Updating the Doctors: 13 is not a lucky number for Jodie Whittaker

One of the first data-driven essays to appear on this website was a three-part assessment of every episode of Doctor Who following its revival in March 2005. You may find those three essays—as well as a, frankly, much better written July 2018 update—here; you will also find a much longer essay I wrote demonstrating the influence of classic film noir on the revised series. 

On December 25, 2017, Jodie Whittaker debuted as the 13^th incarnation of the multi-thousand-year-old Doctor. Since then, Whittaker has portrayed the Gallifreyan Time Lord in 21 additional episodes, with the most recent airing on March 1, 2020.

With two seasons of Whittaker’s portrayal of the Doctor behind us, here is an updated assessment of the 165 total episodes of the revived Doctor Who.

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Just as I collected ratings data to rank every Charlie Chan film, every film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and my own guilty pleasures, I collected ratings data to assess the relative popularity of the 165 episodes of the resurrected Doctor Who[1], from “Rose” (March 26, 2005) through “The Timeless Children” (March 1, 2020). Excluding John Hurt’s  irascible War Doctor, there have been five incarnations of The Doctor during this time period: 9 through 13. These 165 episodes comprise 12 Series of between 10 and 13 episodes plus 13 Christmas specials and four stand-alone specials, three featuring the 10^th Doctor (David Tennant) as well as the November 2013 50^th anniversary epic, in which Doctors 10 and 11 (Matt Smith) teamed with the War Doctor to save Gallifrey, The Doctor’s home planet.

For each episode, I collected four values:[2]

1. Its BBC “Audience Appreciation Index” (AI) Score, an integer from 0-100 revealing how much the British audience enjoyed each episode when it first aired. Higher scores indicate greater enjoyment.
2. Where the episode ranked that week in Great Britain (Chart), with a lower score indicating more viewers.
3. Its weighted-average Internet Movie Database (IMDB) score on a 0-10 scale, with 10 being the most favorable, and…
4. The number of IMDB “raters” whose scores were averaged. The higher the number of raters, in principle, the more “compelling” the episode—though higher ratings could also simply reflect a longer rating time frame or a trollish desire to “trash” an episode.

Analyzing these data will reveal:

• How popular individual episodes are now,
• How an episode’s current popularity compares to how popular each episode weas when it first aired,
• The comparative popularity of individual Series, and
• The comparative popularity of Doctors 9-13

I decided mostly to set aside “Chart” values as they are difficult to compare over time.

Table 1 provides details on each Series. It excludes the 13 Christmas specials from 2005 through 2017, two 2009 10^th Doctor specials (“Planet of the Dead,” “The Waters of Mars”) and “The Day of the Doctor.” However, given its chronological and story-arc proximity to the prior 10 episodes, I chose to include the 2019 New Year’s Day special “Resolution” as the 11^th and final episode of Series 11.

Table 1: Doctor Who Series (2005-20)

#	Dates	# Episodes	Doctor	Primary Companion(s)
1	March 26-June 18, 2005	13	9	Rose Tyler
2	April 15-July 8, 2006	13	10	Rose Tyler
3	March 31-June 30, 2007	13	10	Martha Jones
4	April 5-July 5, 2008	13	10	Donna Noble
5	April 10-June 26, 2010	13	11	Amy Pond/Rory Williams
6	April 23-June 4, 2011; August 27-October 1, 2011	7 6	11	Amy Pond/Rory Williams
7a	September 1-29, 2012	5	11	Amy Pond/Rory Williams
7b	March 30-May 18, 2013	8	11	Clara Oswald
8	August 23-November 8, 2014	12	12	Clara Oswald
9	September 19-December 5, 2015	12	12	Clara Oswald
10	April 15-July 1, 2017	12	12	Bill Potts
11	October 7, 2018-January 1, 2019	11	13	Yasmin Khan/Graham O’Brien/Ryan Sinclair
12	January 1-March 1, 2020	10	13	Yasmin Khan/Graham O’Brien/Ryan Sinclair

