People seem obseessed about the viewing figures at the mo - some foolish people of even insisting that high figures PROVE beyond a doubt that this new-Who is really worthy and excleent TV.

A few analogies - Bull Fighting is or was so very popular in Spain - does that make it worth entertainment?

Dragon's Den, Apprentice, Big Brother, Celebrity Island crap.... - all those are soooooooooooooo popular - yet no one can defend that they are imagintive, sophisticated entertainment....

Remember just because something is popular it does not make it GOOD or worthy of praise....

MILLIONS of people still SMOKE in this country - does that make smoking GOOD or worthy of praise becuase so many people do it?

OK Then heres the nub...

If 12 million people watch Dr Who Xmas speical and say 75% enjoy it (9 millios) I would say that there are 9 million people who are EASILY entertained - and that the prorgamme is NOT good just becuase a large (non-intellectual) audience thought it was "great family entertainment".

Popular success and Critical success should not be confused - so to all you apologists and acolytes I say "Dont start quoting the viweing figures becuase its a non-sequitur". Smnoke cigrattes instead if you want something popular.

Or, to read between the lines of your post;

I don't like this. Why doesn't anyone agree with me? Wah! Wah! Wah!

In order to be an apologist there needs to be something to apologise FOR.

Yes, in answer to your question. In the same way that trees make a noise when they fall in a forest even if someone doesn't hear it.

The factors you cite are adequate proxies for value in a tv environment for the stage that a show of this kind is at in its life cycle. Comparisons to other types of tv programme or bull-fighting are inappropriate and rather pointless.

So to follow your example...

On radio 3 a boradcast of Shostakovich's 'Cello Concerto No. 2' gets a listening figure of 15, 000

On TV Celebrity Island gets 8 million viewers in a competing time slot.

So Celebrity Island is a better programme....? A pathetic cocnlusion borne of ignorance and self-delusion...

Its all opinion Dervish. Yours is that new Who is rubbish and not fit to be given the same name as the classic series. I disagree.

What gets my goat is posters like yourself claiming moral superiority and that anyone who disagrees has to be stupid.

Well 12.2 milion watched the Christmas episode, a survey of arround 10,000 of those viewers found that its scored an 86 appreciation.

Bottom line is millions of people like the new show, its probably more loved now than ever before.

But you're missing dervish's point. These people shouldn't be allowed to enjoy the show. In fact they shouldn't even be given the opportunity to watch it and form an opinion because it's pro-gay filth perverting our children in the name of 'entertainment'.

There's precious little broadcasting airtime available. Between 4am and midnight this airtime should be given over to Russian classical music and wholesome medical dramas. During the night the smut and pseudo-sci-fi can be provided for the benefit of the pathetic, ignorant, self-deluded masses who have brought this country to its current squalid state.

Of course being popular does not make something good. I am not sure anyone suggested it did. What they said was it makes it popular
Yet again you insult people who do not agree with you. How do you know that the people who enjoyed it are non-intellectual? Did you check their qualifications? Or are you just saying that because they don't agree with you they must be stupid.

My family all enjoyed it and we have two MAs and PHD on the sofa, maybe we took it for what it was rather than tried to make-it into something it was never intended to be .
YOu can patronise other forum members as much as yo like but in the end you only make yourself look foolish

PS are you reallly a female older women ? I always think of you as a 14 year old boy

Untrue, I don't think anyone's suggested that.

High viewing figures are desirable for the show because:

1) They ensure its long-term future;
2) They are the means by which the TV corporations measure the success of entertainment shows.

They most certainly do not say whether the programme was good or not, just that people decided to and did watch it.

The only objective measure to how 'good' a programme is that we have are the audience appreciation stats, for which VOTD attained an above average score for TV drama, indicating that the audience found it to be 'excellent'.

I'd cite that as critical success, but, if that's not enough, there are plenty of positive reviews in respectable newspapers, not to mention the Guild Of Writers award that Season 3 won recently to add to that.

It's clear that New Who (especially if written by RTD) is not your cup of tea, Dervish, and that's your prerogative.

But your dislike does not translate to a 'fact' that the show is poor, and I'm afraid that you have to accept that yours is very much a minority view, disconnected from the views of the public at large.

But Dervish, even if you don't like what you're seeing, doesn't it make you just an eensy-teensy bit proud that a show you love is enjoying a wave of success at the moment? Even just an ickle-lickle bit?

