Rafters funeral tops 2m viewers
More than 2 million Australians tuned in last night to bid farewell to Melissa Rafter, twice the audience of the very long National IQ Test.
- Published by David Knox
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More than 2 million Australians tuned in last night to bid farewell to Melissa Rafter (Zoe Ventoura).
The show pulled an audience of 2.09m viewers as the Rafter family said their last goodbyes to their daughter-in-law.
It was an emotional episode as Ben (Hugh Sheridan) dealt with the shock of his wife’s sudden death, refusing to face some of the tough questions that had to be made for the funeral. The episode had plenty of scenes with actors given their moment to shine, culminating in a sad funeral that doubtless left many viewers reaching for the Kleenex.
No surprises then that Packed to the Rafters was the top rating show of the night. It doubled the very lengthy National IQ Test on Nine, which averaged 1.03m viewers across its 2.5 hours. A tighter 90 minute Test would have been more welcome.
The IQ Test also came second to Talkin’ ‘Bout Your Generation‘s 1.23m which won the hour. Seven’s Iron Chef Australia simmered at a lukewarm 925,000.
Elsewhere last night NCIS pulled 1.1m viewers, Parenthood was 855,000, and a repeat of NCIS: LA was 713,000. Survivor, which didn’t begin until 10pm, is now down to 512,000.
For the ABC Qi was 662,000, Foreign Correspondent was 656,000, An African Journey with Jonathan Dimbley was 506,000 and A Quiet Word with… Carrie Fisher took 410,000.
Best for SBS for the night was Why Do Viruses Kill? on 239,000.
Seven easily won the evening.
Just one more episode of Rafters remains this year, as Ben realises it was his text message that Mel was reading when she was struck by another car.
32 Responses
Why is there a picture of Tory Belleci, from Mythbusters, at the top? 😉
PTTR was again hitting the mark with writing, though the odd time jump to the funeral was confusing at first. It was an extremely “low key” ep despite the content. It just had a very subtle, very sombre and empty tone – which I believe was either superb writing or a lucky fluke
Angus Mclaren has just rocked his role this year. His performance has been nothing short of stunning, particularly in the last two eps.
I don’t get why people are beating it up – the production values are decent, the cast are good and the writing is pretty sharp.
It’s not reality, not a cop show, not a lame comedy. I’m so sick of all the lame comdey, reality and saturation of underbelly- esque shows that I’ll continue to watch and support PTTR next year, as it’s been such a long time since a decent Australian Drama grabbed me.
not a regular rafters watcher… but it seemed tolerable, didnt find it particularly upsetting but I haven’t watched from the start and grown attached to the characters so i dont think its any fault of the show – agreed Angus McLaren is great from what ive seen- the iq test was funny- a “friend” of mine with questionable intelligence proved it with a facebook update saying she’d just done her first iq test and was pleasantly surprised lol…
As a non usual viewer of PTTR, can I just say that I found the show very cheesy and old-fashioned?
I just feel like this whole family is so fabricated! You just know that you’re watching a tv show and I just don’t believe it.
I wasn’t sad at all…
Rafters is still on the air? What a woeful show! Loved the IQ test however!
Thanks for that Aneets. This was only the 2nd time i’ve seen this show and from some of the acting i could indeed see a resemblance with neighbours. Nice to know it may be a once off.
It’s a nice show with alot of good looking people but i still can’t see why it’s Australia’s number 1 show
@DC, yeah, Houvardas is most definitely the weakest link in the cast by a country mile. He’s painful to watch, he really is. Agree with you about Dave’s father being given day release to go to the funeral. What the?????????