One Sunday in 1975, actor Ross Ellis opened his Observer to see what the critics made of Poldark, the new BBC costume drama in which he was starring. At the end of the review of the week’s telly, Clive James wrote: “And, oh yes – there is Poldark, which I notice is an anagram for Old Krap. I rest my case.”
Sometimes there is a disconnect between the sensibilities of critics and the tastes of you losers (no offence) who watch the tripe they’ve already trashed. Despite the critical panning, ratings for Poldark rose from five to 15 million that summer, making the 18th-century drama a huge popular success.
The new version of Poldark, starring Aidan Turner, whose second series starts next month, has had an easier critical ride. Its harshest reviewers have been those from the scything community, doubtful that the scene in which Turner scythed half-naked was historically accurate. It was, nonetheless, voted 2015’s best TV moment.
Baz Luhrmann must be hoping for a similar disconnect between critics and civilians. The Get Down, his $120m Netflix series about the birth of hip-hop, has had a critical drubbing. But it might well be too big to fail and, like many TV successes over the decades, could confound the critics. Here are some earlier shows that did just that.
1 The Big Bang Theory
“As far as junk like this goes,” wrote the Chicago Sun-Times’s critic, “it’s not heinous and has moments of OK-ness.” “It’s just the same joke endlessly repeated – the everyday translated into geek-speak,” argued the LA Times critic, “and the obscure and difficult treated as if it were common knowledge.” Seven years after these reviews appeared, The Big Bang Theory, about brainiac flatmates who know a great deal about subatomic particles but much, much less about how human relationships work, became the most popular show on US TV with 23.1 million viewers, and a global hit. A tenth series starts next month.
2 My Family
“The gags fall like dead birds in a nuclear winter,” wrote Radio Times’s Alison Graham of this BBC sitcom about an ostensibly ordinary British family, the Harpers. And she was hardly alone in giving the Robert Lindsay-Zoe Wanamaker show the critical thumbs down. “Even when My Family was good, it was still very bad,” argued the Telegraph’s Ed Cumming. But so what? The show ran for 121 episodes over 11 series from 2000-2011, establishing a loyal fan base of 5 million views. Among them was comedian and actor Miranda Hart, who said after the show was axed: “I think it’s amazing what they achieved and it’s always been the way that studio-audience sitcoms that appeal to a wide demographic get the most viewing figures and always get critically slammed.”
3 Baywatch
This saga of buff Californian lifeguards running across beaches in their scanties, often in slow motion, to rescue those in peril in the surf didn’t work for the critics. “It’s sort of like Flipper without the dolphin,” suggested the Washington Post; the Miami Herald dismissed Baywatch said of it: “Hunks ‘n’ Babes with Bodacious Bods, Sullying Sand’n’Surf with Silly Stories”. But it worked for billions of others. It ran for 11 seasons from 1989-99, had a weekly audience of 1.1 billion people in 148 countries, and was translated into 44 different languages. Why? Here are the thoughts of one British fan: “The reason people watch Baywatch is because of the amount of human flesh on show.” And the good news for its fans is that Baywatch is back in a film reboot.
4 Mrs Brown’s Boys
The BBC sitcom in which Brendan O’Carroll plays an Irish matriarch and makes jokes about rectal thermometers gave critics conniptions. Metro: “A ‘comedy’ hewn from the dark materials that spewed forth [notoriously chauvinist 70s sitcoms] Love Thy Neighbour and Bless This House.” Daily Record: “Lazy, end-of-pier trash … the worst thing [I’ve] ever seen”. Independent: “the worst comedy ever made … It is Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps, but more than 10 times as crass and not as cerebral.” But it has been a huge success: 7.3 million viewers watching its 2013 series, and 11.7m its Christmas special in the same year. This week, a poll of Radio Times readers found Mrs Brown’s Boys was the Best Sitcom of the 21st century.
5 Citizen Khan
“Citizen Khan is the worst comedy I’ve ever seen,” wrote Julie McDowall in the Herald. Only after you’ve been “rendered numb and infantile” by a lobotomy, she argued, “will Citizen Khan be palatable”. “How depressing that a criminally old-fashioned collection of cliches should be hailed as an innovative triumph,” wrote Kevin O’Sullivan in the Mirror. The Telegraph just called Citizen Khan “embarrassing”. But the sitcom has its fans – 3.3 million watched some episodes in the last series; the BBC has exported it to Australia, India, Russia, Bulgaria and New Zealand. But some Muslims loathe it, among them Labour MP Rupa Huq, who called the show Islamophobic. A fifth series will be screened in October.
6 Miranda
A sitcom about a posh, tall woman who keeps falling over, talking to camera and getting into fearful romantic scrapes. What’s not to like? Catherine Gee in the Telegraph explained: “Canned laughter … The jokes are about as original as a clown slipping on a banana skin … The humour relies purely on Hart’s attention-seeking oddball behaviour and rarely rises above the immature level of toilet humour and falling-over gags.” Andrew Billen in The Times went even further: “Miranda is misogynist. I cite not merely the self-hating Miranda character herself: but her Miranda-hating shrew of a mother, her infantilised, Sylvanian-family collecting colleague, Stevie, and her gormless Sloane pal, Tilly.” But the fans didn’t care. By the third series, Miranda was bigger than EastEnders, with 10 million viewers for her 2012 Christmas special, compared with the soap’s 9.8. And when it came to the end of its six-year run on the BBC last year, 7.3 million fans watched her get married.