You've said in the other thread that you enjoyed Blink/Human Nature/Girl In The Fireplace. Well, even you hate the 'blockbuster' RTD stories, if they attract the viewers, the show will get budgetary sign-off to produce more, and will cross-subsidise the kind of Who tale you do like.

I gave VOTD 3/5 in the poll - I quite liked it, served its purpose, but it's not 100% my kind of DW, but I'm glad it succeeded precisely for the reasons I stated above.

Regards,

Cypher

I find it helps to picture her as a granny's head on a 14 year-old boy's body.

In short, no they don't, otherwise Emmerdale would be good lol.

No.

Baywatch was utter tripe, yet holds the World Record for the number of people that watched it. (1.1 billion around the world.)

Must admit viewing figures are rather misleading. All they do is take a small number of viewers and extrapulate the figures upwards. All you need is a cluster of people that watch a particular programme and you've got false data.

Was I the only one who thought...

"Should Doctor Who be more about Bull-Fighting?"

Yes? OK then.

Hey Dervish, I can tell you one thing that isn't popular. You.

By your own logic, you should quit DigitalSpy.

right this is going beyond a joke now, you are just posting and making threads to get everyones backs up, even people who dislike the shows themes and RTD actively engage in debate, without resorting to tantrums, mis facts and hostility to others, trolling is against the t & c's of the forum,

getting back on topic it grew its audience from the start time ,it did not lose viewers at all, so i guess in my crazy but sane world that does make it a good special

He/she started off being a Keeley Hazell fan who would use a sonic screwdriver to make "women's clothes fall off unexpectedly" before morphing into a disabled woman living in the countryside with her husband, so either there's two people using the same login, she's a bisexual or he/ she is not being "earnest and honest".

This getting tiresome.

Okay lets ignore the number watching, lets look at the Audience Appreciation (AI) figures - as reported on the former Outpost Gallifrey news page.

Voyage Of The Damned scored an AI of 86 (out of 100), the highest score on either of the two main channels for Christmas Day. Anything over 85 is excellent, anything below 60 is poor most drama's score an average of 77.

Only two other programmes got a better AI on Christmas Day - Romeo and Juliet and The African Queen.

Sorry Dervish but in this instance the viewing numbers with the AI prove that it was a good show.

Slug - since when were you appointed to censor what I and others can and cannot watch? Sorry but this is the same attitude that was pushed by Mary Whitehouse and the National Viewers association in the 1960's and 1970's - and they targetted Doctor Who on several occassions.

If you are worried about young children then The Simpson's should also be censored as it has always had humour on 2 levels - which is what made it popular with Children and Adults alike.

As for your second paragraph I'm not really sure what you are going on about.

Question - mainly for Dervish.

Would you rather DW was not popular and had been canned after s1 of the reboot, regardless of its quality? (compare with Firefly).

Yes, it's variable quality - but I'd rather have to suffer the "poorer, populist" episodes in order to be given the opportunity to enjoy stuff like Blink. Sure I'd like every episode to be like Blink, but it's not all about me...

K

Sorry UB, maybe I should have added a satirical wink to my p**s-take of dervish's tirades.

No of course not, but you are aiming for different audiences. They are not comparable.

That might be a very good audience figure for radio 3 at that time- you would have to look at the audience figures for radio 3 and the AI for the programme and then what you would find out is if the target audience thought it was good. Good of course being a subjective thing .

If Doctor Who was aiming for the BBC 4 art house audience or RTD was trying to write a intellectually rigorous work of art then you could rightly claim he had failed and it wasn't very good, if on the other hand he is trying to write broad based family entertainment which will appeal to a large audience, who will enjoy it, then he has succeeded.
I hate reality TV and therefore do not watch it, but I am not its target audience.

To be honest I don’t think you are the target audience for Doctor Who , to justify the budget the BBC has to make it as popular as possible and that means a large target audience, and they need to then keep that audience watching, so that audience have to think it is good, or they will stop watching. All the figures and (mostly) positive reviews) suggest they have been successful in that.

SO most of the audience think it is good even if you and some others do not- that's life

Quite simply if a show gets good ratings two weeks in a row that makes it a very well watched program and it makes it a good program for the people that are watching it.
That is as simple as I can right it.

no it doesnt make it good it makes it more compelling viewing or more entertaining than the competition for that person.

Slug - no problem and apology accepted. It's a bit of a hobby horse being told what I can and cannot watch.

I agree. Case closed.


Taxi!

Except that it was also a critical success (with the TV critics).