Well, the Spice Girls gave 11.07 million of us ‘an audience’, a much better turn out than for Ronnie Corbett, so at least our girls can hold on to some dignity as the tide of favour seems to be turning against them. As the Spice bubble begins to lose its gas, it is becoming more and more apparent where the real talent lies; Sporty Spice was the star of the show, well, she made us all cringe the least anyway. The others (especially Victoria ‘Wooden Plank’ Spice) really should just keep singing and not try to talk so much. God help them when the film is released.
On to more serious television matters, Heartbeat continues to challenge the soaps. This week it made it to the number one spot yet again, attracting an audience of 17.62 million. Looks like the delicate transition away from Nick Berry has been an overiding, if not unprecedented success.
Robson Jerome reappeared in the one off comedy drama The Student Prince, (12.26 million) and it was nice to see him again, especially without the blonde side kick he usually has in tow. Apart from this there wasn’t too much else happening on the drama front. Gold is beginning to struggle now, (10.08 million) as it reaches its penultimate episode: looks unlikely to be able to reach a fourth series, at least not with the same characters at the fore front, but then again you never know what sort of regeneration is coming from around the corner.
Men Behaving Badly still ranks as the top comedy of the week, with 12.95 million viewers, though it seems to be another show that looks to be on its last legs – relying more and more upon the girl’s comic input and pseudo slapstick routines than the inane boyish banter between Gary and Tony which gave the programme its mark to begin with.
The big film event of the week was of course the premiere of Trainspotting on Channel 4. 4.56 million turned in to watch our most popular British Anti-Heroes of the decade, making it the channel’s second most popular show of the week (after Friends with its 5.62 million of course).
At least the news has come in that Alan Partridge has got his series back – “Jurassic Park!!!”
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