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Doctor Who's overnight ratings confirmed – figures bounce back with The Well

Season 15 returned to BBC One with episode three, titled The Well, on Saturday.

Ncuti Gatwa as the Fifteenth Doctor in Doctor Who episode The Well. He's crouched on the floor, looking up at Rose Ayling-Ellis's Aliss Fenly, who is just out of shot, and subtitles of what he's saying appear in a box in front of him. They say: "Was there a noise? A gas? This mineshaft..."

BBC Studios/Bad Wolf

Published: Sunday, 27 April 2025 at 11:44 am

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Season 15 of Doctor Who saw a substantial bounce in the overnight ratings for the third episode, rebounding from last week’s series low.

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The new episode, titled The Well, took fans on another adventure as the Doctor and Belinda landed on a planet in the far future – and soon encountered a terrifying creature from the David Tennant Doctor Who era.

The Well aired on BBC One at 6.50pm on Saturday 26th April and received an overnight rating of 1.9 million viewers.

That’s a huge bump from last week’s episode Lux, which drew only 1.58 million viewers, marking the lowest overnight viewership ratings in the show's history.

In total, The Well was only the fourth most-watched programme of the day, behind ITV’s Britain’s Got Talent and The 1% Club, and the second most-watched on BBC One.

Of course, it’s worth noting that these figures don’t take into account anyone who watched the episode on demand on BBC iPlayer, where it landed at 8am on Saturday, prior to its BBC One broadcast.

The consolidated ratings, which include iPlayer, devices and catch-up, will be unveiled at a later date.

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The new episode, which Russell T Davies previously hailed as the most scary episode of this season, launched Ncuti Gatwa and Varada Sethu back onto our screens, as well as introducing fans to a handful of new guest stars including Rose Ayling-Ellis and Christopher Chung.

The instalment also offered viewers the most intriguing Mrs Flood cameo yet, bringing fans one step closer to finding out her identity.

Doctor Who season 15 continues on 3rd May 2025, coming to BBC iPlayer at 8am and airing at 7:20pm on BBC One.

Dive into our Doctor Who story guide: reviews of every episode since 1963, plus cast & crew listings, production trivia, and exclusive material from the Radio Times archive.

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Authors

RadioTimes.com senior trends writer Molly Moss. She is sitting outside wearing a black top, holding a white teacup with a smily face on it to her mouth

Molly MossTrends Writer

Molly Moss is a Trends Writer for Radio Times, covering the latest trends across TV, film and more. She has an MA in Newspaper Journalism and has previously written for publications including The Guardian, The Times and The Sun Online.

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