Doctor Who: Ratings Review Part Two

A look at the ratings for the second half of this year’s series of Doctor Who from Let’s Kill Hitler to The Wedding of River Song – these ratings figures will dispel all those tabloid stories claiming the show’s ratings were in freefall.

Doctor Who returned for the second part of its sixth season on Saturday 27th August with Let’s Kill Hitler. The story was loosely speaking the second part of A Good Man Goes to War though the setting and storyline are virtually different with the only real carry-over plot concerning River Song (Alex Kingston) and the fallout from the revelation she was Rory (Arthur Darvill) and Amy’s (Karen Gillan) daughter. Let’s Kill Hitler had a strong overnight audience of 6.2 million viewers but its final figure was much higher at 8,.10 million viewers. The episode was also heavily requested on the BBC iPlayer service with over 1 million downloads which means its “reach” was over 9 million viewers – er who said Doctor Who’s ratings were falling?

Night Terrors, penned by Mark Gatiss, was the following episode and was originally scheduled to air earlier this year but show-runner Steven Moffat switched the running order around pushing back this episode. Night Terrors had an overnight figure of 5.5 million viewers but rose heavily in terms of viewers with final ratings – perhaps a sign that parents were vetting the episode because of its widely publicised scarier content. The episode had a final rating of 7 million viewers and was downloaded on the iPlayer service 1.11 million times by the end of September – meaning it’s total reach was over 8 million.

The Girl Who Waited was well received by fans and the performances of Arthur Darvill and Karen Gillan were widely praised. Overnight figures for the episode placed the ratings at 6 million which rose to 7.6 million with final figures. The Girl Who Waited was the most popular download on the iPlayer in September with 1.16 requests – meaning the episode had a total reach of nearly 9 million viewers. The God Complex had 5.2 million viewers according to overnight figures which, of course, saw big rises in ratings thanks to final figures. The episodes final figure was rated at 6.7 million viewers and it was the fourth most requested programme of September on the iplayer.

The penultimate episode of the sixth season was Closing Time which saw the return of James Corden from last year’s episode The Lodger and the Cybermen. The episode had 5.3 million viewers according to overnight figures which rose to 6.9 million viewers with final figures. It was the fifth most requested programme on the iplayer in September. The season finale, The Wedding of River Song, met with mixed reviews from critics and viewers alike. It did however resolve some of the story-arc established by Steven Moffat when he took over as show-runner last year. It also revealed how the Doctor escaped his ‘death’ as witnessed in The Impossible Astronaut. The Wedding of River Song had an overnight figure of 6.1 million viewers with a final figure of 7.7 million viewers. As yet there are no exact iplayer figures for the episode as it aired in October and therefore figures will not be released until early November. Being the season finale though its likely the episode will be high up in the figures for the month.

You can read our ratings review for the first half season six here >>

To read our Queenie’s, our TV Critic, reviews of Doctor Who click here >>