QUIZ: Doctor Who And The Ratings Terror

Are we still doing the 1996 thing? Well, okay then. Looking back at Tuesday's TV quiz, there were a few folks surprised I'd missed out what was for them the biggest telly event of the year - no, not the episode of Seaquest DSV where Darwin said "knackers" - but Doctor Who which was back back BACK! For 85 minutes! (89 without PAL speedup) And then it was gone again! Which from a modern perspective, eleven years and four Doctors into a revival, was a blessing in disguise, no matter how good Paul McGann was in the role.

It had rated well enough to finish ninth in the week's TV with over 9 million viewers on a Bank Holiday Monday in May. Sadly in America, the story was always that it was crushed by its competition and only managed 5 and a half million. Enough to launch fifty Netflix series on now but in 1996, not great for national US television. So, what did it go up against? Well, that's for you to tell me in The Great Time Lord Rivalry Of 1996...

Here are six screengrabs from the actual episodes up against Doctor Who the night of May 14th 1996 (The John Larroquette Show, Wings, Moesha and CBS' Totally Animals amazingly did not make the list) but can you work out what the programmes are?

And as a bonus, here are four more programmes and episodes that aired that same week on the same channel as Who. (Fox.) Can you guess them all?

Answers after Jimi Hendrix picks up his puppy.... 

Home Improvement (Alarmed by Burglars), Roseanne (Heart & Soul), Ellen (The Tape), Frasier (The Focus Group), 3rd Rock from the Sun (Selfish Dick), NYPD Blue (Closing Time), The X Files (Talitha Cumi), The Simpsons (Homerpalooza), Beverly Hills 90210 (Ray of Hope), Married...with Children (The Joke's on Al)