APZonerunner
Member
What was the atmosphere in England like when the reboot debuted?
I'd say the show is more popular than ever...definitely more popular than it was when Eccleston and Tennant were on.
I think the way it really is... like, when the reboot happened, the atmosphere was unlike anything I'd ever seen in my lifetime (born 89) for TV, except possibly for when they did the final return episodes of Only Fools and Horses.
In UK TV terms - and keeping it relative, obviously - the Who reboot was comparable to the fever over Star Wars Episode 1. It was mental. Even before it aired. During production, when doubts cropped up the Terry Nation estate would allow use of the Daleks, there was a huge public campaign, front pages of newspapers, to convince the nation estate otherwise.
As somebody who had heard of and knew of Doctor Who but never saw it, I was drawn in to watch... and I know many others like that. 'Rose' remains one of the highest-rated episodes of the reboot.
In the UK, I think that the show in terms of ratings is more or less as strong as it was in the back end of the Tennant era. A lot less people watch it live, but the number of people picking it up on demand or on repeat makes it roughly even. That's generally speaking, anyway - the top five UK ratings all still belong to Tennant, I think, with one of Smith's Christmas specials in sixth.
That said, it does feel like some of the mind share has been lost. It isn't the public agenda dominating, newspaper front-page getting behemoth it was a few years ago. I think that's the thing - they call it a "force" in that article, and I think as a force it is lessened. I think that's why we've seen it shunted around the schedule like shit in recent years, and why we've seen them struggle to gain extended-length episodes and additional budget where Series 3 & 4 seemed to gain them effortlessly - while ratings are still great, Who is less of a media force in the UK than it once was.
People in the thread marvelled when I posted the front pages after Capaldi was cast, saying they didn't realize the show was that big a deal in the UK, but during the Tennant era multiple simple cliffhangers made the front pages (even relatively shitty stuff like the Human Dalek made the front page of The Sun). Similarly, the press fever in the lead-up to Capaldi being cast was nothing on the meltdowns, rumours and daily new stories when Smith was being cast. You couldn't move for Who.
I personally specifically attribute that to the fact that Smith's Doctor is (as far as I can tell) more popular with kids and the younger audience than it is with adults, at least compared to Tennant. The irony about Moffat's era of the show is that while a lot of people complain that Moffat's plots are over-complex or self indulgent and such, he's generally speaking had a greater success with kids in the UK than RTD did, who had more success as a general family show, hitting a slightly wider audience.