Individual episodes. Overall, the resurrected series has been very well-received with a “global” IMDB rating of 8.6 (192,481 unique raters). Upon first airing, average AI score was a remarkable 84.3, with a small standard deviation (“sd”) of 2.9; all but 12 episodes have an AI Score between 80 and 89. Enthusiasm has only somewhat diminished over time: average IMDB rating is 7.78 (sd=1.1), with 113 episodes (68%) between 7.0 and 8.9. In the previous version of this post, average AI Score was a tick higher (84.9) while average IMDB rating was higher still (8.13). While the former, as we shall see, represents a diminution of the show’s popularity in recent years, the latter suggests more recent IMDB raters are not as enamored with these episodes as prior raters; only the 2009 special “The Waters of Mars” had a higher IMDB rating, increasing from 8.7 to 8.8.

Two extremely highly-regarded episodes—2007’s “Blink” (9.8) and “The Day of the Doctor” (9.4—each attracted more than 15,000 raters (median=5,050; 120 [73%] between 3,000 and 5,999), accounting for the discrepancy between the series’ global IMDB rating and the mean across all 165 individual episodes.

Table 2: Most- and least-admired Doctor Who episodes (2005-17) when first aired

Title	Series-Episode	Doctor	AI Score
Journey’s End	4-13	10	91
The Stolen Earth	4-12	10	91
Forest of the Dead	4-9	10	89
Doomsday	2-13	10	89
Silence in the Library	4-8	10	89
Asylum of the Daleks	7a-1	11	89
The Parting of the Ways	1-13	9	89
The Big Bang	5-13	11	89
The End of Time: Part Two	10th Doctor Specials	10	89
14 Episodes	3  to 50th Anniversary	10 (8), 11 (6)	88
5 Episodes	1,9,11-12	9,12,13	80
Nikola Tesla’s Night of Terror	12-4	13	79
The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos	11-10	13	79
The Tsuranga Conundrum	11-5	13	79
Can You Hear Me?	12-7	13	78
Sleep No More	9-9	12	78
Praxeus	12-6	13	78
Orphan 55	12-3	13	77
Rose	1-1	9	76
Love & Monsters	2-10	10	76
The End of the World	1-2	9	76

      * The Unquiet Dead (1), Heaven Sent (9), Demons of the Punjab (11), Resolution (11-NYD), The Haunting of Villa Diodati (12)

The first thing we learn from Table 2 is that British viewers did not immediately warm to Christopher Eccleston as the 9^th Doctor upon Doctor Who’s resurrection: the first two new episodes (“Rose,” “The End of the World”)—are tied with the execrable Series 2 episode “Love & Monsters” for lowest AI Score. More recently, however, there are signs British audiences may be cooling to the show and, specifically, the ascension of Chris Chibnall as Doctor Who showrunner. Setting aside the even-more-execrable Series 9 episode “Sleep No More,” the other six episodes with the lowest AI Score date from his tenure, evenly divided between Series 11 and 12. Overall, 13 13^th Doctor episodes (54%)—14, if you include “Twice Upon a Time”—rank in the bottom 24 in AI Score; no episode in which Jodie Whittaker portrays The Doctor tops 83.

Meanwhile, four of the five episodes with the highest AI scores came as the 10^th Doctor’s song was ending: the spectacular two-part Series 4 finale (“The Stolen Earth/Journey’s End”) and the equally-brilliant two-part “Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead.” The top nine is rounded out by four other “finale” episodes: “The Parting of the Ways” (9^th Doctor’s regeneration), “Doomsday” (Rose Tyler [Billie Piper] gets trapped in a parallel universe), “The End of Time: Part Two” (10^th Doctor’s regeneration) and “The Big Bang” (Series 5 finale), as well as the first episode of Series 7a, “Asylum of the Daleks.”

But while AI Scores are a fixed starting point, albeit solely with British audiences, the IMDB ratings (flaws and all) in Table 3 signal how attitudes toward Doctor Who episodes have evolved over time, after they have been watched and re-watched, shared with others, and discussed at length.

