TV Overnights: Emmerdale’s fire pays off for ITV, while EastEnders falls to 5m

After Monday evening’s cornucopia of harsh realism, Tuesday’s prime time options at least attempted to remedy the dire situation with a new series about (comparatively) happy characters.

Along came Frankie at 9pm on BBC One, safely cotton-balled in her world of happiness, making her (depending on your demeanour) possibly just as annoying as the Sister Sledge track.

Which will now be in your head all day.

The new six-part series about a team of wombling district nurses in sunny Bristol, starred Torchwood‘s Eve Myles as the titular heroine. Crippled by a fondness of red wine, cheesy music, standing up for the little person and making the world a better place through her smiling skills, Frankie came across as suspiciously perky, although was she was prone to the odd frown.

Now, that’s not to say that the characters didn’t have their share of struggle – viewers were constantly reminded of how over-worked they were and unfortunately for her, Frankie‘s boyfriend was terminally dull.

The district nurse attracted a majority female audience, and secured the 9pm slot for the channel. In total, 4.6 million viewers caught up with the first episode, resulting in a 20% share.

Meanwhile, on the other side, ITV offered up new technology and futuristically shiny HD sets in order to distract us from the humans on the BBC. The second episode of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? The People Play continued to revolutionise the tired formula by allowing you – the simple viewer – to play along at home.

So basically – it’s exactly what viewers of the show have been doing for years. But now there’s the added excitement of an internet leader board! This is, seemingly, enough of a change to justify its position in the 9pm slot.

While the re-jigged title didn’t attract the massive audience ITV were looking for it did manage to hold on to the same 2 million viewers that tuned in for the first episode last week.

A 9% share watched as Chris Tarrant earned his fee entirely by tricking us into believing he was still awake during the recording.

Over on Channel 4, Mary Portas was on another mission to gentrify the great unwashed. The second episode of the rather presumptuously named Mary Queen of the High Street (9pm), saw the retail expert stumble down to Margate High Street to ruffle a few local feathers.

Mary’s offensive was taken up a notch when she drafted in artist Tracey Emin as her lieutenant in command, transforming the local fish and chip shop into an organic sushi eatery (presumably). For the second week, Mary’s militant meddling brought in an audience of 1 million viewers and a 5% share.

Earlier on ITV, one-time actress Caroline Quentin was up to her recent tricks again as she wandered around a designated area, pointing at things and interacting with friendly locals.

Caroline Quentin’s National Parks (she doesn’t own them – apparently, she just really likes them) proved her love affair with Cornwall had truly come to an end, as the daring presenter played with some dogs and saw some bees in Snowdonia National Park, arriving at the conclusion that everything was lovely.

Caroline’s latest day out brought in 2.6 million viewers (a 12% share) but couldn’t fight off the strength of Holby City (BBC One, 8pm) which was watched by 4.5 million people (a 20% share).

Last night saw EastEnders (BBC One, 7:30pm) continue its decent into the realms of Hollyoaks, with a worryingly small audience tuning in for the latest Walford-based fun. Only 5 million viewers tuned in to see the stress of a dinner party (possibly the only middle-class problem going on in E20) get the better of Sharon, pushing her to reach for her bottle of magic pills.

The London-soap struggled to contend with Emmerdale‘s (ITV, 7pm) hour-long episode and only managed a 23% share.

Now that the dust has literally settled on the Rovers Return and Coronation Street has stopped hogging ITV’s pyrotechnics department, rural soap Emmerdale thought they’d give the old fire plot another go on the story line merry go round.

6.5 million viewers tuned in to see an absolutely hammered Kerry and a very sober toddler get caught up in the village’s latest inferno. The feature-length struggle to save the wee baby Jack not only brought in a 31% share but the biggest audience of the day.

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.