Your verdict on Hell Bent & Final Series 9 Episode Ranking
Joshua Yetman reveals DWTV’s community episode score and ranking for the Series 9 finale.
Nearly six thousand of you voted in Doctor Who TV’s polls last week for Hell Bent, the twelfth and final episode of Series 9, written by showrunner Steven Moffat. As usual, we asked you to give the episode a score out of 10, and the results are as such:
If you ever needed a definition for “divisive”, pointing to the above diagram would pretty much provide it. Hell Bent has split the DWTV community in a way that no episode has in the past. Although the 10/10 votes reign supreme in this case (unlike Sleep No More, another extremely divisive episode in the series), every option has received a relatively significant proportion of the votes, and the remarkable steadiness of the votes between 2/10 and 6/10 indicates enormous polarisation.
Anyway, as you know by now, each week we’ll be taking these votes and working out the average score, among other statistics. We will then use these average scores to rank the episodes and get a good idea of its placing in the series.
Those hoping for Hell Bent to conclude the critically acclaimed Series 9 on a high note may be slightly disappointed, as Hell Bent only achieved an average score of 7.760, a score which puts it just above The Woman Who Lived and below Before the Flood within the series. “Only” is a misleading remark, however, as the result itself is still very strong taken on an absolute basis. However, it is a score which will unfortunately leave the episode in the shadow of its universally acclaimed preceding half/third, Heaven Sent (though, to be fair, it was never going to be easy following on from an episode like that).
Anyway, we have finally completed the full rankings of Series 9 here on DWTV! After twelve episodes and twelve articles, the definitive DWTV initial rankings of Series 9 stand as such:
- 1. Heaven Sent – 9.344
- 2. The Zygon Inversion – 8.994
- 3. Face The Raven – 8.800
- 4. The Witch’s Familiar – 8.603
- 5. The Magician’s Apprentice – 8.479
- 6. Under the Lake – 8.434
- 7. The Zygon Invasion – 8.325
- 8. Before the Flood – 8.181
- 9. Hell Bent – 7.760
- 10. The Woman Who Lived – 7.715
- 11. The Girl Who Died – 7.461
- 12. Sleep No More – 5.955
Ultimately, the Series 9 average stands at an excellent 8.171. In the end, eight out of the twelve episodes in Series 9 attained a score above 8/10, with one of those eight ultimately attaining a score above 9/10. The same eight episodes all scored above the series average.
(1) Interpreting the score
Hell Bent is the 63rd highest rated episode of the last decade. Its community score of 7.760 puts it just below The God Complex (which attained an average of 7.764) in 62nd and just above The Lodger (which attained an average of 7.688) in 64th.
To further clarify its position within the revival, our tried and trusted box and whiskers diagram can be used to show exactly where Hell Bent has fallen amongst the scope of the pre-Series 9 revival:
To explain for the last time this series, this diagram represents the spread of episode quality in the revival. The box in the middle represents the middle 50% of all the 117 episodes between Rose and Last Christmas in terms of quality, distinguished into an upper quartile (the yellow section) and a lower quartile (the grey section), with the line between them being the median (i.e. the episode right in the middle of the rankings, which happens to be Time Heist). The ‘whiskers’ represent the absolute extremes of the revival, from The Day of the Doctor at the far right, to Fear Her at the far left. The position of Hell Bent is demarcated by the black cross. All sample data for this diagram comes from the Rank The Revival census carried out earlier this year.
For the first time since The Woman Who Lived, we have an episode that falls within the boxplot itself (every episode since then has fallen on a whisker). As it stands, Hell Bent has fallen comfortably into the yellow upper quartile, and thus it can be described as having fallen into the upper half of the revival.
- Out of the 25 episodes of Peter Capaldi’s era to date, Hell Bent would rank only 16th. The average of Peter’s era now stands at 7.925, which is still higher than any other Doctor.
- If we consider the set of all single-part finales (i.e. The Wedding of River Song and The Name of the Doctor), and all the final parts to multi-part finales (i.e. the final episode of Series 1-5 and Series 8-9), then Hell Bent would only rank 7th (out of 9). Last year’s controversial finale Death in Heaven ranks above it. Hell Bent only beats Last of the Time Lords and The Wedding of River Song.
- Only 83.03% of you gave Hell Bent half marks or more, with a significant bulk of this proportion going to the 10/10 option. 83.03% is the 19th lowest on record.
- However, 39.78% of you gave Hell Bent full marks, which is the 23rd highest on record!
(2) Divisiveness
A couple of weeks ago, I confidently made this comment in one of my articles, in regards to Sleep No More’s record high standard deviation:
“I’d be incredibly surprised if Sleep No More is surpassed as the most divisive episode at all within the next few years, let alone in the remaining episodes of Series 9.”
Well, it’s time for me to eat those words because, unfortunately, Hell Bent has taken the top spot from Sleep No More, to become the new most divisive episode in the history of the revival, all in a manner of weeks as opposed to years. It attained a record high standard deviation of 2.829, driven by the huge proportion of 10/10 votes in contrast with the relatively high proportion of votes under 5/10, indicative of a (understandably) polarised community.
To clarify, the divisiveness of an episode can be measured using standard deviation, a very handy statistic which measures how spread out votes are from the average. The higher the standard deviation, the more divisive the episode. To make additional sense of what this number means, I have generated the following rough scaling system for interpreting standard deviation in the context of Doctor Who episodes:
- Less than 1.5 – very high agreement amongst the fanbase; whatever the overall opinion is of this episode, positive or negative, the vast majority of people conform to it.
- Between 1.5 and 1.75 – not particularly divisive.
- Between 1.75 and 2 –fairly divisive
- Above 2 – considerably divisive; opinions vary far and wide for such an episode.
