real life which I found fascinating. The series started that way as the Doctor was supposedly dealing with the death of an arch-enemy. Once again interesting.

Why cant Doctor Who be both fun and serious? I mean it is about exploring and having a laugh along the way but also running into trouble that has massive consequences. I wish Doctor Who can go back to having both like Moffat Series 5/6 had a healthy balance of this but now it feels depressing for some reason at times but it will have that one moment like Missy pushing Clara but thats about it.

Unfair on DWM, I think. Their reviewer is usually very fair and articulate. He was often critical of Series 8, for example. Especially the portrayal of the Doctor. I might not have always agreed with him, but he's certainly no biased 'hack'.

As for Brandon's post, I do think Doctor Who can most definitely be fun and serious! And more often than not, I personally think it is. I remember catching up with pre-1982 stories with fellow fans years ago (aka the 'Bootleg' years!) and was often delighted to see my preconceptions from what I'd read dashed. The then not that distant Hinchcliffe years were (fairly) held up as a high water mark, and I was half expecting to find the Williams years to be seriously lacking in comparison. Season 16 in particular dissuaded me of that notion, amongst a number of other stories I thoroughly enjoyed.

Is that season/era better quality than, say, 13 and 14? Well, probably not. Fun? God, yes.

It's all about balance for me. Three of my favourite ever stories are 'Heaven Sent', 'The Caves of Androzani' and 'The Deadly Assassin'. Right barrel of laughs there! Another three for contrast....'Androids of Tara', 'The Romans' and 'The Lodger'. Love them all.

It's obviously so subjective, but generally think the mixture of light and dark is still there. Eg Thought Missy was very funny at times in 'Magician's/'Witch's..', the 'cue card' scenes I like and whilst there was intense stuff in the first 2 Ashildr stories, there was enough to amuse as well. And following an admittedly pretty dark '3 parter', we had 'Husbands...' which was an enjoyable mix of very silly and touching.

And of course the RTD era on the whole was often a lot more than just all fun and frolics...just as the Moffat era on the whole is more than just dark and doomy. (Just like the Hinchcliffe era could be witty and amusing, not just all 'Gothic' and the Williams era could be quite darkly humorous and v intelligent, not just all 'silly'.)

Hmm. Bit of a ramble. It got away fro me!

Well, it's the typical thing we're always hearing: 'I personally am intelligent but Doctor Who should be dumb for the benefit of the rest of the audience'. Yeah, right. Everyone looks for the level that suits them and if one likes Doctor Who to be dumb then...

Yes, that was quite interesting. What's on next?

I hope it's something where I actually feel involved with the characters, and excited by the plot, rather than thinking "Why is the Doctor bothered?".

Has anyone said it should be dumb?

Replace the word 'dumb' with 'enjoyable' and the sentence makes more sense

Well done to the show on what for me was an excellent series. Not perfect, but perfection doesn't exist!

The individual scores are interesting, Sleep no More was last of course (67%), but surprisingly the highest rated individual episode was Before the Flood (95%). The best 2 parter was the Zygon one (both 94%)

Before the Flood was 1 part of a two parter not an individual stand alone!

Well it is a 2 parter, but you can still judge the story. And i for one thought it was a brilliant story, the second part wasn't as good, but it followed a structure.

I don't really think this is too much of a big deal in the grander scheme of things, and do think that ratings, awards, and on the street chatter so to speak go much further as a reflection of how the show is doing.

That being said though, aside from the finale teasing a gallifrey story then being little more than a face the raven epilogue, I thoroughly enjoyed series 9 and feel it was the best Moffat has produced since series 5. It was an improvement on series 8, which in itself was a vast improvement on the second part of series 7.

Basically, I don't think one chart/poll thing on one website suddenly means the show is back to RTD era levels of mainstream popularity, but as someone who enjoyed series 9, it's a nice thing to see all the same.

Yeah! i saw the movie, really like.

I thought it should have been a 1 parter and the really stretched it out to make it 2

What I meant was that according to Rotten Tomatoes, Before the Flood was the highest rated individual episode of S9, at 95%.

As Under the Lake only got 81%, TZI/TZI was the highest rated 2 parter combined, as both parts got 94%.