TV Overnights: BBC & ITV’s child murders duke it out for 9pm slot
It’s just typical, isn’t it? You’ve just spent the last few weeks huddled around the TV with your family, hoping to enjoy an hour of drama dealing with the gritty details of a murdered child but to no avail. And then on one random Monday two come along at once!
You couldn’t swing a cat around last night’s prime time schedule without fear of hitting a young adult’s corpse.
Let’s be polite and start with Mayday (9pm) on BBC One. The sprawling drama, airing across five consecutive nights, focused on the disappearance of a teenage May queen and the devastating effect that has on a picturesque upper middle class community, that TV dramas seem to love so much.
Last night saw the impressive cast trawl through the lush surrounding area for clues, all the while slowly beginning to doubt each other. A small town can only hold so many secrets but with every main cast member acting fairly suspicious at some point in the episode, you can be guaranteed it won’t be long until they all start flooding out.
Viewers will have to wait until Thursday to see which friendly neighbour is more Buffalo Bill than Harold Bishop – that bloke from Spooks, Game of Thrones or the dad from Moone Boy?
The ambitious project faced stiffer competition last night than the début episode on Monday, with the audience figures reflective of the tougher climate. Viewers were down 31% night on night, with the second episode netting 4.3 million viewers and an 18% share. To be fair Mayday screams out to be watched on catch up, with relentless scheduling proving a deterrent for some.
Over in ITV, a similar set up was being played out. If some viewers approached Broadchurch (ITV, 9pm) with caution, they couldn’t really be blamed. It’s only been four months since ITV did the whole ‘small town, big secrets’ thing with the heavily promoted The Town. And what a messy waste of time that turned out to be.
Luckily, Martin Clunes wasn’t anywhere in sight as the so-genius-it-has-to-be good combination of the Tenth Doctor, David Tennant, and her out of actually everything, Olivia Colman, had to investigate the death of an eleven year old boy. All this took place in another picturesque community, naturally. Luckily this one was located by the sea, so viewers didn’t get confused.
While Mayday has the luxury of positioning itself as a one off mini-series, Broadchurch steps into the overcrowded and murky waters of the weekly police procedural, a genre sucked of all life many a moon ago. Thankfully the once-sleepy Dorset town had enough energy and clear direction to set it apart from the pack.
And the viewing public agreed – it appeared they preferred their uncomfortable mysteries to be punctuated with tea breaks every 15 minutes as the first episode of Broadchurch pulled in 6 million viewers and a 25% share, easily beating BBC One’s offering.
Either way it’s good to know that in a time when the 16th series of Midsomer Murders and the barely-even-trying Death in Paradise can sleepwalk to success, the murder mystery genre still has some bite left.
There were more rotting husks over on Channel 4 at the same time. Except, unfortunately for the poor carcasses on Dr Christian’s Carnivàle of Wrong Embarrassing Bodies (9pm), their souls were still attached (legally speaking, anyway). The latest horror show about people who should know better scored Channel 4 an audience of 1.6 million viewers and a 7% share.
While overshadowed by ITV, BBC One had a consistently strong night, with Bang Goes the Theory (7:30pm) and A Question of Sport (20:30pm) netting just over four million each earlier on in the night.
It was EastEnders at 8pm that brought BBC One’s biggest audience of the day. Monday’s fun trip to sunny Walford saw Lola’s lovely family turn her back on her in court. Phil Mitchell, a truly miserable product of his miserable world, worked hard to make sure Lola’s time with her child was kept to a minimum.
8.3 million viewers watched as the troubled gobby teen (is there another kind in E20?) lost her rag and any chance of seeing her child. The Monday evening pick-me-up secured a 34% share, the biggest in its time slot.
A double helping of Coronation Street, beginning at 7:30pm on ITV, saw Rovers layabout Karl desperate to get some more attention (and screen time, more realistically). Clearly the powers that be have no idea what to do with the jilted character so they’ve suddenly spiced him up with a dash of Mad Maya and a sprinkle of Richard Hillman. Just for the hell of it.
Last night, the cabbie dabbled in a spot of kidnapping and intimidation, in a misguided effort to win back the love of his life and top dog of the Weatherfield social scene, Stella. After driving off with his ex bundled in the back, Karl ended up in a dodgy and secluded spot. He might have thought it was romantic but it was all a bit too Broadchurch to do the trick.
Despite the overpowering smell of rotting children, the first episode of Coronation Street proved to be the night’s biggest draw with 9.2 million viewers tuning in to see Karl’s latest meltdown. A 39% share watched as he earned yet another ‘bad decision’ badge.
The later slice of Weathefield fun managed to pull in a 34% share and an audience of 8.4 million viewers.
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.