New Pictures’ detective drama made a triumphant return to Channel 5, easily surpassing the broadcaster’s 1m (7.2%) slot average.
The second series of the adaptation of PD James’ 1970s poet detective was however unable to match its 2.3m (14.5%) debut in November 2021 in the same slot. The drama was broadly in-line with recent Channel 5 drama The Catch which opened to 1.7m (10.7%) but was ahead of Clapperboard’s stripped drama Desperate Measures which opened with 934,000 (6.5%).
The drama was only beaten by ITV’s flagship reality show’s celebrity special edition of I’m A Celebrity South Africa, which dominated the slot with 3.6m (24.6%).
The stripped special edition of Lifted’s series has dipped from its 4.3m (31.6%) opening on Monday.
The rest of the broadcast channels were unable to surpass 1m, with Gordon Ramsay’s Future Food Stars cooking up just 940,000 (6.2%) on BBC1 for its third episode. The series opened with 1.3m (11.4%) before dipping last week to 933,000 (7.1%). The third outing of Scottish comedy Guilt, which is now also available as a boxset on iPlayer opened with 522,000 (3.4%), below the 930,000 (6.5%) of the second series opener in October 2021.
Meanwhile, the fifth episode of Taskmaster continued with 780,000 (5.1%) on Channel 4.
At 8.30pm, the third episode of Paul O’Grady’s For The Love of Dogs saw 2.3m (15.2%) tune in to the late broadcaster’s final series of the series, filmed at Battersea Dogs & Cats Home.
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