★★★★★ 0/5

Wild Boys and Underbelly: Razor win it for drama

Sunday night proved to be a vote of confidence in Aussie drama with two period tales pulling good audiences.

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The premiere of Seven’s Wild Boys has topped Nine’s Underbelly: Razor in the Sunday night ratings war.

Seven’s new bushranger drama pulled 1.67m viewers over Nine’s period crime on 1.55m viewers.

But the result is none too surprising given Seven’s show aired an hour earlier when there would have been a bigger viewing audience. In reality, both of them should be deemed a vote of confidence in Australian drama.

Wild Boys’ biggest audience was in Melbourne with 552,000 viewers ahead of Sydney’s 425,000. It bettered 60 Minutes (1.11m), Grand Designs (833,000), Talkin’ ‘Bout Your Generation (791,000), and Ned’s Head, which despite the news hype, only pulled 143,000 for SBS.

Underbelly: Razor remains more popular in Sydney with 527,000 viewers over Melbourne’s 465,000 and now beginning to settle after its extraordinary launch. It defeated Bones (1.21m), Night At The Museum: Battle Of The Smithsonian (433,000), The September Issue (406,000) and Dateline (177,000).

At 6:30pm Sunday Night (1.47m) won ahead of RBT (871,000), ABC News (723,000), The Renovators (517,000).

A Castle finale won at 9:30pm with 981,000.

7mate’s new episode of Family Guy (194,000) topped the multichannels.

Seven and Nine battled for the top place leaving TEN in their wake, with Seven emerging victorious.

Week 37

35 Responses

  1. Thought wild boys was very average. Shite acting. Dodgy script.
    It lost me when they lifted a Jack Palance scene straight out of ‘Shane’. Someone’s either done their research on western’s or is a Bill Hicks fan.
    And are we that hard up for talent that Daniel McPherson has the lead in this series? He was awful. There must be hundreds of better actors that could have help this up.

  2. The acting was truly woeful, especially jeremy sims impression of Shouty McShout. God awful, the only family this is aimed at is a comatose one, and Jack! is obviously a channel seven shill!

  3. Congrats Ch7 – a pretty good show in a great timeslot. When was the last time there was a decent drama/comedy in the viewer friendly timeslot? Maybe Seachange.

  4. @Jack!
    You’re absolutely right, I was expecting too much. The hype and good reviews misled me.
    I normally resist being critical of commercial TV shows on this site because they’re clearly not made for the likes of me. Honestly I keep forgetting that. It’s akin to critiquing The Wiggles or Playschool. I do genuinely apologise to those who enjoyed the show and hope it continues to bring viewers much pleasure.
    But it sure sucks to be forever outside the target demographic!

  5. I didn’t see either of the big 2 last night, but folks at least give WB 3 or 4 episodes before condemning it. Some seies take time to build, so I will tune in and watch the ‘encore’

  6. Re Wild Boys – I didn’t love it or hate it. It was ok, and the ending was kind of intriguing but I am not sure I will watch again…The cliches were certainly plentiful – how much more evil could Jeremy Sims’ character get?

  8. @ steveany: I loved Wild Boys but hated both The Block and Masterchef!
    What on earth were you expecting? A show for “thinking adults” … completely wrong expectation.
    It is much more in the “family” show category like Merlin, Robin Hood, etc … an adventure more than a drama. Exactly what we need on Ausie TV, because almost everything else is copying other shows, endless American Crime crap, endless crap reality shows or boring sport.

  9. Don’t like the show but 7 is on a winner here. It will also sell very well overseas as it will be a perfect daytime filler (not many made for primetime Aussie series can do this).

    Next McLeod’s maybe?

  10. @ Justin: Nice to hear an expert opinion that agrees with mine!

    Clearly this is a show you either love or hate … same as past hits like McLeod’s Daughters ….

  12. I feel sorry for SBS. What do they have to do to have a ratings success? Ned’s Head probably got more publicity than any television program this year and it was still last in its timeslot.

    Underbelly is starting to slow to a crawl plot wise. After the second series they should have realised that dragging out a story to interminable length simply does not work. Three episodes would have been plenty to tell this story in its entirety.

  14. @Sheba Percy, I watched Your Gen last night, it was terrible, the three guests were complete duds (Jimoein is painful, I can’t believe he has a comedy career) and the gen swap thing was idiotic. You missed nothing.

    I expected WB to debut higher than that, though it is a very competitive slot. Hopefully they’ll have an encore screening so I can catch it. Forgot to set IQ for it.

  16. Oh also, as an editor i can say that the cinematorgaphy is as good as i have seen from a Australian produced television series. It seems quite obvious that the cinematographer and director of photography have chosen the look to match the show’s feel, which is not gritty but much more light and vibrant.

  17. I thought Wild Boys was excellent. I loved the acting and storylines. I thought they recreated the era perfectly.

    @ Bob, ” photography was amateur hour “. You’re obviously very hard to please, because I thought the photography was excellent.

  18. Wild Boys was great … It is such a brilliant idea and I am surprised that no-one thought of it before … action, drama, charm, wit, and beautifully realised on screen!

    Also, Razor is the first Underbelly that I have ever been drawn to watch … the rest of them just bored me.

    I recorded both of them, by the way, as always, to view later, not watching them when they screened…

  20. Watched Wild Boys based on David’s positive review. Huge mistake on my part.
    I thought it was beyond awful. It was soap and pantomime acting, cliche writing, idiotic scenarios and in no way a show for thinking adults. I booed the screen the whole time. Naturally therefore, the three million who watched The Block & Masterchef will think it a superior product, so stand by for pre-production on Wild Boys 2 – Bushrangers Vs Aliens.

  23. I’m glad they both did well, but as was written you’d expect more viewers for Wild Boys given more family friendly content and an earlier time.
    Why was Your Gen on last night, annoyed got the last bit of a as usual funny episode.
    Fell asleep during the September Issue, still really like it though, what I saw of it.

  24. Heard a number of people expressing their dislike of Wild Boys.

    I found that I enjoyed it, and thought the production was (as David mentioned in an earlier post) handled very much like a movie, rather than the serial it is.

    Adds more enjoyment I say. 😉

    Re: Castle finale. Love, love, love. Every moment of it oozed class, brilliance, and wow-factor. Loved it. Disliked the ending, though. Can’t wait to see what happens when it continues!

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