ITV Drama Premieres - all murder thrillers?

What do people think of the ITV Drama Premieres?

Every week there is generally a one-off or two-parter on ITV1, but if you are like me you are put off by the fact almost all seem to be some kind of murder mystery / crime thriller etc.

They are generally well made, and if every ITV Drama Premiere wasn't some kind of thriller, I might watch one or two of them, but as they are, I avoid them.

However, when ITV ditch the murder mystery their drama premieres often pull me in. Last nights Ahead of the Class was excellent, while past premieres such as The Second Coming and Henry VIII have been outstanding.


There seems to be two extremes with British TV drama. On the one hand you have the soaps and serial dramas (Casualty, Holby, The Bill) which are on air week in, week out.

Yet on the other it seems to be dominated by one-off dramas / two-parters, while most British drama series air for only 6-8 weeks, with even the most successful series only having a maximum of 13 episodes in later runs.

Would British television drama be improved with a few dramas running to 22-24 episodes a year like their US TV counterparts.

Don't all stand alone one off dramas on any channel usually involve some sort of crime or murder.

I thought last week's Like Father, Like Son was good as was last night's Ahead of the Class, I was just thinking how strong ITV Drama currently is.

I've got Ahead of the Class to watch yet, but it's the first ITV1 drama I've decided to try in ages, simply because it doesn't sound twee (The Royal, Heartbeat, Doc Martin etc), or murder/mystery/thriller (with the exception of "Marple"), or a vehicle for an ex-EastEnders bod.

I'm enjoying Pennies from Heaven on BBC4 at the moment; it's completely original and is a good story. The Rotters Club also looks promising.

I'd like to see more one off plays and adaptations of books etc - it's what the BBC should be doing while ITV gets on (generally) with the formulaic crowd pleasers.

You have to admit, for a Channel that gives us a lot of reality rubbish like X-Factor, Pop Idol, I'm a celeb etc they do balance it out with some brilliant and well made television drama. Ok so a lot of it is murder mysteries, but there are also some really good drama comedies, like Doc Martin, The David Jason one which i forget the name but i really enjoyed that! The Peter Davison series i am also enjoying a lot.

So we can't complain about ITV1 TOO much!

FIVE on the other hand.....