Table 3: Doctor Who episodes (2005-17) with highest/lowest IMDB ratings

Title	Series-Episode	Doctor	IMDB Rating	# User-Raters
Blink	3-10	10	9.8	17,343
Heaven Sent	9-11	12	9.6	8,935
Forest of the Dead	4-9	10	9.5	7,789
Silence in the Library	4-8	10	9.4	7,480
The Day of the Doctor	50th Anniv	10/11	9.4	16,566
Doomsday	2-13	10	9.3	7,291
Vincent and the Doctor	5-10	11	9.3	8,961
The Girl in the Fireplace	2-4	10	9.3	9,064
5 Episodes*	1,3,4,10	9 (1), 10 (2), 12 (1)	9.2	4,001-7,138
3 Episodes†	2,8,11	10 (1), 12 (1), 13(1)	6.0	4,475-6,787
Can You Hear Me?	12-7	13	5.9	2,154
Sleep No More	9-9	12	5.8	4,185
Resolution	11-NYD	13	5.7	3,751
The Timeless Children	12-10	13	5.6	2,481
The Witchfinders	11-8	13	5.6	4,531
The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos	11-10	13	5.2	3,868
Praxeus	12-6	13	5.2	2,517
Arachnids in the UK	11-4	13	5.0	6,048
The Tsuranga Conundrum	11-5	13	4.9	5,582
Orphan 55	12-3	13	4.1	3,778

      * The Empty Child (1), The Family of Blood (3), Journey’s End (4), World Enough and Time (10)

        † Fear Her (1), In the Forest of the Night (8), The Ghost Monument (11)

Twenty-four resurrected Doctor Who episodes have an IMDB rating of 9.0 or higher, topped by “The Day of the Doctor,” “Silence/Forest,” the penultimate Series 9 episode “Heaven Sent” and, of course, “Blink.” The extremely high number of “Blink” raters supports the idea this is the episode most often used by Doctor Who fans to introduce the show to non-fans; if you are wondering, my wife Nell’s and my introduction was the remarkable “The Eleventh Hour” (88, 8.6), the first episode of Series 5. Somewhat less often used this way (ranked 3^rd and 4^th in raters) are the bittersweet episodes “The Girl in the Fireplace” (Series 2) and “Vincent and the Doctor” (Series 5). The heartbreaking “Doomsday” rounds out the top eight. My personal favorite episode, “A Good Man Goes to War” (Series 6), is in a 7-way-tie for 13^th with a 9.1 IMDB rating.

Bringing up the rear, by contrast, are 13 episodes with IMDB ratings ≤6.0, all but three from Series 11 and 12. In the previous version of this post, “Sleep No More” ranked lowest at 6.0; even though its IMDB rating dropped to 5.8, fully eight episodes are now ranked below it, including the Series 11 episode “The Tsuranga Conundrum” (4.9) and the wretched Series 12 episode “Orphan 55” (4.1).

There is clear overlap across these three rankings: “Doomsday,” “Silence/Forest,” “Stolen/Journey’s,” “The End of Time: Part Two,” “The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang,” “A Good Man” and “Day” remain among the most admired and oft-rated episodes, while “Sleep No More” and “Love and Monsters” are still best forgotten. It is likely too soon to know if attitudes toward the two most recent Series will evolve. On the other hand, an episode like “Heaven Sent,” which was relatively poorly received when it first aired in November 2015 (AI score=80), is now the 2nd-highest rated episode on IMDB!

A correlation coefficient (r) measures how well two measures “agree” in a linear way. R ranges between -1.00 and 1.00; if r is negative, then as one measure increases, the other decreases, and if r is positive, as one measure increases, the other measure increases. When r=0.00, the association is completely random.

The correlation between AI score and IMDB rating is a very solid 0.61, while that between IMDB rating and number of raters is a solid 0.46. These associations are seen more clearly in Figures 1 and 2 below. The correlation between AI score and number of user-raters was a more modest, though still positive, 0.28 (data not shown).

Figure 1: AI Score vs. IMDB Rating, Doctor Who episodes, 2005-20 (n=165)

Figure 2: IMDB Rating vs. # Raters, Doctor Who episodes, 2005-20 (n=165)

Attitude evolution. Comparing each episode’s AI scores and IMDB ratings reveals which episodes have increased in appeal over time, and vice versa. To do this, I converted each value to its z-score (number of SD above/below average) to account for differing scales; every z-score has average=0 and SD=1. For example, “A Good Man” has an IMDB rating of 9.1. Subtracting the average of 7.8 from 9.1, then dividing by the SD of 1.1 yields a z-score of 1.25, meaning this episode is 1.25 SD more highly regarded than average based upon its IMDB score.

