Later this month, East of Everything returns to ABC TV, not on Sundays at 8.30pm where it debuted just over a year ago, but on Saturday nights at 7.30pm, replacing New Tricks.
Now, the ABC claims not to be interested in ratings, but to push the second series of a program, which cost a lot of money and PR effort in series one, into Saturday nights, is an acknowledgment that the second series of East of Everything is less than gripping TV.
Saturday night is the death valley of the TV week. It’s the lowest viewing night of the year and since Hey Hey It’s Saturday died a few years ago, there’s no reason to watch. The second series of East of Everything is being quietly tucked away on a Saturday night, with the sincere hope in the ABC that no-one will notice it.
Yes, the first series was a dog (apologies to First Dog). The most memorable thing about it (ie because annoying things can have a tendency to outstay their welcome) was a ridiculously over-acted young hippy woman who did the I’m-so-dippy thing to the point of caricature.
My local airport was used to portray a very third world Nepalese airport to much grim amusement around here.
Overall, it was a very Byron Bay type of production. It tried to come across as loose and free-spirited but succeeded in only being messy, lazy and self-indulgent. In other words, very Byron Bay.
As the creators and producers of East of Everything we’d like to correct a few of your assumptions about the new scheduling for our second series. Firstly, Saturday night certainly wasn’t the ‘Death Valley’ for the ABC ratings in April when they won the night with a drama line up – headed by New Tricks – earning a 25% share over the competition. Secondly, our show has not been ‘quietly tucked away’ – we were consulted over the 7.30 time slot and very happy with it as a much better fit for a show like ours. Making an assumption about our second series being ‘less than gripping television’ based on cobbled together speculation without having even seen the show is an example of the kind of sloppy, show-off journalism I thought Crikey was trying to redress. As Alison Croggan – 2009 Pascall Critic of the Year winner complained “In order to write something that might be useful, it has to be argued… It can’t be a statement that just hangs in space.”
Hmm, “winning the night” hardly refutes the claim that Saturday night is the ‘Death Valley’ of TV viewing. Deb Cox well knows that if the ABC really believed in the show and all the money they had sunk into it then it would be on at 7.3o or 8.30 on a Sunday. Or at least have a decent week night slot. But it doesn’t.