The standard deviation received by Hell Bent is so far above 2, however, that “considerably” divisive doesn’t quite cut it. Like with Sleep No More, I think it’s best to describe it as “monumentally” divisive. Series 9 now possesses the two most divisive episodes in the history of the revival, which is not a particularly pleasant statistic to end this series on.
The final complete divisiveness rankings for Series 9 now stands as follows:
- 1. Hell Bent – 2.829 (most divisive…ever)
- 2. Sleep No More – 2.775 (most divisive…ever)
- 3. The Girl Who Died – 2.235
- 4. The Woman Who Lived – 2.178
- 5. The Zygon Invasion – 1.984
- 6. The Magician’s Apprentice – 1.815
- 7. The Witch’s Familiar – 1.758
- 8. Before the Flood – 1.723
- 9. Face The Raven – 1.716
- 10. The Zygon Inversion – 1.600
- 11. Heaven Sent – 1.554
- 12. Under the Lake – 1.548 (least divisive)
Under the Lake officially takes the crown as being the least divisive episode of the series. But, overall, this series has certainly had some very divisive moments.
(3) Considering the overall story
Whether or not the Series 9 finale was a two-parter or a three-parter is subjective, so I will address both interpretations in turn.
Considering just Heaven Sent / Hell Bent as a double-parter, they collectively average 8.552, which would make the double-parter the 8th highest rated double-parter of the revival. It narrowly beats The Magician’s Apprentice / The Witch’s Familiar (which averaged 8.541) to be the second highest rated double-parter in Series 9, after The Zygon Invasion / The Zygon Inversion (which averaged 8.659).
The gap between Heaven Sent and Hell Bent is the highest difference between part 1 and part 2 of a double-parter on record, however. The gap between the two episodes stands at a staggeringly high 1.584, more than doubling the gap between the previous record holder Dark Water / Death in Heaven (which had an interpart gap of 0.760).
To emphasise the sheer difference in quality between the two parts even further, Heaven Sent is the highest rated part 1 episode on record. Hell Bent is only the sixteenth highest rated part 2 episode on record.
Now considering Face The Raven / Heaven Sent / Hell Bent as a triple parter (the first since 2007), it averages a more impressive 8.635 due to the incorporation of Face The Raven’s high score. This would put the finale as the 6th highest rated multi-part story, though this is still not enough to beat The Zygon Invasion / The Zygon Inversion in Series 9.
(4) Series 9 in conclusion
The average score of Series 9 ultimately stands at 8.171. The Qualityometer – our informal measure of how much better Series 9 is doing compared to the pre-Series 9 revival average – ultimately stands at 8.87%, as shown by the golden arrow below:
Series 9 has raised the revival average up from 7.505 (as it stood after Last Christmas) to 7.567, which is our new benchmark revival average.
An upcoming pair of articles will delve into much more detail about how well Series 9 performed compared to the rest of the revival, so forgive me for being brief here, but rest assured there is a lot of stats left to come!
(5) Evaluating the projections
A few months ago, I produced a set of statistical projections for the initial community averages of each upcoming episode in Series 9. The purpose of this was to compare them to the actual results as they became available, in order to gauge how sensible it is to use statistical models to forecast such potentially unpredictable variables.
The projection for Hell Bent was 8.58, which now represents another unacceptable error of 10.51% now that we know the final figure of 7.760, yet another poor result from the Oswald Model, and presenting me with the final conclusion that it was, overall, pretty damn rubbish, but for explainable reasons.
Although basing a projection for the quality of an upcoming episode based purely on historical results is fairly logical and sound in my mind, it seems that the primary factors which ultimately influence episode scores are – pretty simply – the utterly unpredictable little or big moments that substantiate the underlying episodes, like the big speech in The Zygon Inversion or Clara’s revised exit in Hell Bent. Nothing on Earth could ever predict such pivotal, score influencing moments like this (unless you have a model plugged directly into Steven Moffat’s mind), but they go on to pretty much determine the final score.
(6) Which was the best companion exit?: Poll Results
Moving on from the main poll, DWTV asked you to rank the departures of Rose, Martha, Donna, The Ponds, and Clara, the principal companions of the revived series. The results are in, and the – perhaps surprising – average weighted ranks are as such:
Remember, the lower the rank, the better, thus indicating that Donna’s exit in the Series 4 finale Journey’s End continues to dominate all others even after seven years. Clara’s exit is shunted into fourth place, though the ranks for all middle three companions were pretty close.
(7) Conclusion
For some, Hell Bent will, unfortunately, not be the acclaimed and commended final episode of Series 9 that they were hoping for. It possesses some distinctly disreputable statistics, including its usurpation as the most divisive episode of the revival, something I can’t believe I’m writing for the second time this series. Its average score, however, is far from bad and – though Heaven Sent will overshadow it – it can stand fairly proudly in the middle-ground territory of the revival, though not quite in Series 9 itself.
And, thus, we have come to the end of this series of articles along with Series 9 itself! I hope you’ve enjoyed my statistical ponderings and perhaps excessive-to-the-point-of-disturbing-overzealousness level of analysis. It’s been fun and hugely interesting, at least from my perspective, to see Series 9 go from strength to strength, to see records broken, and to see episodes achieve both legendary and infamous statistical results.
Series 9 has been a statistical goldmine, and I will be summarising the entire series and comparing it to earlier ones in a pair of upcoming articles. On top of this, though Series 9 is over, 2015 sure as hell isn’t; we still have The Husbands of River Song to analyse in the new year, so, to those of you who are addicted to stats as I am, there’s still plenty to look forward to.
Until then, have a Happy Christmas, and thank you for voting!
