That said, the story did post ratings that were disappointing by a number of different measures. "The Gunfighters" represented a significant decrease over the previous serial, "The Celestial Toymaker", which had ranged from 7.8 to 9.4 million viewers. Each episode of "The Gunfighters" was also significantly lower than for the first 18 weeks of Season 3, wherein the lowest-rated week—at 7.9 million viewers—belonged to the episode "The Feast of Steven" from "The Daleks' Master Plan". Each episode of the serial was also beaten by the serials which were respectively broadcast in similar April–May slots in 1965 ("The Space Museum") and in 1964 ("The Keys of Marinus").