Doctor Who begins a new series on Saturday night on BBC One. It has now been 10 years since the programme made a long-awaited return to television.
Here are some key statistics from the Doctor’s past decade of travels through space and time:
The most-watched episode of Doctor Who since 2005 is Voyage Of The Damned, which was broadcast on Christmas Day 2007. A total of 13.31 million people saw the Doctor (David Tennant) battle to save the crew of a luxury space liner called the Titanic. Special guest stars included Kylie Minogue, Geoffrey Palmer, Bernard Cribbins and Russell Tovey.
The very first episode of the relaunched Doctor Who was shown on March 26, 2005. Entitled Rose, the story is currently the eighth most-watched episode of the past 10 years, attracting an audience of 10.81 million.
Six of the top 10 most-watched episodes have been shown on Christmas Day. They include David Tennant’s penultimate story, The End Of Time part one (2009) and Matt Smith’s final episode, The Time Of The Doctor (2013).
The average ratings for each series of the new Doctor Who have remained broadly consistent, ranging between 7.26m (2014) and 8.05m (2008).
The episode with the lowest ratings to date is The Satan Pit, from David Tennant’s first series as the Doctor. It was broadcast on June 10, 2006 and was watched by 6.08 million.
Of the four actors to play Doctor Who since 2005, David Tennant (2005-10) has clocked up the most screen time: a total of 2,304 minutes. Matt Smith (2010-13) is close behind on 2,072 minutes.
Peter Capaldi (2013-date) has so far clocked up 643 minutes, while Christoper Eccleston (2005) appeared for just 585 minutes. All four of the recent Doctors are a long way behind Tom Baker, whose record of 4,300 minutes covers the years 1974-81 during the original run of Doctor Who.
There have been two mini-episodes of Doctor Who since 2005 that were broadcast as part of the BBC’s annual Children in Need appeal. The first was in 2005 and starred David Tennant as the Doctor. The second was in 2007 and featured Tennant and a cameo from Peter Davison, who played the fifth incarnation of the Doctor.
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