I agree, I think they should have picked a day and stuck to it rather than switching between Sunday's and Friday's. I think Sunday's would have worked well for them across the board but there we go. The trailer is ruddy awful as you say - they would have been better off 'playing it straight' rather than the weather concept they're going with.

I would love to see Goodnight Sweetheart come back for a series and wouldn't mind Young Hyacinth return either, as I felt yesterday's episode missed a key detail which would be interesting to see

On those figures and the subsequent reception I'd say Goodnight Sweetheart has a chance whilst Young Hyacinth is borderline.

We switched off after 10 minutes it was utterley dreadful like a long drawn out unfunny scene on a third rate comedy sketch show

Goodnight sweetheart a little low but good it still won the slot and get a lot more on catch up so still hope for more.

Maybe these olden days ratings should go in a seperate thread.

Anyway, I thinking Strictly is going after XF audience tonight, as it's listed to have Olly Murs and Rebecca Ferguson perform, all XF past contestants. I wonder if Strictly fans will blast them, or they will like them now they're appearing on Strictly?

I suspect more than a few will say, who ?

Spot on Andy!

About what I predicted for Goodnight Sweetheart.

It had many things going against it.

Probably the least well known of the 'famous' sitcoms that never had AYBS type ratings.

Friday night not helpful really.

But biggest issue is that it was drafted in so late and filmed very recently and so never featured in the promos like the ones in the can did. They added one two second scene into the promos only over the past few days. But it easily got the least TV plugging of the four BBC 1 revivals.

It never even got the reviews and preview reviews in the press that preceded the season and rated them all. As it was not ready to send to the press.

You can see in the threads on here how people caught it by accident and are saying they never watched it in the 90s and had low expectations after the others but this one hooked them and kept them watching.

It was by far the best written, best acted and had the best actual premise for a return of the show.

It deserves another go.

Personally I would try to commission quickly a Christmas special, repeat this and show that new one over the holidays and see if it has legs for a series.

Right now public opinion says yes, the cast and writers want to do it and the AIs look certain to be high from those who watched as it got the most universally praiseworthy reviews on DS in the thread here out of all five revivals/sequels/prequels.

A Christmas special - if there is time to get one ready now - is the best way to make a decision.

Much as I would love a new series I think for now this is the wise option.

Someone has already started a campaign for a series.

Young Hyacinth would have been better on Sunday and Are You Being Served on Friday imo

I think you're right Jaycee.

Being on Friday and poor promotion hurt Goodnight Sweetheart and Young Hyacinth but both have potential to be series.

I loved Goodnight Sweetheart - such a shame it didn't rate a bit more on the first showing. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a full series. There aren't enough regular sitcoms on TV these days.

I don't normally find these re-born comedies funny but GS was pretty good.
Plenty of scope there for a series if they all want it.

I think what made Goodnight Sweetheart work was that everyone came back, including the original writers and cast, as well as the fact it always had that genuinely good plot that meant you could go between the 1940s and the modern day. It made sense for it to return as well - how would Gary deal with 2016, and there's a lot of mileage there. I like how they tackled the songwriting of Gary being 'stolen' by the Beatles, and now he's ripping off Adele!

I think you could tell the cast genuinely had a great time doing it as well. It felt like an old shoe - familiar, comforting. It didn't feel like there'd been a 16 year gap.

Deserved to do better. When you think about how well clapped out HIGNFY does here, it breaks your heart that a revival of a classic like this can't do a little better than that in autumn.

On the other hand, if Young Hyacinth was as bad as the reviews suggested it did well to rate as close to GS.

Overall though sitcom season hasn't worked. No wonder it's so difficult finding new comedies that rate when even specials of much loved shows are rating below the slot average on the nation's most watched channel.


At this time of year about 4m-4.5m I'd say.

It is only 'just' Autumn, Dancc.

Shows like This Morning not back from their Summer break until next week and the kids still off school.

Though This Morning's 'stars' have been on screen all Summer anyway in all the credits despite others doing their job for the past 6 weeks.

And ITV now promoting that they are back to make your mornings.

Frankly I do not know what Eamonn and Ruth have done to the ITV controller to deserve being treated like afterthoughts in the Phil and Holly empire.

