Bleak drama Happy Valley caps a solid evening for BBC One
Tuesday night saw Sally Wainwright’s superior small town drama Happy Valley (BBC One, 9pm) slip further into darker territory as West Yorkshire’s most sadistic kidnapper literally lost the plot.
The third helping of the six part drama saw former Coronation Street star Sarah Lancashire’s Sergeant Catherine Cawood attempt to hold her emotionally brittle family together despite battling the demons of their past.
Set this against the backdrop of a decent copper’s struggle to keep the near-lawless valley in check while investigating the disappearance of a local girl and you have a well-judged, busy and dark hour of prime time telly.
Despite some particularly unhappy scenes in the opening two episodes, last night’s slice of the tense and raw drama added a further sprinkle of tragedy to an already bleak recipe, bringing a third consecutive week of success.
Opening with 6.3 million viewers, last week saw the audience fall to 5.5 million as the underhanded plot to kidnap a local businessman’s daughter got underway. The third episode, which saw Cawood trust her gut to uncover a grisly scene, attracted an audience of 5.7 million viewers and a 27% share, making it the second most watched TV show of the day.
Things were genuinely much happier over on BBC Two, as those jolly working folk of United Utilities went about their business in a fairly pleasant manner, with next-to-no murderous intentions.
It was pretty much business as usual in the penultimate episode of the surprisingly consistent Watermen: A Dirty Business (9pm) as some genius poured 30,000 litres of concrete down a sewer.
Elsewhere, a ‘specialist’ diving crew were forced to explore the deep end of a reservoir full of excrement in order to pay off their mortgage, pulling in 1.5 million viewers and a 10% share.
Over on Channel 4, Mr Drew was busy attempting to communicate with feral children in his highly suspect boarding school experiment.
The third episode of Mr Drew’s School for Boys (9pm) (not currently Ofsted accredited somehow) saw the teacher decide to throw a sports day for the untamed tots – not because it would help them in the long run, but because an hour of watching shattered parents cry would be a little too much.
1.2 million viewers tuned in to see the rascals learn about maturity and the joys of open communications through the ancient method of the egg and spoon race, resulting in a 6% share.
An hour earlier on BBC Two, tensions were well and truly flared as the anxious contestants of The Big Allotment Challenge (8pm) hurtled towards next week’s thrilling finale.
About as exciting as watching actual grass grow, last night the remaining five teams were tasked with putting up with a suspiciously perky Fern Britton for another episode, as well as presenting onions in the most flattering light possible.
After bringing in 2.5 million viewers when it first appeared on the nation’s screens, the next few instalments of Fern Britton’s exercise in being really nice to people came across as some kind of terminally dull community service punishment and lost the viewers as a result.
Last night, BBC Two’s biggest audience of the day tuned in to see two hard working teams get the boot, netting 2 million viewers and a 10% audience share.
Holby City also helped BBC One win over the 8pm slot, with 4.8 million viewers and a 24% share tuning in to see a disinfectant-soaked tale of unprofessional practices.
At the same time, wangs, warts and abbesses were all on display, broadcast live from some teenager’s bedroom, via the studios on Channel 4, and delivered straight to the nation’s lovely HD TVs.
Embarrassing Bodies: Live from the Clinic (8pm) didn’t only include the usual stunts (clearly signposting humanity’s impending demise) but also took viewers on an exciting trip through Dr Christian’s digestive system. 1.2 million viewers tuned in for the acidic teatime fun, netting a 6% share.
ITV’s schedule was once again taken over by the planet’s most famous wizard moppet and his cool new underground friends with attitude in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (7:30pm). 2.1 million viewers watched as the self-obsessed practitioner of the unnatural arts went through his ‘rebel’ phase, joining secret gangs and netting an 11% share.
Earlier on in the day Emmerdale was stabbed in the back by its Yorkshire rival and fellow purveyor of televised rural bliss. Happy Valley‘s success saw Emmerdale being pushed down to third place, with the lower than usual audience of 5.7 million viewers not helping matters.
Meanwhile in Albert Square, the Beales spent another half hour staring into the abyss, with flickers of anger registering every now and again. The repercussions of man-slut Jake Stone’s arrest brought in 6.9 million viewers, all tuning in for their very special fix of EastEnders‘ (BBC One, 7:30pm) brand of grief-fuelled drama.
The return of Dean (formerly ‘Deano’) Wicks to the grimy fold pulled in Tuesday’s biggest audience and a 35% share.
The Social TV Analytics report is a daily leaderboard displaying the latest social TV analytics Twitter data from SecondSync. The table shows the top UK TV shows as they are mentioned on Twitter, which MediaTel has correlated with the BARB overnight programme ratings for those shows (only viewable to BARB subscribers).
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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