Looks like Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor Who is a smashing ratings success. Ever since the BBC handed over the iconic role to its first female lead, American viewers have flocked to the series in impressive numbers. In fact, according to Vulture, Whittaker’s first season in the role of the Thirteenth Doctor has garnered more American viewers than those of former Time Lords Matt Smith, David Tennant, and Christopher Eccleston.

As Vulture’s Josef Adalian notes, Whittaker’s success in comparison to some of her predecessors is particularly impressive given that television ratings across the board have been trending downward for years. The season’s first eight episodes averaged 1.6 million viewers on BBC America (counting delayed viewing and on-demand replays)—a 20 percent jump from Peter Capaldi’s final season as the Doctor, which doubled as the last season for longtime Who executive producers Steven Moffat and Brian Minchin.

Doctor Who has had a rough go of it in recent years; Capaldi quit the show last February amid tanking ratings and some strife over what, specifically, had caused the numbers. Capaldi’s episodes have been widely panned as a missed opportunity; Capaldi’s performance was not the problem, many argue, so much as the writing he was given.

In addition to the new Doctor, this season also ushered in a new executive producer and head writer—Chris Chibnall—and a scheduling change that shifted the show from Saturday nights to Sunday nights. This has granted the series a spike in same-day ratings specifically, by just under 50 percent in both total viewership and viewers ages 18 to 49. Among millennial women, Vulture reports, same-day ratings have doubled from last year. If Whittaker and the BBC have not already done enough to shut down the naysayers who whined that a female Doctor would never work, now seems as good a time as any to call it.

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