TV Viewing Summary W/E 09/03/97
LWT’s one-off dramatisation of Jane Eyre came in as the top drama of the week, with an audience of 12.52 million. Considering the amount of new period drama we’ve seen recently it’s about time this classic had the treatment. It makes a nice change to move away from the ‘wit’ and ‘sophistication’ that is found in all those Austen adaptations, and see Bronte’s dark and brooding drama. Samantha Morton gets her first major role since the brilliant Band Of Gold, and confirms her place as one of our great TV actresses of the present and future, and we look forward to her appearance in a Channel Four film, Under the Skin later this year.
BBC’s Crime Traveller continued on Saturday, this week watched by 10.05 million compared with 11.46 million the week before. Doesn’t seem to bode well, especially when you consider that its main competition this week on ITV was that very stale Asteroid drama. One of the problems with Crime Traveller is that unless one watches from the start of the episode it’s not that easy to pick up, and this runs contrary to the sort of television viewers want at that time of night on a Saturday. The great thing about dramas like Casualty is that you can half watch and still feel involved with the programme as they follow that soap formula to a closer extent. The TV nation doesn’t seem to be so keen to watch a “follow this crime through time, with loads of characters but none that really stand out” style show at this stage in the evening. Or maybe their just not really that interested at all.
This brings us on to the other problem, that British viewers do seem to have trouble swallowing these pulp fiction dramas. Science Fiction has always remained a rather implausible form of entertainment in the eyes of many and should stay within its limits as far as that audience is concerned. It seems to be surprising that the BBC have not noticed this as they had exactly the same problems with Bugs. A Saturday night peak time audience just isn’t flexible enough to appreciate these types of dramas and perhaps when it comes to watching Michael French travelling through time that “willing suspension of disbelief” just fails. Anyway, at least there is some effort being made to water down our diet of Period Drama.
The early evening Saturday night slot has been won over by Blind Date (10.81 million viewers this week in its final show of the series). Noel’s House Party as a consequence has slipped right down to 8.87 million (well, he didn’t have the Spice Girls this week), and it looks like that cunning scheduling of You Bet straight into Blind Date is keeping viewers mesmerised and away from those remote controls. Never mind Noel, lets hope that your little trip to New York has helped to boost the ratings, or you could always get those Spice Girls back: but hurry, they’ve only got another couple of weeks of fame left, before their time runs out and they all turn back into pumpkins or something.
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