People aren’t walking away from Doctor Who. After a year with no season, they’re just now coming back.

I liked Series 5. You probably liked it too, unless you don’t watch the program anyways or you don’t think bowties are cool. But the British media are starting to wonder whether people there liked it as much.

The Guardian’s Ben Dowell recently wrote an article where showrunner Stephen Moffatt spent a good deal of his time defending his series against the doubters, who use reduced ratings and supposed denunciation from the like of Terry Pratchett and Stephen Fry as fuel. Dowell summed up the handwringing thusly:

Headlines such as “Sexed-up Doctor no cure for TV ratings as 1.2m desert Timelord” and “New Doctor Matt Smith is turn-off for Tennant fans“, followed reports of unconsolidated figures averaging 6 million viewers for the current series, compared with an average of 7.2 million during the last series in 2008, which starred David Tennant.

Although the sci-fi series is still hugely popular with Whovians, some industry insiders have reported teething troubles for the new team. There are suggestions that the show has suffered from budget cuts – were the Daleks really redesigned for commercial reasons? While some critics have stirred up outrage over what they considered to be scanty outfits worn by the Doctor’s assistant, Amy Pond, others have fretted about the long hours endured by the cast and crew. Call it the typical British disease of knocking down success, but can a show such as this stay at the top of its game for another five years?

Moffatt correctly responded to those critiques by pointing out success of the iPlayer and that Who competed against Wimbledon and the World Cup and still landed 7 million viewers, on average. But the torrent of speculation and cruel whispers is all set among one key statistic–the lower ratings this year’s episodes pulled compared to 2008. The way the British media has been reading it, there’s no way to explain that other than uninterested viewers ditching Matt Smith’s interpretation of the Time Lord.

Ah yes, the 2008 season, who’s second half was one of the highest charting in the revived program’s history. Its season finales were the second and first most watched programs of the day, Journey’s End using its cliffhanger to the greatest extent, tying only Voyage of the Damned for viewercount at the time.

But what about 2009? There is a crucial reason that we aren’t comparing this year to last; that when the program was at its most popular point in its revived history, the producers decided to give Britain a rest from Doctor Who (or accommodate the shooting schedule of a lead actor who left anyways) by postponing Series 5 to 2010 and playing 5 special episodes in its place.

It’s clear why ratings have gone down; when more people were watching Doctor Who than they had for almost 20 years, series producers let them walk away. The specials didn’t amount to a full season, and the viewer’s rhythm of watching a televised season probably allowed them to make new patterns and take their interest elsewhere for a time. Who is now winning that back, but it takes time. In the meantime, the program is fresh and gaining its new legs with the current production crew, and I’m just excited for the Christmas Special.