TV Overnights: Corrie’s sucker punch fends off EastEnders explosions
Not since the intense Bourne-like rooftop chase of Feb 2010 have the crew on EastEnders (BBC One, 8pm) been tasked with delivering us such an explosive episode.
Monday night gave us the aftermath of the year’s big Walford disaster – fleeing kissing cousins Joey and Laura Branning somehow managed to cause a gigantic explosion by gently driving their car through the window of a BettaSave.
It gets more and more like The Truman Show with every episode. Characters that actually display the good sense to leave are constantly thwarted, through direct intervention by some sick and controlling higher power.
An 34% audience share watched as a number of odd things happened during the frenzied escape; the police response was suspiciously slow – Derek Branning, the man with the speed and girth of Jabba the Hut, somehow managed to get there first; the love-struck couple nearly lost their lives all because of a knocked over display shelf; finally (and most importantly) – it seems CG fire does not necessarily begat CG smoke to endanger your beloved characters.
The shaky escape sequence secured 8.1 million viewers, the channel’s biggest show of the day.
None of it mattered in the end though; Kirsty’s fists of fury were the biggest draw for Monday’s audience. The start of a new week can be a bit of a rough day for the best of us but the Coronation Street (ITV1, 7:30pm) bruiser hasn’t been dealing with her issues all that well lately. The main issue here being the inability to control the violent-mental-hate-monster that rages deep inside her soul.
If Dr Banner can turn it all around (out of nowhere) in the middle of The Avengers, then there’s hope for the troubled Tyrone-botherer yet. Last night saw Kirsty delay her soothing bath for a few minutes in order to kick her gormless cook and baby daddy, Tyrone, about the floor for a bit.
A whopping 40% share watched the latest ferocious outburst from the newest Antichrist to thread the cobbles. 9.2 million viewers tuned in to see the broken man being comforted by Fiz, who seemed to be formulating some kind of plan. Hopefully a plan that involves a Proton Pack or two.
Monday wasn’t a dull day for soaps – Emmerdale (ITV1) got the ball rolling at 7pm and Katie’s situation was getting much worse. Little did she know that, only a few weeks into her new marriage, her life would be going the way of The Descent.
Perhaps Emmerdale‘s underground cannibalistic mutant community will come in to the fray just in time for Christmas. 7.7 million viewers watched as the newlywed’s chances for survival started to grow dim.
Channel 5’s opportunistic daily rerun of Dallas (7pm), following Larry Hagman’s death, didn’t quite have the pull they were hoping for. The first episode of the rebooted series attracted only 146,000 viewers, resulting in a 0.6% share.
Afterwards we were treated to another brand new episode of The All New Gadget Show (Channel 5, 8pm). The ‘All New’ in the title refers to the fact the presenters jet off to somewhere foreign each week to road test gadgets and the like. 732,000 viewers (a 3% share) watched banter professionals Jason and Pollyanna visit Canada and convince us that analysing a mobile phone to an inch of its life is really thrilling.
The technical wizardry was slightly more sombre on Channel 4 as Stephen Fry: Gadget Man (8:30pm) invited around some good friends (and a Carol Jean Vorderman) around as he prepared a dinner using gadgets. The show was down 38% week on week but still managed to attract a 5% audience share. 1.3 million viewers watched as Stephen unveiled a corkscrew that made Derren Brown squeal like a four year old girl.
I’m a Celebrity…got off to an 8:30pm start on ITV1, with the reality show pulling in a 37% share and the biggest audience of the night. 9 million viewers tuned in to watch the shock exit of Coronation Street‘s Helen Flanagan.
Over on BBC One in the prime time slot was a repeat of New Tricks (9pm). The episode from 2011’s series eight guest starred Shiela Hancock as Sandra’s stressful mother. 4 million people tuned in to see the Ucos team track down the murderer of a market trader in London town’s old eassscht end, resulting in a 16% share.
Overnight data is available each morning in mediatel.co.uk’s TV Database, with all BARB registered subscribers able to view reports for terrestrial networks and key multi-channel stations.