Repeat showing of Highway Patrol beats The Bachelorette as Gruen tops non-news shows
A repeat of Highway Patrol beat The Bachelorette last night while Shaun Micallef’s new show The Ex-Prime Minister enjoyed a strong debut with 803,000 viewers.
The Bachelorette managed 879,000 viewers last night, down on its 918,000 the week before, and was again outrated by ABC show Gruen which had 903,000 viewers in the 8.40pm timeslot and was the most watched non-news show of the night.
Highway Patrol had 883,000 viewers at 8pm, however the Ten show still won in all the demographics ahead of Nine’s 7.30pm offering The Block, which managed 872,000 last night.
Watched the much anticipated – by me – Ex- Prime Minister and realised 15 minutes in that I hadn’t laughed once. And I’m a massive Micallef’ admirer.
The writing sucked – obvious tired verbal gags you saw coming a mile.
More of a problem is – I don’t give a shit about this ex-PM dick head because he doesn’t seem to give a fuck about anything either. Utopia’s lead character suffers every day at work — and we relate and epathise as we feel his pain.
I felt the same as Rushdie. I’m also very appreciative of all that Micallef does but this seemed like a single hander. Just a few support roles written in so that it didn’t come across as too one-man-band.
There was nothing relatable. The current events references felt forced. The vindictiveness displayed by his family towards him felt punishing. The cameos from his staff felt like extras from a working dog production (not that that’s a bad thing – merely that it wasn’t original). And the premise of the memoirs felt flimsy – more like a case of the ABC deciding not to go out and about but film as much in situ as possible.
Perhaps the worst Micallef effort I’ve seen. But I will watch again because I rate him as highly as any Australian performer.