Was Lizzie Yarnold a favourite or has this caught everyone out? If a favourite the potential was there. If not, fair enough to an extent though the last minute switching between Two and One gets on my nerves (as you may have guessed ) as it seems so unnecessary.
Last edited by Fudd : 14-02-2014 at 17:22

BOAF used a Little bit of material from the stage show last night, Helped to make it so good.

The three week gap is just bonkers for one episode. Incredibly inept scheduling. Almost anything else is better than doing that. But they missed all the obvious possibilities and picked the one guaranteed to lose part of the audience.

Why not hold it back and pretend it is a new Christmas special and show it then. As a teaser for series 2 in 2015.

Will get better ratings that way than the episode in 3 weeks will do when most people will forget it is even back on again. Only to then be disappointed to find it is just for one episode. So a double whammy of needlessly annoying viewers.

You mess with viewers like that at your peril. Do these schedulers get any training in their jobs at all?

As for the 'should have been on BBC' argument....as I have pointed out before BOAF was created out of an ITV series (Shine on Harvey Moon) - with the authors building on their Pauline Quirke/Linda Robson double act that they first put together for that show. So it has a bit of an ITV pedigree anyway even if BOAF was a BBC series.

And the reality is ITV trusted the show enough to make a full series (which they have all said is what they wanted to do from day one) and the BBC simply bottled out.

Patience and loyalty has nothing to do with it. You go with the offer that matches your aspiration. I do not see the problem here. They gave the BBC first refusal and they refused what they wanted to do.

I could not care less whether it was the BBC, ITV or Sky that said yes - just glad someone was willing to see that it would work. As it largely has. Sitcoms that are at least amusing and at best funny are not exactly thick on the ground these days. If anyone is willing to make one then good luck to them.

Lizzy Yarnold was our best hope for gold pre-Games (11/8 favourite). She was fastest in training too so what's happening today is not a surprise.
Speed skater Elise Christie, and both curling teams were seen as realistic medal hopes.

Her name is Lizzie Yarnold and she was favoured to win a medal pre games.

Damn, I meant Yarnold - why did I miss the 'Y'?

The BBC should have made the series and be damned. I would trust a tried and tested show every single time. If it failed then so be it. I trusted a Birds return more than some others because the main cast is still there along with the original writers.

I really wouldn't be surprised if the success of Birds helped influence an Open All Hours return along with its 12m viewers obviously.

I thought BoaF was weaker than usual last night, still enjoyable enough but I didn't think it was as funny as previous episodes.

I wonder if Samuel minded when Men Behaving Badly moved from ITV to BBC1?

I whole heartedly agree with you regarding the bizarre delay in scheduling the last episode. I thought prior to last night that the final episode would be held back for Christmas. But in their lack of wisdom they have placed it in a no mans land to fend for itself! I have enjoyed this series of BoaF though. Can I ask what material from the stage play they used? How did it transfer to the screen? was it easy to recognise and did it make sense?

Not as much as I expected them to use....just a couple of minor story lines (like Dorian and the old codger) and the big visual joke involving her hair. In general they have left the stage show as stand alone and (in truth)a parallel reality - as most of the stage show flat out contradicts most of the premise for this whole series.

But I doubt anyone cares about continuity in a sitcom.

My mum saw the stage show and said the bit with the Wig was in the stage show.

I think the BBC was always going to be in a bit of a no-win situation.

They decided not to commit to a full series, letting ITV pick up a big rating programme. But can you imagine if they had picked BOAF up and then followed that with SOAH? Reviving two old comedies in quick succession? The media would have been all over them, complaining that the BBC's role should be to find new hits not regurgitating old ones.

Richard E Grant has joined Downton Abbey for its Fifth series.

So that'll be the highest rating of the olympics then!

Weirdly Lizzy's gold medal means we are now above Sweden, Italy, Finland and Croatia in the medal table!