The real story of Goodnight Sweetheart is how exceptionally well it has been received (other than the DS review oddly). The near total lack of promotion (due to its vary late completion) cost it the viewers that would have took it over 4 million with almost 100% certainty I think. As I feared that it would given how much more visible the other three sit com revivals were in the TV ads and media promotions. Plenty of fans of the original will have missed the fact that it was even back or probably thought it was being remade with some oink from Channel 4 as Gary after watching the earlier revivals.

I'm so disappointed that the BBC couldn't leave KUA alone. Patricia Routledge obviously didn't want to do it, so they found a way to bring it back.

Hopefully this terrible prequel won't ruin the legacy that KUA left.

ITV's Birds of a Feather emerges from this week with an awful lot of credit, doesn't it? I was guilty of not giving it enough credit before - but I see it a new light now.

BBC One has thrown everything at this sitcom season and so far only AYBS has produced a better figure than Birds averaged for its most recent series, and even AYBS got nowhere near the 7.8m Birds managed for its return episode, albeit achieved in January when figures tend to be a little higher across the board.

I doubt that it will. But Patricia Routledge's judgement when asked if she would be watching seems to have been sound.

Maybe they should ask her to come back and do a Christmas Hetty Wainthrop. If her co investigator can be lured away from Hollywood after Lost.

Or has she said no that as well?

But that was the problem with Goodnight Sweetheart.

They threw nothing at it, let alone everything.

The cast, writers and story were all on top form and it was by far the best of the four shows but they gave it no promotion whatsoever.

If that was because of the delay they should have recognised its quality and held it back for Christmas where it would have found the perfect audience - rather than let it slip out almost unnoticed.

I read bad things about the KUA sequel on here but thought maybe it was OTT criticism and checked it out for myself. It was absolutely awful and they completely missed the mark with it.

The girl playing young Hyacinth did a decent job. I think she got the accent and the mannerisms down but it was completely void of laughs and any of the charm of the original series. I hope it doesn't get picked up for a full run!

It was so different from KUA that you had to work through that fact first before even understanding what it was trying to do.

That was the problem. It was like deciding to revive The Onedin Line with a completely different blood, guts and grime show that was not a light Sunday evening drama about a Victorian shipping company family in Liverpool but a deadly serious polemic about the Viking longboat designer who happened to be Onedin's GGGGGGGGGGGGGgrandather.

That is my next campaign after finally getting my wish for Goodnight Sweetheart back following a number of posts on that request on here over the years.

Bring back The Onedin Line! Just not the Viking one.

Tell that to the weather gods!

A Spanish plume is heading here next week! Mid to late 20s again.

It's had almost zero marketing from the BBC (also due to it being commissioned so late).

Apart from the guides, you could only know it was on (and when) only if you watched the end credits from one of the other comedies (which is how I found out; well and the threads on DS).

Yes, I thought that too. Certainly puts a new angle on those figures. I'd also point out that the Birds revival was quite well received for episode 1 yet it still lost a lot of viewers before settling at the c4.5m it gets now. So if any of these were to be brought back for a series, there's no guarantee that the figures would be near what these episodes have got (although given the poor promotion I wouldn't expect a drop like Birds had). Speaking of Birds, whilst I know they're doing a Christmas special, they've still not confirmed another series. Is that just because those involved are busy? As I certainly can't see why ITV wouldn't want more. I assume it'll be back for a full series later next year.

I wonder if the disappointing figures for these revivals are making ITV a bit nervous about Cold Feet? I suspect even if Monday's premiere got what AYBS (the highest of the sitcoms) got ITV would be disappointed. 6-6.5m is where I think it'll land but we've seen some surprising outcomes recently.

Also on comedy, I'm interested to see what Newzoids gets tonight. Very different slot to before and it's been promoted quite a bit. It settled at an awful level last time (high 1's) on Wednesdays at 9pm (with a lead-in from flop Give a Pet a Home and lead-out from bigger flop The Delivery Man). I notice they've been running a promotion featuring The X Factor judges which I assume they'll play in one of the breaks on X Factor tonight, so that might help. I'm not expecting a great rating but it really should do better than where it ended up last time. Play To The Whistle shows that even a big lead-in is no guarantee of even half decent ratings but the lead-in should definitely help. I guess it'll be around 2.5-3m which would be an improvement but still not great for the slot.

Blimey. I thought we'd probably hit our sunshine quota for the year by now.

In any event it doesn't help us in the short term - Saturday is an absolute washout. I won't be the only person having a Netflix day!