TV Viewing Summary W/E 23/02/97
The real upset in this week’s ratings has to be Emmerdale‘s triumphant victory over Eastenders on Thursday. A special one hour episode of the country soap placed it in direct combat with the residents of Albert Square and it would seem that as far as the viewing nation is concerned there was no contest: audience figures for Eastenders plummeted to 9.73 million, one of its lowest for a long while. Emmerdale really came up trumps with an outstanding all time best of 14.23 million. Fantastic news for Yorkshire Television and it looks like the traditional two party battle between Eastenders and Coronation Street is set to be broken once and for all: lets hope that the arrival of Emmerdale in the contest helps to stimulate better storywriting from all sides.
On the subject of competitions, Saturday’s National Lottery Live has picked up an extra 1.3 million viewers on its usual viewing average. Wednesdays draw is no where to be seen in the top thirty, perhaps it’s just a little bit too exciting to anticipate solving all those financial problems twice a week.
Channel Four had a couple of interesting one off programmes this week. First of all the return of Cutting Edge takes the top slot in the Channel’s own top ten. This ever-great ‘fly-on-the-wall’ documentary series this week investigated life within the walls of a health farm. Wry as ever this programme showed us the real goings on, secret chocolates and sneaking out for Kebabs in the middle of the night – isn’t it great to watch our fellow countrymen deprived of all luxuries and put through a boot camp type regime from the comfort of one’s own arm chair. Anyway, 4.87 million viewers thought so, giving Channel Four one of its best audience figures of the year.
The main event was of course that much talked about episode of Roseanne, featuring our own Ab Fab stars, Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley. Things have not being going to well for Roseanne, in particular on the other side of the Atlantic. Ratings have fallen severely and it would seem that people are tired of watching since this rather bizarre plot turnaround, presumably thought of to bring new life to the show, in which the Connor family are now millionaire lottery winners. Roseanne herself as we know is a big fan of Absolutely Fabulous, and indeed perhaps rather envious of the free hand under which British writers are able to produce their work. She bought the rights to the US production of the show nearly three years ago, but is as yet unable to produce it due to the restrictions on making references to drugs, drink, and general obscenity on American TV. This coupled with her dwindling popularity in general are the factors which have cast a rather black cloud over the whole project. Still, she must have been delighted when Patsy and Eddie agreed to appear alongside Roseanne and Jackie in full effect at one of those rather pretentious media/PR type do’s. The actual episode itself of course was never going to live up to the potential it would seem to have on paper, too many cooks and all that. Patsy as usual stole the show adding a really good ‘girls abroad’ angle to her usual ‘on a mission’ behaviour. Their presence may have done nothing in the US to boost ratings, but this week is the first time this year that Roseanne has made it into the Channel Four top ten, reminding us of the days when Roseanne was always up there with the rest. Best perhaps look forward to the re-runs before the Connors got rich.
On the drama front Saturday saw the last cliffhanging episode of the BBC’s top drama Casualty, with 16.42 million viewers tuning in to see Jude left on the operating table until the Autumn. Great stuff, but there may well be a few fans out there who think it’s just a little too much to ask when one has to wait until September just to see whether poor old Jude will live to take another swab. Still, try not to lose too much sleep over it. In the meantime we’ve got David Wicks travelling through time to keep us excited on a Saturday night.
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