Figure 3: AI Score vs. IMDB Rating (z-scores), Doctor Who episodes, 2005-20 (n=165)

Two-thirds (66%) of these episodes remain either better regarded than average (both z-scores>0, n=55) or less well regarded than average (both z-scores<0, n=54). Once again, “Blink” and “Stolen/Journey’s” were, and remain, highly regarded, while “Love and Monsters” and “Orphan 55” continue to be episodes best to avoid.

Twenty-seven episodes (16%) went from above average to below average in public esteem–as shown in the lower right quadrant of Figure—most notably the Series 3 episodes “Daleks in Manhattan” and “The Lazarus Experiment.” The latter declined 1.7 SD from a respectable AI score of 86 to a well-below-average IMDB rating of 6.6, while the former dropped 1.6 SD (87 to 7.0). The only other episodes to decline at least 1.5 SD while going from more- to less-well-regarded than average are “The Curse of the Black Spot,” “The Poison Sky” and “Planet of the Dead.” Other than “Curse,” these four episodes feature the 10th Doctor, though nothing else obviously links them.

Finally, 29 episodes (18%) went from below average to above average in regard (upper left quadrant of Figure 3), most notably “Heaven Sent,” which has increased an astonishing 3.2 SD (80 to 9.6) since its November 2015 debut; this episode—the Groundhog Day of Doctor Who—rewards repeat viewing. The next highest increase in SD is 1.85 for “Listen” (82 to 9.0), one of the 12th Doctor’s earliest and most personal adventures. In fact, four of five episodes to increase at least 1.5 SD to become more well-regarded than average, including “Hell Bent” and “The Doctor Falls,” feature the 12th Doctor. Perhaps his imminent departure from the series prompted this positive reevaluation; “The Girl in the Fireplace” rounds out the list.

Series. As seen in Table 1, there have actually been 13 resurrected Doctor Who Series, as Series 7 was split into two halves: one with companions Amy Pond (Karen Gillan) and Rory Williams (Arthur Darvill), and one with companion Clara Oswald (Jenna Coleman). While Series 6 featured a nearly three-month gap between the first seven and the final six episodes, I consider it a single Series because it features the same companions and a unifying story arc.

Further complicating the demarcation of individual Series are the 13 Christmas episodes, three 10th Doctor specials and the 50th anniversary special (Table 4). It is not clear into which, if any, Series these episodes should be placed. Christmas episodes were equally admired at initial airing (average AI score=84.1 vs 84.4 for all other episodes) and are slightly better-regarded now (average IMDB rating=7.99 vs. 7.76 for all other episodes). The four stand-alone Specials, however, were—and, excepting “Planet,” are—much better-regarded.

Table 4: AI Scores and IMDB Ratings, Doctor Who Christmas and Special Episodes (2005-17)

Title	Year/Date	Doctor	AI Score	IMDB Rating
Christmas Specials
The Christmas Invasion	2005	10	84	8.1
The Runaway Bride	2006	10	84	7.6
Voyage of the Damned	2007	10	85	7.6
The Next Doctor	2008	10	86	7.5
The End of Time: Part One	2009	10	87	8.2
A Christmas Carol	2010	11	83	8.6
The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe	2011	11	84	7.2
The Snowmen	2012	11	87	8.4
The Time of the Doctor	2013	11	83	8.4
Last Christmas	2014	12	82	8.3
The Husbands of River Song	2015	12	82	8.5
The Return of Doctor Mysterio	2016	12	82	7.4
Twice Upon a Time	2017	12	81	8.1
10th Doctor Specials (after Series 4, excluding Christmas)
Planet of the Dead	April 11, 2009	10	88	7.5
The Waters of Mars	November 15, 2009	10	88	8.8
The End of Time: Part Two	January 1, 2010	10	89	8.9
50th Anniversary Special
The Day of the Doctor	November 23, 2013	War, 10, 11	88	9.4

For simplicity, then, I assessed individual Series using only the 148 episodes listed in Table 1.

