10 Times Doctor Who Jumped The Shark (And Nuked The Fridge)

10. The First Time The Bubble Burst

To be honest, Doctor Who didn't start out with great ratings, only achieving a barely adequate five or six million viewers a week while the TARDIS crew were battling cave men. In those days, those numbers weren't good. But after the debut of a certain race of mutants from Skaro, the programme's popularity soared and the ever-present shadow of the axe retreated for a while. These high Dalek-fuelled viewing figures (ranging from a solid eight million to a tremendous ten million) endured throughout Marco Polo and much of the following story; however, it was at this point in May 1964 that the bubble rudely burst. The cause? The sub-par The Keys of Marinus by Terry Nation. This six-part adventure caused the first ever pronounced slump in viewership, inheriting a robust 10 million devotees at its beginning and then losing two million bottoms on chairs with Part 5 and another million with Part 6. This dramatic drop down to seven million persisted all the way through the frankly wonderful The Aztecs and the figures were only fixed in the end by bringing back the metal meanies who'd caused the original viewing surge in The Dalek Invasion of Earth. But why did Marinus poison the well so badly? Part of the answer is that each episode carries the heavy burden of a showoff plot structure - the individual episodes are all set in different locations, causing the story to jump about seemingly at random and over-straining the production team's resources. The unusual structuring of the story also leaves no chance for character development or detailed plotting. In addition, dealing another mortal blow to the serial, the script seems hastily written and is chock full of clichés, often talking down to the intended audience of children. The serial's problems weren't restricted to the script, though. Designer Raymond Cusick is on record as saying that the director, John Gorrie, seemed totally disinterested. Frankly, that attitude comes across on screen at times and if the director can't be bothered, why should the audience? The very first ratings collapse shows that when a director thinks he can get away with putting in minimal effort, the answer is "No, he can't". Even audiences light-headed on the rush of Dalek mania knew crud when they saw it. By contrast, today's era of Doctor Who can't be accused of not trying hard enough - rather, it sometimes tries a little too hard, which can be just as bad. The flawed script and execution of Marinus are a shame in the end because the Voord featured in the story came within a hair's breadth of being good monsters. If only they'd had more to do and a better story in which to do it...