American Crime Story remains solid for second week
Monday night brought the return of the epically titled The People v OJ Simpson: American Crime Story (or, alternatively, you could go with the much more transparent moniker of Kardashians: Origins) as the ‘classy’ BBC Two drama saw the Juice go on the run.
Starring David Schwimmer and John Travolta’s eyebrows as the ex-American footballer’s lawyers, Robert Kardashian and Robert Shapiro, the second of 10 episodes celebrated a rare achievement as its audience barely fell from the début episode.
1.6 million viewers watched as OJ jumped into that white Ford Bronco while his highly paid lawyers decided to hold a press conference, netting an 8% share.
On ITV, terminally-ill Benidorm (9pm) wrapped up its eighth series of cheap laughs and cheaper spray tan after steadily losing viewers this holiday season.
4.1 million viewers tuned in to say goodbye to the all-inclusive Solana hotel for another year, with a guest appearance from Shane Richie and a fright wig helping secure a 20% share.
On Channel 4, there was more larking about in fun adolescent dormitory hidden-camera show Royal Navy School (9pm), with the repercussions of a prank gone too far securing 1.7 million viewers and an 8% share.
There was another giant shift in tone for the third episode of relaunched The X Files (Channel 5, 9pm), which had already brought fans a speech-filled first episode full of heavy exposition (netting 3 million viewers) before sinking comfortably back into straight-forward procedurals last week (falling to 2 million).
Yesterday saw Mulder and Scully’s latest case take a turn for the very silly as Flight of the Conchord‘s Rhys Darby appeared as a were-lizard who turned into a man during a full moon (!), with the pitch-perfect satire securing 1.8 million viewers and an 8% share.
The tone of last night’s The Walking Dead was also suitably shifted after last week’s traumatising mid-season return, with Andrew Lincoln’s Rick Grimes experiencing a relatively happy time.
While not exactly a blissful trip to Teletubbyland, the exercise in viewer-damage limitation was watched by 713,000 people on FOX at 9pm, secured a 3% share and topped yesterday’s TV Twitter chart.
Speaking of the slowly shuffling-along departed, BBC One’s big 9pm offering was a repeat of expired elderly detective show New Tricks, all the way from back in 2012.
An audience of 2.4 million viewers tuned in for the case of the dead homeless man with Stasi connections, resulting in a 12% share.
At 8pm, Channel 4 attempted to sex up its long running investigative current affairs programme by sprinkling a little bit of unnecessary sass into the title.
[advert position=”left”]While viewers of Dispatches: Dirty Secrets – What’s Really in Our Air? did make viewers want to have a cold shower afterwards, it was for all the wrong reasons, with the terrifying expose about our toxic air netting 661,000 viewers and a 3% share.
At 8pm Griff Rhys Jones wandered about some more random fields exclaiming how beautiful everything was in the latest schedule-filling episode of Griff’s Great Britain (ITV), which secured 3.1 million viewers and a 14% share.
There was more help for the common, maid-less folk of the land at 8:30pm on BBC Two, with the latest instalment of Mary Berry’s Foolproof Cooking netting 2.5 million viewers and a 12% share.
Things were a little heavier on BBC One at 8:30pm as a Panorama special asked In or Out: The EU Referendum, with 2.2 million viewers and a 10% share tuning in to find out if the UK should leave the galactic Empire or not.
Soaps took Monday’s top spots, with a double trip to Coronation Street bagging 7.4 million viewers and a 35% share at 7:30pm, followed by 7 million viewers and a 32% share at 8:30pm.
BBC One’s EastEnders took third place at 8pm with 6.8 million viewers and a 31% share, followed by ITV’s Emmerdale at 7pm, which bagged 6.3 million viewers and a 32% 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. Overnight data supplied by TRP are based on 15 minute slot averages. This may differ from tape checked figures, which are based on a programme’s actual start and end time.
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