Despite the massive input of cash from Disney, the BBC’s famed Doctor Who sci fi series seems to be struggling in the UK ratings with numbers coming in lower than even the previous low numbers from last season as the show becomes mired in accusations of ultra woke story telling.
The British state-run broadcasting service reports that the sci fi show’s seven-day viewing figures are not auspicious at all for the first half of season 15, the second for the “queer” Doctor portrayed by actor Ncuti Gatwa.
The press has also been a disaster for the show.
Over the past few days, rumors quickly spread that Gatwa was fired in the wake of his decision to pull out of a scheduled opportunity to present the Eurovision scores after a resident of Israel made it into the top tier of the popular talent contest series. According to the Daly Mail, BBC bosses were furious that Gatwa bowed out at the last minute in protest that a Jew was one of the top performers.
It does not appear that Gatwa has made any statements about his decision to drop out of the Eurovision broadcast, and the BBC released a statement that merely claimed that Gatwa was not participating “due to unforeseen circumstances.”
UK paper The Sun insisted that there have been consequences behind the scenes and reported that Gatwa was being let go from Doctor Who after season 15 and further added that the fate of the entire series is uncertain and that the show may go off the air for an undefined period of time.
These reports come as ratings data shows that series 15’s opening episode experienced an 800,000 viewer crater over Gatwa’s first season debut last year, going from 4 million for season 14’s episode to only 3.6 million this year. The season 14 numbers are also down more than a a million over season 13’s opening episode when actress Jodie Whitaker portrayed the Doctor in her final season, going from 5.8 million for Whitaker’s final season opener to Gatwa’s first season opener of only 4 million, according to Deadline.
The second, third, and fourth episode of this season have also seen numbers crashing almost half over Whitaker’s first four episodes. Whitaker — who also suffered falling numbers over her predecessor — earned about two million more viewers than Gatwa is now earning.
Despite all this, the BBC insists that Gatwa was not fired and that the fate of a season 16 has not been decided, and won’t be until season 15 is finished airing.
But even series showrunner Russell T Davies let slip a comment that had fans assuming that the series was headed for a hiatus, telling the BBC’s Newshound that there “might be a pause,” but that “no good idea ever dies.”
On the other hand, Davies also says that they are already deep into writing and planning for season 16 with several scripts already done. And with the development deal with Disney, several spin offs are also in discussion to fulfill the goal of turning Doctor Who into a Star Wars sort of property with a number of series featuring a wider universe of stories and characters, according to The Sunday Times.
Gatwa’s short tenure as the show’s lead character has already been fraught with missteps. When it was first announced that he was cast as The Doctor, rumors swirled that the series was going to dive straight into woke LGBTQ stories, but the BBC tried to deny the claims. However, as soon as series 14 debuted, it quickly became obvious that Gatwa’s Doctor was gay when he became the first Doctor to kiss another man and have a gay romance.
The series has also been filled to the rafters with “representation” of transgenders, gays, and even an unusual number of disabled characters. Another oddity of both series 14 and 15 is the inordinate number of times that Gatwa’s Doctor openly weeps on the show. In nearly every episode he is seen crying, with tears streaming, over one issue or another.
Gatwa also riled fans when he railed that white people are guilty of a lot of mediocre TV and also warned fans that if they don’t like the woke stories, they should “turn off the TV.”
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Facebook at: facebook.com/Warner.Todd.Huston, X at WTHuston, or Truth Social at @WarnerToddHuston.
Read the full article here
