Personally, I found this rather disappointing this morning. The details of the show’s early months were interesting, and clips were well sourced and researched, and the use of the evolving theme tune in and out of breaks clever but on the whole it just became very self congratulatory once it got into its stride. The talking heads outside presenters/crew felt half done - I think there were only 3? Fleur East, Scarlett Moffatt and some Radio 1 DJ I’d never heard of. Unless they were going to interview loads of (now famous) fans these ones just felt rather random. And guest-wise they only interviewed Bryan Macfadden and Kylie Minogue. They also completely ignored anything that came after And and Dec left and inserted clips from their return in the actual “final ever” show into a montage of their personal final show. This despite featuring H & Claire and Stephen Mulhern all of whom were credited as presenters, and most people at least remember the show had presenters after them. A shame as it says a lot that they were never able to recreate the magic with subsequent presenting lineups, and I’m sure Cat herself would have had a lot of thinking to do about her future with the show after Ant and Dec left. It could have at least been referenced or glossed over rather than completely ignored.
Like others have said, disapointed there was no aknowledgment of the last 2 years of the show, especially as H & Claire and Stephen were interviewed and captions as presenters, also disapointed there were no clips of CD:UK, especially as they mentioned it a lot when talking about the early days of the show- but as I said before that's likely due to the need to have to buy those clips in. The Ant & Dec era of the show was well covered at least though, even many aspects of that first year.
I really enjoyed it. I think it perfectly crammed enough in about the first few years of the show when it was in it's heyday. Yes, it would have been nice to hear about the show after Ant and Dec left, but don't forget it was a retrospective celebrating their 30 years in TV and also made by their own production company. Thought it was great having the stings relevant for what they were talking, like the early stings for the early days of the show and then the well known sting for the rest. I think I would have preferred some of the talking head 'fans' to have been more people that appeared on the show often - perhaps a Spice Girl as they appeared a lot, maybe Louise too who guested and host quite a few of them? It's just a shame it was limited to just over an hour as it would have been nice to see a few sketches in full.
I thought it was excellent. The whole thing really made me smile and the bit about its beginnings and how they worked out they needed to fill the studio with kids was really interesting.
Bit odd that they literally didn't acknowledge the final years at all, especially when they finished it with those pyros saying "SMTV 1998-2003" but there we go.
I thought it was fantastic, you don't ever think about the 'behind the scenes' watching these shows as a kid (or certainly not in the days of dial up internet at best anyway!)
Imagine being in your early 20s, turning a guaranteed record deal down without a real backup plan at the time, pitching what you think is a great idea to ITV only for them to reject it, then they offer you a slightly different format which you turn down twice before accepting, only for it to not really work in the early days until a pantomine inspires the idea to get kids into the studio and the rest is history...absolutely fascinating stuff!
No surprise they skipped the final years of the show and probably the right call, though a bit more input from Cat on her input would have been nice.
Probably right not to make a big deal of it, but I actually think it was a surprise they skipped over it so bluntly. You’d think there would have been an acknowledgment that it happened, with Cat explaining it just wasn’t the same, at the very least. Otherwise it really wasn’t the story of SM:tv at all, it was merely part 1 of the overall story!