Figure 4: Average AI Scores and IMDB Ratings, Doctor Who Series (2005-20)

Series 1 started slowly (Figure 4; AI Scores divided by 10 for apples-to-apples comparison), although four of the final five episodes rank among the most well-regarded now (“The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances,” “Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways,” average IMDB score=9.0).

While Series 2 is now slightly less well-regarded than Series 1, and average IMDB rating for Series 3 drops to 7.94 without “Blink,” Series generally became better-regarded through Series 4. This latter Series is the best-regarded of the revived Doctor Who, both when first aired (average AI score=88.1) and now (average IMDB rating=8.42). It started slowly: while “Partners in Crime” through “The Unicorn and the Wasp” (n=7) have a solid AI score average of 87.3, their average IMDB rating is only 7.73. Starting with the brilliant two-part “Silence/Forest,” however, the six episodes through “Journey’s End” have an astonishingly-high average AI score (89.0) and IMDB rating (9.20)! Outside of the three-episode sequence “The Name…” (88, 9.2), “The Day…” (88, 9.4) and “The Time of the Doctor” (83, 8.5), this is the pinnacle of the resurrected Doctor Who, rivaled only by the conclusion to Series 9.

Following the 10th Doctor’s regeneration, however, Series 5 and 6 dropped back to the more-than-respectable levels of Series 1-3. Series 6 had two distinct parts: the seven-episode sequence of “The Impossible Astronaut” through “A Good Man” have solid average AI score (86.7) and IMDB rating (8.16), which drop to 85.7 and 7.95, respectively, for the final six episodes (“Let’s Kill Hitler” through “The Wedding of River Song”).

Starting in Series 7a, these measures diverge, with average AI score jumping to 87.2 and average IMDB rating dropping to 7.98; the Series started (“Asylum of the Daleks,” 89, 8.6) and ended (“The Angels Take Manhattan,” 88, 9.0) well, though it faltered in between (n=3, 86.3, 7.43). The advent of companion Clara Oswald in Series 7b appeared to spike a further decline in public esteem, which only deepened when she teamed with the 12th Doctor in Series 8 and 9, excepting the average IMDB rating of 8.90 for the three-part Series finale (“Face the Raven/Heaven Sent/Hell Bent”). Series 10, with the first openly lesbian companion (Bill Potts [Pearl Mackie]), then signaled a return to Series-8-level regard.

And then…the popularity of Doctor Who took a nosedive over cliffs as steep as those which dominate Broadchurch, which also starred Tennant and Whittaker.

To be fair, average AI Score did not decline nearly as much, perhaps because Britons wanted to give the first female Doctor a fair chance. Indeed, the first full Whittaker episode—“The Woman Who Fell to Earth”—was the top-rated program of the week, the first time that had happened since “Day” in November 2013. And that episode has an OK 6.9 IMDB rating to go with its respectable 83 AI Score. “Rosa,” featuring American civil rights icon Rosa Parks two episodes later, has similar scores of 83 and 7.0. Overall, the first seven episodes averaged 5th place in their respective weeks, rivaling only the 2009-10 Tennant Christmas and standalone specials. Moreover, those seven episodes have been rated by an average of 6,548 IMDB users, rivaling the average 6,740 IMDB raters for the last six episodes of Series 4, which aired a full decade earlier.

For all that attention, however, those seven episodes have a mean IMDB rating of 6.06, which does not materially differ from the Series 11 average of 5.93 and is lower than the Series 12 average of 6.26; the latter series featured the only three other 13th Doctor episodes with IMDB ratings of 7.0 or higher: “Ascension of the Cybermen” (7.0), “The Haunting of Villa Diodati” (7.3) and “Fugitive of the Judoon” (7.7). And every one of these episodes still ranks below the overall average of 7.78. Plus, the 14 episodes which followed “Kerblam!” ranked an average 23rd in their respective weeks, following the historic pattern of a sharp ratings decline over the course of each Series.

