TV viewing round-up: January 2016

As tempting as it is to read the book, BBC One’s decision to do yet another adaptation of Tolstoy’s War And Peace was a godsend to those literary students who don’t have the time (or simply can’t be bothered) to read through the sprawling epic.

Featuring an all star cast including Paul Dano, Lily James and Adrian Edmondson, the opening episode of the six-part drama pulled in 8.4 million viewers.

January saw Sherlock return with what initially seemed like a really good retro story, before descending into a ‘too clever by half’ lightweight non-mystery.

The twisting, era-hopping episode was last month’s most watched programme, with 11.6 million people gamely watching the whole thing unfold on New Year’s Day.

Attenborough and the Giant Dinosaur saw the great knight travel to Patagonia to examine recently discovered bones of the as-yet-unnamed largest animal to roam planet Earth.

Presented with his usual enthusiastic style, the documentary highlighted the two-year process of unearthing the 37 metre beast and was viewed by 8.1 million armchair paleontologists.

Taking a break from regularly saving ITV’s Saturday night line-up from being totally overshadowed by BBC One, the nation’s favourite Geordies (apart from the Geordie Shore cast, of course) spent time with our future king on When Ant and Dec Met The Prince.

The one off documentary, timed to coincide with the 40th anniversary of The Prince’s Trust, gave the commercial broadcaster an average audience of just under 7.2 million viewers.

Sticking rigidly to the same formula that has served it well for the past five years, the latest series of Death In Paradise proved to be as popular as ever.

With Kris Marshall comfortably settled in the shoes of predecessor Ben Miller, the début episode centring on a millionaire environmentalist’s murder launched with 8.7 million (only slightly down on 2015’s opening of 8.9 million).

Other programmes that did well this month include: Mrs Brown’s Boys (7.9 million); the inexplicably popular Still Open All Hours (7.8 million); Endeavour (6.2 million); Billionaire Boy (6.3 million) and Shetland (6.1 million).

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