BBC2 Comedy Lookback: 2002
Last time we learned:
- More than twice the population of Wales tuned into Room 101 to see Anne Robinson say how much she hated the people who live there.
- More people watched critical clunkers ‘Orrible, Perfect World and Dr Terrible’s House of Horrible than the first series of The Office.
- Two Pints of Lager began its marathon run, helped onto our screens by storied comedy producer Geoffrey Perkins.
But what of 2002, year of the Japan/Korea World Cup, the Queen’s Golden Jubilee and the Manchester Commonwealth Games? Well, elsewhere in television that year:
- Final episodes of Big Train, Big Break and The Big Breakfast. Also of the less alliterative Des O’Connor Tonight, London’s Burning and On The Record.
- New channels to hit Britain’s digital bitwaves include BBC Four, CBeebies, CBBC and the sadly short-lived pseudo-Adult Swim network CNX. Digital channels being drag-dropped to Recycle Bin include BBC Knowledge, the ITV Sport Channel and the much-missed UK Play.
- Criticism for the BBC, as Peter Sissons delivers news of the Queen Mother’s death whilst wearing rainbow deely boppers, rather than the more traditional black.
But enough with the semi-related flim-flammery, it’s time to upload some Avalanches onto a first-gen iPod (“Copying 11 files, time remaining 6 hours”), throw on a Kangol cap and get ready for a trip back to 2002 (Netscape 7 or newer required). Here come the year’s most-watch BBC2 Comedy Shows (That Were Broadcast Between 9 and 10.30pm On Weeknights).
Despite getting off to a slow start in 2001, The Office found its feet in 2002, helped by a repeat run of the first series from January that attracted more viewers than the original broadcasts. As the reputation of the series grew, a marketing push for September’s opening episode of series two (including trailers going out on Radio 1, a luxury not afforded to too many TV programmes) saw those viewing figures reach as high as 4.93m. And the popularity didn’t end there — the goings-on at Wernam-Hogg were deemed something the public couldn’t had much of. Despite there only being twelve half-hour episodes, The Office would appear 37 times in BBC2 Comedy Zone slots between July 2001 and April 2006 (after which it presumably started appearing on Gold instead).
Talking of getting value for money, Shooting Stars returned to our screens in 2002 — not just for a six or eight-episode series, but for two whole series*, and a total of twenty episodes. It’s not hard to see why — four years on from the third series of the show, a newly retooled ‘Stars (with Mark Lamarr replaced with author-slash-bastard Will Self, and Johnny Vegas in a permanent guest spot next to Ulrika) proving as popular as ever. It didn’t hurt that some great moments were contained in those episodes, a nonplussed Larry Hagman smiling politely through the chaos, Michael Winner taking part in final round ‘Identify the Dirty Boys’, Damon Hill’s Voyage on the Sea of Mushrooms. A high of 4.37m tuned in for the first episode of the series, even though the BBC2 broadcasts of ‘Stars S4 were only same-week repeats of the series, with each episode having premiered on BBC Choice five days earlier.
(*The second of those getting a full run on BBC Choice before appearing on BBC2 in 2003. Will it appear on the top ten for 2003? TIME WILL TELL.)
Dead Ringers transferred from Radio 4 this year, with a pilot episode appearing on BBC One in March. A well-received pilot by all accounts (even if I don’t believe it was “brilliant enough to bring tears to your eyes”, though the continued employment of Jon Culshaw does me want to cry sometimes), leading to a full series on BBC2 in November. 3.9m viewers watched the series opener, with many of them sticking around the hear the same jokes with different feedlines for the next few weeks. (Bit harsh, at least it wasn’t 2DTV.)
Never Mind the Buzzcocks continued to entertain, but was no longer the biggest panel show in town. Still a strong performer ratings-wise, and definitely something that — much like Shooting Stars — dominates the schedules like few others, with 20 episodes landing in the Comedy Zone this year. The most viewed episode of the year (3.78m viewers) arrived on 18 February, featuring a perfect cross section of the comedy/pop landscape of the era as guests: Ben Miller, Lisa Scott-Lee, Kate Thornton and Tony “Anthony H” Wilson. In short, a snappy response to the hypothetical command “tell me your music-comedy crossover panel show is from 2002 without telling me it’s from 2002”.
Room 101 returned for a new series between February and April, and one of the all-time best moments of any comedy programme ever — Johnny Vegas and his confessional about internet chat room addiction. A true “oh my God, did you see that last night” moment for the ages. The rest of the series didn’t fare too badly either, with guests including Alexei Sayle, John Peel, Jessica Stevenson and Michael Grade, who recalled his BBC1 Christmas ident with three snowpeople pulling one cracker. But, it was the episode from 25 March that attracted the largest audience (3.77m), with Astronomer and GamesMaster Patrick Moore putting plastic packaging, loud music in restaurants and George Carey into Paul’s pop cultural purgatory.
Given the high profile of the series (at least amongst comedy nerds like me), that the long awaited second series of I’m Alan Partridge would appear in sixth place on the list is a little bit of a surprise, though that series high point of 3.75m viewers (for episode two of the series, “The Colour of Alan”) isn’t to be sniffed at. Perhaps inevitably given the patchy quality of the series (yes, lots of good bits. No, Alan saying “Dan” wasn’t one of them), little surprise that the numbers dropped notably after that high point (600,000 viewers had deserted the show by the final episode).
The Royle Family may have moved to BBC1 in September 1999, but the first family of Wythenshawe are clearly still welcome to pop around to BBC2 any time. Quite often, the most-watched episode of a repeat run will be the most notable episode of a series, one where seeing the plot outline rekindles a sense of magic in viewers, a warming glow in the very heart, making them feel loved, making them feel at home. The RT summary of the most-watched episode here is “Nana’s visit won’t get in the way of the Antiques Roadshow”, so: yep. Ticks all those boxes. The 3.62m people who watched this repeat all agree with me on that. Ask them if you like.
