In further compounding Russell T Davies’ Doctor Who woes, the series’ latest episode has officially posted the worst overnight viewership numbers – and to make matters even more embarrassing for the embattled showrunner, this is actually the second time this season that the show has broken this unfortunate record.
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The Doctor’s latest ratings disaster was first confirmed by UK television viewing aggregator Barb and relayed to the public by franchise-centric news outlet Doctor Who TV.
Per their numbers, the season’s seventh episode ‘The Legend of Ruby Sunday’ (which also serves as the first-half of its two-part season finale) pulled in just 2.02 million viewers in the first 24 hours following its June 15th premiere.
Notably, these viewership results are the worst of the entire season, coming in roughly at 20,000 viewers less than the 2.04 million brought in by series’ previous lowest performing episode, Boom.
- Episode 1 – Space Babies: 2.6 million overnight / 4.01 million seven-day
- Episode 2 – The Devil’s Chord: 2.2 million / 3.91 million
- Episode 3 – Boom: 2.04 million / 3.57 million
- Episode 4 – 73 Yards: 2.62 million / 4.058 million
- Episode 5 – Dot and Bubble: 2.12 million / 3.38 million
- Episode 6 – Rogue: 2.11 million / (Not yet posted)
- Episode 7 – The Legend of Ruby Sunday: 2.02 million / (Not yet posted)
Further, not only are these overnight numbers the worst of the 15th Doctor’s run thus far, but they are also the worst of the entire franchise.
This less-than-stellar record was previously held by the aforementioned Boom, which itself had taken the title from both the preceding episode The Devil’s Chord and the 2022 Easter special, The Legend of the Sea Devils, each having pulled in just 2.2 million viewers during their respective premiere windows.
To this end, one wonders if this latest ratings fumble will have any effect on Davies’ previously-stated optimism towards the series’ current performance.
Asked during a recent interview for the physical July issue of UK entertainment news magazine Radio Times if he had any thoughts on these abysmal numbers, Davies asserted, “I’m very proud of it! You know, they might not be the ratings we’d love. We always want higher.”
“But they are building over the 28-day period,” he added, moving the goalposts for the series’ success. “Episode 1, ‘Space Babies’, is already up to 5.6 million and counting. So it is getting there.”
Making note of the fact that despite its struggles, the series’ most reliable demographic has been under-30s, Davies then opined, “I was brought back in to bring in a youthful audience. That’s been massively successful.”
“The audience no one ever gets are the under-30s,” he told the magazine. “They just don’t watch television anymore. But those figures are astronomic for Doctor Who, it’s their top programme in that bracket.”
At current, according to Davies himself, whether or not Doctor Who continues on after this season is “still up in the air”.