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Airdate: Winners and Losers

There really wasn't any doubt where the show was going, but Seven now makes it official.

It’s official.

Winners and Losers will premiere 8:30pm Tuesday March 22nd. There really wasn’t any doubt this was the case but the network has finally confirmed it via an amendment this afternoon.

Four old friends from high school have little in common, besides the fact that they were ‘the losers’ in high school who tried to avoid the attentions of the popular school bully, Tiffany Turner. Now twenty seven-years-old and content with their lives, the friends receive a surprise invite to their ten year reunion. Will facing Tiffany mean sweet revenge or a re-evaluation of their current lives?

There will also be a double episode a week later on March 29th, -meaning no Parenthood again.

Much comment has been made about “Rafters Shafted” to make way for the new show, exacerbated by Seven’s misleading promo as a “Season Finale.”

Next week’s episode is Episode 6 of Season 4. The show normally has 22 episodes. It will resume later in the year.

The reality is that by playing the series at the top of the year it has effectively caught up with production. In 2009 Rafters also had a split season, but ultimately time will tell whether it was wise to resume the show at the top of the year. In terms of ratings thus far, the figures suggest it was a smart move. Now the trick is hoping the audience will fall for the new show just as much.

13 Responses

  1. Thanks for the update(s) David, seems weird to have one ep this week and 2 next, won’t that only hurt the ratings as shows at 9:30 have less ratings anyway?

    As for the Rafters I agree that Seven probably only put on the 6 eps as it wanted a good start to the year and thought Nine would do better but they shouldn’t have called the last ep the season final, why not just call it the mid-season break and tell viewers more Rafters will be back later this year.

    Also what if W&L bombs and they need to bring the Rafters back to plug the hole?

    So 22 eps of W&L, that’s over 5 months, Parenthood has about half a season to run so what happens in 3 months when they are out of new eps?

    Lots of question, does Seven have the answers?

  2. Just saw Virginia Gay and spoke to her about the show; it is a 22-ep season, and she had no idea it was starting next week until it was leaked to the media. Weird.

  3. Agreed…on a side note, I dont care how old she actually is in real life but there’s not way in hell I buy Virginia Gay as 27 years old. At least mid thirties!

  4. Indeed so David. But a poor semantic choice would hardly seem to merit the amount of agitation and/or anti Seven animus being shown by some of the posters. It all just seems to have got out of proportion for some folk. Let’s face it, it’s only a tv show.

  5. The people who are getting all hot and bothered about Rafters going off air simply do not seem to be doing the math. Each Rafters season is 22 episodes. Season 1 was split with 10 eps at the end of 2008 and 12 eps at the start of 2009. Season 2 was shown 22 eps at the end of 2009 and Season 3 was shown 22 eps at the end of 2010. They show the episodes when they are finished and can go to air. There is a good four months production break between each series. Apparently they are only about half way through shooting Season 4. So a much more logical reason for the pausing the show after 6 episodes, more plausible than that Seven has a burning desire to offend you all, is that there are in fact no more episodes complete that they can show. They probably hot housed the first 6 thru production to get their ratings year off to a good start, but anyone who knows anything about the basics of production would know that there is no way they could show all of Season 4 in the first half of the year. Rafters has always been a second half of the year season show. I think this situation has all arisen from the misleading spin of the Herald Sun article which presented a purely practical decision by Seven off production realities as ripping off one show to replace it with another. I would bet a million bucks that if Winners and Losers was not on on 22nd there would be no Rafters on either, as I am sure Episode 7 probably isn’t ready to show yet,

  6. I think that Seven must have thought that they would need Rafters to start the year. Nine’s schedule looked strong on paper and Seven would have felt at ease, knowing that Rafters could combat this schedule. Now that Seven are quite a bit ahead in the ratings race (and they know that it’s not just Rafters that is winning them weeks), it’s a good chance for them to take a risk, lauch Winners and Losers and see how it goes.

  7. I was actually gonna give this show a go and watch it, but i don’t think i want to now because of the decision Seven has made. Absolutely pathetic to take off the country’s #1 show after 6 episodes just so they can slot this in the timeslot. How is that being fair to loyal viewers? And more pissing around with Parenthood. They obviously didn’t learn from the Conviction Kitchen debacle. Winner & Losers should have either been put on Mondays when CK finishes, or in 16 weeks when Rafters finishes.

  8. So wait on the 22nd and 29th they are having 2 double eps, either way Parenthood got screwed! a break like that and inconsistent airings the ratings are going to drop, and now it’s without the Rafters as a lead-in the numbers for the rest of it season are not going to be pretty.

    IMO Seven should show a movie length (as long as it’s movie length and not just 2 eps tacked together) on Sunday the 20th, then a new ep the following Tuesday night, Yes I know Bones and Castle would be out but for some reason Bones is a re-run this week anyway.

    Good news that this is not the season final of the Rafters, what is Seven thinking? At the end of the year this will either be looked upon as a smart move by Seven or it could be a ratings flop for it Tuesday nights, only time will tell.

    Right now I predict W&L will get between 1.5 and 2 mil viewers but will quickly drop to 1 mil in following weeks, JMO.

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