Thursday 6th February 2014 - Consolidated Ratings
1 - EastEnders - 8.27m
2 - Emmerdale (19:00) - 7.84m (7.75m excl. +1)
3 - Emmerdale (20:00) - 7.27m (7.11m excl. +1)
4 - Birds of a Feather - 6.86m (6.72m excl. +1)
5 - Inspector George Gently - 6.48m
6 - Benidorm - 6.46m (6.00m excl. +1)
7 - Pound Shop Wars - 5.66m
8 - BBC News (18:00) - 5.66m
9 - BBC News (22:00) - 5.11m
10 - The One Show - 4.17m

Ok ok ok, BOAF is a ratings-hit [though statistically it has lost 2.5m since launch]. I am annoyed BBC didnt pick it up for the full series. If I was running Itv, I'd instantly commission a 13-episode run of BOAF for next year for the Thursday 8.30pm slot. Nothing else besides O'Grady comes close to the ratings BOAF gets in that slot. This is how I'd solve the Thursday 8.30pm problem:

Q1- BOAF [13 episodes]
Q2- POG For The L.O.D [13 episodes]
Q3- Summer filler/repeats [13 weeks]
Q4- POG Animal Orphans [6 episodes] and IAC/Xmas filler [6 weeks]

That'd be the Thursday 8.30pm slot sorted for 2015.

Birds Of A Feather still going well. Nearly 7m. That recommission must be on a knife edge! Good to see George Gently end up with over 6m. EastEnders not getting close to a million in timeshift anymore.

Even though Pound Shop Wars dropped, 4.4million is still very strong for that slot up against a soap like Emmerdale. Maybe reduce the order next year from 26 to 16 episodes, the 10 weeks could be filled by a program about people on benefits or scroungers, sure to be a ratings hit. The Southern Fried Chicken Shop show BBC One has coming up sounds like a hit too.

Thanks DMN.

Gently getting so close to Birds is a major suprise. Its turned out to be a good bit of scheduling and from the BBC as well.

I think giving it such a long run would kill it off, with over use and the writers having to stretch out the laughs for a longer series, meaning each episode is weaker. Much better to have an 8 part series per year. Presumably if you were controller for ITV IAC would be extended to a 5 week run, having crushed BBC1 for the 3 weeks its usually broadcast.

Best to find more hit programmes, than extend the existing ones too much. 10 episodes would be the maximum for Birds.

People will get bored with 4 episodes let alone 16 or even 26. It looks as if even 1million+ were bored with one episode. What tedious programming you would commission if you were controller.

Birds used to be 13 episodes on BBC One per series. 13 episodes is fine, BOAF has a few different writers working on it at the moment anyway. Often I feel 6-8 episode runs are too short, especially when you're used to the 24 that US tv shows do. 13 episodes is nicely in the middle. 13 half hour episodes, at the end of the day, is equivalent to about 6 hour long episodes which many british shows do anyway.

I'd probably keep IAC at 3 weeks. It isnt a strong enough format to hold up for much longer than that. Typically it gets boring after the half way stage of a 3 week run.

The previous series of GG in its first episode consolidated to 6.9m and most BBC dramas timeshift around 1.5m, so not that much of a surprise particularly with them being so close in overnight.

To be honest Birds would have been better with a 6 part series as there have been at least a couple of decidedly dodgy episodes in this run.

If I was BBC One controller, things which I would axe are: Atlantis, Musketeers, Citizen Khan, Big School, Secret Fortune, Live At The Apollo.

Things I would move in terms of scheduling: Panorama [to a 10.35pm slot], The Sheriffs Are Coming [from daytime to 8pm].

Things I would increase episodes of: Sherlock [4eps], Death In Paradise [13eps], Call The Midwife [10eps], New Tricks [13eps], Last Tango In Halifax [10eps], Jonathan Creek [6eps].

The trouble with Pound Shop Wars is that it is so obviously staged and I think the owners of Poundworld are awful people. I felt for the Asian pound shop owner who was losing money but the outside of his shop is terribly cluttered and trashy looking. The pound shops succeed because whilst products are cheap, the shops themselves are inviting and don't have awful random things hanging outside! But I am bored of the series already.