Time-Flight (TV story): Difference between revisions

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'''''Time-Flight''''' was the seventh and final story of [[season 19]] of ''[[Doctor Who]]''.
'''''Time-Flight''''' was the seventh and final story of [[season 19]] of ''[[Doctor Who]]''.


For those interested in viewing statistics, it's a highly significant story, because different surveys of audience reaction have produced widely varying results. The most statistically valid of these measures — the actual television ratings — show that episode one was the most successful episode in [[John Nathan-Turner]]'s entire [[producer]]ship.  The 26th-most-watched episode of [[British]] television in the week of initial transmission, it was the only time he cracked the top 30. However, the story also shed about two million viewers from beginning to end, perhaps suggesting that a portion of the initial audience — lured back to ''Doctor Who'' by the highly-rated ending of [[Earthshock (TV story)|the previous serial]] — were unsatisfied by ''Time-Flight'' as it unfolded.
For those interested in viewing statistics, it's a highly significant story, because different surveys of audience reaction have produced widely varying results. The most statistically valid of these measures — the actual television ratings — show that episode one was the most successful episode in [[John Nathan-Turner]]'s entire [[producer]]ship.  The 26th-most-watched episode of [[British]] television in the week of initial transmission, it was the only time he cracked the top 30. However, the story also shed about two million viewers from beginning to end.


Fan opinion — which, of course, is never the subject of truly valid statistical investigation — has changed dramatically over the years.  Those who responded to [[DWM 69]]'s season 19 poll held it in reasonably high regard, placing it as the fourth-best serial of the year, ahead of ''[[Castrovalva (TV story)|Castrovalva]]'', ''[[Four to Doomsday (TV story)|Four to Doomsday]]'' and ''[[Kinda (TV story)|Kinda]]''.  Decades later, those fans responding to [[DWM 413]]'s "Mighty 200" poll in [[2009]] cited it as the 196th of the 200 stories that were then produced.  A part of the explanation for this massive shift in negative momentum may be that fan leaders such as [[Paul Cornell]] and [[David J. Howe]] savaged the story in references works like ''[[The Discontinuity Guide]]'' and ''[[The Television Companion]]'', whose influence multiplied when [[BBCi]], and later [[BBC Online]], incorporated those opinions into the [[Doctor Who website|official ''Doctor Who'' website]].  Thus people skimming the official site in the [[2000s]] and [[2010s]] could well believe that opinion of the [[British Broadcasting Corporation|BBC]] runs along the lines of, "Somebody, somewhere should have thrown this script in the bin the moment it had [[Concorde]] crash landing in [[Jurassic]] [[England]]..."  
Fan opinion — which, of course, is never the subject of truly valid statistical investigation — has changed dramatically over the years.  Those who responded to [[DWM 69]]'s season 19 poll held it in reasonably high regard, placing it as the fourth-best serial of the year, ahead of ''[[Castrovalva (TV story)|Castrovalva]]'', ''[[Four to Doomsday (TV story)|Four to Doomsday]]'' and ''[[Kinda (TV story)|Kinda]]''.  Decades later, those fans responding to [[DWM 413]]'s "Mighty 200" poll in [[2009]] cited it as the 196th of the 200 stories that were then produced.  A part of the explanation for this massive shift in negative momentum may be that fan leaders such as [[Paul Cornell]] and [[David J. Howe]] savaged the story in references works like ''[[The Discontinuity Guide]]'' and ''[[The Television Companion]]'', whose influence multiplied when [[BBCi]], and later [[BBC Online]], incorporated those opinions into the [[Doctor Who website|official ''Doctor Who'' website]].  Thus people skimming the official site in the [[2000s]] and [[2010s]] could well believe that opinion of the [[British Broadcasting Corporation|BBC]] runs along the lines of, "Somebody, somewhere should have thrown this script in the bin the moment it had [[Concorde]] crash landing in [[Jurassic]] [[England]]..."  
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