The final episode of the BBC’s The Night Manager was the runaway ratings winner for Easter weekend viewers, averaging 6.6 million viewers and leaving ITV’s royal special, Our Queen at 90, trailing in its wake with 5.6 million.
The updated version of John le Carré’s 1993 novel, starring Tom Hiddleston as the enigmatic Jonathan Pine, garnered excellent reviews across the board. The Huffington Post said the spy drama “goes out with a bang, not a whimper” and hailed Hiddleston’s best “007 impersonation”. At one point, the Eton educated actor ordered a vodka martini, prompting speculation that the choice of drink was added to tease fans.
According to Radio Times, the “glamorous and high-octane piece of television” aired on Easter Sunday “reached a thrilling conclusion”. The finale to the espionage drama was “almost too perfect”, they added.
The ending will inevitably fuel the speculation that while Le Carré may not have written a sequel to the book, in the wake of one of its greatest recent drama successes – the Sun called it “one of the greatest series of all time” – the BBC is planning to create one anyway.
The series, with its lavish settings and Hollywood production values, cost about £3m an hour – half paid for by the BBC, half by the co-production partners – but attracted audiences of more than 8 million for its opening episode and has averaged more than 6 million for the succeeding episodes.