Genome occasionally includes a little more than just episode capsules, sometimes throwing in some syntax from the occasional feature or review. At least this does mean future generations seeking out TLC, a sitcom where the ‘sit’ is “a newly qualified junior doctor fights to stay awake during his first shift at South Middlesex hospital”, will know that the ‘com’ got lost somewhere along the way. Despite the presence of a top-tier cast (Reece Shearsmith, Alexander Armstrong, Richard Griffiths), as Alison Graham’s summary points out, “a laughter track might have come in handy here to indicate that this is, in fact, a comedy.” In fairness, she could have been much more succinct by just saying: TLC? It’s no Scrubs. Anyway, 3.27m tuned into episode two of this. Not enough of them stuck around for a second series to be ordered.
A rare beast amongst our listings, Manchild is a comedy drama (hey, half-hour episodes, I’m counting it), one following the fortunes of four fortysomething friends as they each seek out a sexual renaissance. A good cast, albeit one where realising that “they were all in their forties at the time?” shows how old we’ve all gotten since the early aughts, includes Nigel Havers, Anthony Head and Don Warrington. Admittedly, I’ve not much more to say on that, as I didn’t watch it — I was too busy enjoying being in my twenties, there’s no way I’d ever be that old. Ever. Oh. Wiping away the bitter tears of sudden self-awareness, I see that this attracted a high of 3.27m viewers, for episode one.
The Kumars at No 42 completes the list, and while it’s appearing in a much lower position than in 2001 (3rd last year, 10th this), ratings only slipped slightly (a high of 3.37m last year, 3.15m this) — with 2002 being a year that saw much higher ratings for BBC2 comedies than the preceding year (maybe something happened in 2001 that made laughing at others somehow less appealing, I don’t know). More trust was certainly being placed in the series, with this second series containing ten episodes, rather than the standard six from series one. Charlotte Church and Martin Kemp are the guests for this top-rating episode.
So, here’s a full rundown by genre of comedy episodes (in that weekday 9–10.30pm slot) broadcast on BBC2 in 2002.
Other items of note:
The first series of Look Around You reached our screens, and it proved an absolute treat. While a surreal but pitch-perfect parody of 1970s ITV Schools science programmes must have been a hard sell to commissioning editors, it attracted a loyal (if modest — certainly outside any BARB Weekly Top 30) audience, becoming a cult hit that would lead to a full, expanded series in 2005. Not only that, but it found a home on offbeat US network Adult Swim, proving popular enough there to pick up a similarly loyal audience. Not bad for a piece of ten-minute filler to plug the gap between wildlife series Wild New World and The League of Gentlemen.
Speaking of which, The League of Gentlemen returned for a third and (it seemed at the time) final series in 2002. Yet, surprisingly, it wasn’t a ratings hit. Despite it being (in my correct and slightly sexy opinion) the strongest series of the three, only the first episode of the series made it into BARB’s Weekly Top 30, with 2.6m viewers. In fairness, as was the style at the time, the show was being used as a ‘digital driver’, with new episodes from S03E02 onwards premiering on Thursdays at 10:30pm on BBC Choice and repeated the following Thursday at 10pm on BBC2. Which is inconvenient for the purposes of anyone compiling ratings summaries nineteen years later, with viewing figures for Choice now unavailable. But, that series opener debuted on BBC2, and attracted viewing figures that put it in a lowly fifteenth place for the year.
Speaking of disappointing viewing figures, the BBC used slightly underhand tactics to try and attract an audience for Dossa and Joe, a sitcom co-written by The Royle Family’s Caroline Aherne. Back in this early era of PVR technology, an agreement was forged between the BBC and Tivo, manufacturers of one of the leading PVRs of the time, to automatically record the first episode of the series onto the hard drives of their customers. Without any permission being given, and with disk space on recorders then limited to just 40 hours of recording space. It certainly didn’t help that the series itself was a bit of a bomb, but what really set Tivo forumgoers a-flapping was the show containing more than a generous helping of fruity language. Suddenly appearing overnight on PVRs that didn’t have any parental controls. Meaning lots of kids switched on the family TV the following morning, so see a recording in a brand new section of the recordings list… you can guess the rest. And to make matters worse, that unexpected recording reportedly couldn’t be deleted — users had to wait for it to ‘expire’ a few days later. Stories of the angry backlash featured in The Guardian, BBC website and even US tech news site ZDNet. And even with all that ‘help’, it still didn’t trouble the BARB figures for the week.
To close things off, how about an example of a programme that really shouldn’t belong here, but as it’s listed very clearly within ‘Comedy Night’ on Genome, I’m reluctantly obligated to. Liar was a series that you can imagine can only have been commissioned, or at least scheduled, by mistake. Look at this premise:
Six members of the public say they have worked as royal servants, but only one of them is telling the truth.
Paul Kaye presents the first in a new eight-part quiz show which each week will award £10,000 to the person who convinces a probing audience of the veracity of their claim.
Where to start? Paul Kaye’s a good actor, but very much unsuited to presenting a quiz show. And it’s not even a panel show starring comedians — members of the public, there to try and win a prize. Maybe Saturday night BBC1 pretended to be out when it called, so it popped next door. Unsurprisingly, it wasn’t a hit. The Guardian reported that with 1.8m viewers for the opening episode, it attracted an audience 600,000 shy of a programme called ‘Sex BC’ on Channel Four at the same time. So, Liar: officially less interesting than Flintstones-themed erotica.
To be fair, that does apply to most things.
See you next time for 2003!
