The big television news story of the week was, apparently, the fact that Sir Trevor McDonald was returning to present News at Ten, coupled with the fact that News At Ten itself was returning.
The whole reason News at Ten was bunked into its 10.30pm slot in the first place was to allow decent, 90-minute dramas to run in one block, rather than being split up by the news. It's got to be much better to have one 90-minute drama than to do, say, what the BBC does, and try and stretch dramas over two one-hour slots on subsequent nights.
So why move the ITV news back to the 10pm slot? Quite simply, it appears that having gone to the effort of shuffling the news back half an hour, ITV didn't have the high-quality dramas to fill the whole 90 minute slot. That's not to say it's not had good dramas, The Whistleblowers (Thursdays, 9pm) is proof of that. But it is only an hour long - and the half hour from 10pm is being filled with a new series of Police, Camera, Action, the grandfather of police CCTV shows which should have shuffled off to the CSI Channel or something a very long time ago.
For my money, The Whistleblowers would work better over 90 minutes - sometimes I feel the plots are being rushed through so that they can fit it all in - obviously on ITV, a one hour drama tends to actually be less than 50 minutes when the adverts are taken out.
The 'moving the news will mean we can show everthing in one lump' argument was always a bit weak because it was only ever movies (which are increasingly rare on terrestrial telly as Sky and Virgin dash around snapping everything up) which had to be split up for the 10pm news. Football caused the news to be pushed back - but that didn't stop after the move to 10.30pm as last year's Champions League final demonstated. And let's be frank, ITV hasn't been worried about cutting away from sporting events at other times - as the Formula One last weekend proved (ad break when Lewis Hamilton's car cut out, anyone?)
My point is this: The BBC often spoils its dramas by spreading them over two nights; ITV tries to cram too much in with its weekday dramas, despite having created this 90 minute slot.
You only have to look at the weekend, when ITV isn't saddled with the 'must do the news at 10 or 10.30 debate', to see what a difference it makes. Tonight, at 9pm, is one of its much-feted 'drama premieres' called Half Broken Things.
It will run until 11pm - and in that two hours (about 100 minutes of telly once adverts are factored out) the writers have the time to create, develop and conclude a really good plot. Fate draws together a trio fo lost souls who discover happiness for the first time, but they reach via a trial of deciet, in which the lines of good and bad become blurred.
Jean is a professional hhouse sitter fast approaching retirement. While looking after a country mansion she meet michael, a small-time crook, who is secretly casing the joint. When his new girlfriend goes into labour, she invites them to stay. Slowly their secrets unravel. And that's the key. They unravel slowly, and not at the rate of knots required either to a) cram it into an hour or b) build up to a cliffhanger at the end of part one, with the pace having to quicken up further the next night.
Well worth checking out.
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