‘Doctor Who’, Featuring First Female Lead, Premieres With Record Ratings

‘Doctor Who’ premiered to record numbers and ratings, with this season being the first to feature a woman playing the title role as The Doctor.

By NathanG on October 8, 2018
(Photo by Andrew Toth/Getty Images for New York Comic Con)

The popular British sci-fi series, Doctor Who, premiered with record numbers on Sunday night. This newest season of the long-running series marked the first time a woman had been cast in the title role.

According to Time, the show premiered to an audience of over 9 million people on BBC. Actress, Jodie Whittaker, made her debut as the new Doctor, and led the series to its most viewed premiere since the 2008 season’s 8.4 million viewers.

This character debut earned Whittaker the most viewership for a new doctor over her last three predecessors. These included previous doctors played by Peter Capaldi, Matt Smith and David Tennant. Each of these actors garnered 6.8 million, 7.7 million, and 8 million viewers respectively for their premieres. Previously, the highest viewed Doctor Who premiere was 9.9 million, when Christopher Eccleston helped reboot the series in 2005.

Similar: Record-Low Number Of Viewers Watched The 2018 Academy Awards

Fans have been eagerly awaiting the debut of Jodie Whittaker as the first female doctor, since the announcement of her casting in July 2017. Whittaker marks the 13th person to play the title role, since the series first premiered in 1963.  With viewership for previous seasons slowly dwindling, this season’s opener reached an average of 8.2 million viewers, which almost doubled last year’s opener of 4.6 million people.

Are you a Doctor Who fan? Did you catch the premiere of the new season?

To read more about the popular sci-fi show, click here.

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