Heartbeat (1992 - 2010)

So 4 hours in advance hehe... Well next week it's The Cube and TXF - I'm sure a lot of older viewers will love that!!! Back to BBC1 for them and a new series of Antiques Roadshow...
 
After 371 episodes and in its 18th series we say farewell to residence of Aidensfield and to Heartbeat this Sunday for episode 372 and the end of an era.

When new bobby on the beat Nick Rowan and his wife Kate appeared on our screen for the first time, the drama was not the traditional Sunday night family friendly drama it has become over the years its been on our screens.

Heartbeat originally produced by Yorkshire Television in the days before ITV plc. even existed premiered at 9pm on Friday 10 April 1992, which back then the ITV schedule on its launch night looked like this:

Friday 10 April 1992

19:30 Coronation Street
20:00 Surprise, Surprise
21:00 Heartbeat
22:00 ITN News at Ten

It's Friday night's showing did not last too long and in the Autumn of 1993 at the start of the second series it was moved to its more familiar Sunday 8pm slot to appeal to a family audience and has basically remained ever since, although in some occasions it has been shown at 7pm and 9pm (when ITV1 had the rights to F1) but has never left the Sunday night audience.

When Nick Rowan (played by Nick Berry) left Aidensfield to emigrate with his second wife Jo and his daughter Katie to Canada, a special one-off straight to VHS feature length episode was released showing how life was across the Atlantic for the Rowan family.

So on Sunday Heartbeat will end on an ITV1 schedule looking like this:

Sunday 12 September 2010

19:00 David Jason: The Battle of Britain
20:00 Heartbeat
21:00 Albert's Memorial
22:30 ITV News

A lot has changed in the last 18 years but to see the same familiar faces on our screen on a number of Sunday nights every year, its going be something that I guess will be missed.

It may probably be missed as what Last of the Summer Wine gave the BBC audience for 37 years.

Funny to think two well-known programmes based in Yorkshire come to an end within two-weeks of each other.
 
So will we ever find out if Blaketon survived.:D

Seriously though - for such a long running show ITV could have done better tonight. For a show that had been on for 16 years at least the announcer could have said something at the end instead of trailing the latest David Jason post retirement schedule filler.

I presume the Royal is over too - or do they still have more episodes in the can.

Its such a shame all those nice Sunday evening shows that did comedy and drama are now gone - they gave you such a nice warm feeling inside before you went to work on Monday:D e.g. Hamish Macbeth, Ballykissangel, Heartbeat, Last of the summer wine, Monarch of the Glen.
 
I'd like to see a proper send-off too (or the series revived in the 70s). Oscar should become a fox-hunt saboteur :D

(I miss Mr Derek :o)
 
he went for a man with a gun and fell onto a pitch fork last seem on a life support at the shopital perhaps the royal will tie up the loose ends?
 
What will Poor David and Defer do now. I bet those tears were real ones from the cast. It had a feel good feeling to it. Shame as always they get rid of the good ones and fill their places with tripe!!
 
I remember some of the early stories being grittier, such as one episode where a drug dealer is dealing LSD and someone jumps off a church tower and another episode where a group of mods and rockers start a brawl. I think it became softer after Nick Berry left.
 
I think it's a great injustice that ITV hasn't produced a special show to bid Heartbeat farewell. I think the ratings have only really dropped in the last couple of years because of the shoddy treatment it's been given by the ITV schedulers and the total lack of promotion on ITV1. Having said that, its audience has still been averaging between five and six million viewers which is in the same ballpark as Casualty and far higher than The Bill. An audience of that size, to me at least, would appear to justify a proper send-off and, at the very least, a proper final episode which I believe should be set on 31st December 1969 and end at the stroke of midnight, finally bringing the village of Aidensfield into the 1970s.
 
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