Nine of these 21 episodes (43%), meanwhile, have IMDB ratings between 4.1 and 5.9. For context, here are 38 movies in the same range (full disclosure—I have seen each one multiple times, and I genuinely like some of them):

The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle (2000)

Batman Forever (1995)

The Big Mouth (1967)

Bloodhounds of Broadway (1989)

Bright Lights, Big City (1987)

Casual Sex? (1988)

City Heat (1984)

Cookie (1989)

Delirious (1991)

Desperately Seeking Susan (1985)

Doctor Detroit (1983)

Dog Park (1998)

Earth Girls are Easy (1989)

The Gun in Betty Lou’s Handbag (1992)

Hexed (1993)

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003)

Legal Eagles (1986)

Mannequin (1988)

The Marrying Man (1991)

Memoirs of an Invisible Man (1992)

The Meteor Man (1993)

Mixed Nuts (1994)

Mr. Saturday Night (1992)

Once Upon a Crime… (1992)

The Opposite Sex, and How to Live With Them (1993)

The Phantom (1996)

The Pick-Up Artist (1987)

Queens Logic (1991)

Random Hearts (1999)

The Spirit (2008)

Summer Lovers (1982)

Sunset (1988)

Tapeheads (1988)

Thank God, It’s Friday (1978)

Wholly Moses (1980)

Who’s Harry Crumb? (1989)

Wild Wild West (1999)

Young Doctors in Love (1982)

It is certainly possible that these 21 episodes, as was the case with the first Eccleston episodes, will be positively reevaluated in later years.

Figure 5: Average AI Scores and IMDB Ratings, Doctor Who Doctors (2005-17)

Doctors. Figure 5 displays average values for all 9th (n=13), 10th (n=47), 11th (n=44), 12th Doctor (n=40) and 13th Doctor (n=21) episodes; excluding Christmas episodes and Specials made no appreciable difference.

While websites like WatchMojo.com suggest David Tennant’s 10th Doctor is the best-regarded Doctor ever (rivaling Tom Baker’s 4th Doctor), this is not necessarily borne out by the data. The 10th and 11th Doctors have essentially identical average AI Scores—86.3 and 86.0, while the 12th and 9th Doctors are not that far behind at 82.7 and 82.2, respectively; even the 13th Doctor’s average AI Score of 80.7 is broadly respectable. Moreover, Tennant’s 8.12 average IMDB rating is not appreciably higher than Smith’s 8.04, Eccleston’s 8.01 and Capaldi’s 7.89—though all are considerably than the lowly 6.08 for Whittaker’s 21 episodes.

Conclusions. Overall, the resurrected Doctor Who has been enormously popular by all three primary metrics used above. Its 8.6 overall IMDB rating places it in the rarefied heights between Back to the Future and The Dark Knight. Still, the show did not find its footing until late in Series 1. The 10^th and 11^th Doctors are held in modestly higher regard than the 9^th and 12^th Doctors, even if the ends of Series 1 and 9 are very highly-regarded now. The pinnacle of the revived series is the latter half of Series 4, although the most highly-rated episode currently is “Blink” (Series 3), followed by “Heaven Sent” (Series 9) and the 50^th-anniversary special “The Day of the Doctor.” “Blink” and “Day” also have received the most IMDB user-ratings by far (>15,000 each). By contrast, it is best to avoid the Series 3 episode “Love and Monsters,” the Series 9 episode “Sleep No More” and many episodes in Series 11 and 12, though not “Fugitive of the Judoon” and “The Haunting of Villa Diodati.” While many 10^th Doctor episodes have lost stature over time, a similar number of 12^th Doctor episodes have done the opposite. Finally, there are extreme warning signs in the dramatic decline in ratings and public esteem following the ascension of Chibnall as show runner and the first female Doctor.

We shall see if this changes in Series 13 in 2021.

If you are interested, here is a PDF of the data compiled for these analyses.

Doctor Who Episode Data, 2005-20

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[1] The “classic” series aired from November 1963 to December 1989, with only one 1996 television movie—intended to be an American series pilot—before its triumphant return in 2005.

[2] As of March 28, 2020