Charlie’s goodbye ruins Secrets and Lies
It was an emotional event, one which the loyal bunch of Ten viewers have been building up to for weeks. Dr Mumbo is of course referring to the end of Secrets and Lies. Oh, and Charlie Pickering left The Project too.
And after five years hosting Ten’s current affairs show who can blame Pickering for being a tad self-indulgent and thanking literally everybody he has worked with on the show, from co-host Carrie Bickmore to the bloke who sweeps his parking space. While Bickmore was emotional, Dr Mumbo presumes whoever supplies Ten with hair gel will also be feeling the pinch of his departure.
However, his seven-minute soliloquy was obviously quite unscheduled, with the cast and crew looking on nervously as the show spiralled well over time. The TV Tonight blog noted: “While the crew were getting nervous about running overtime, a relaxed Pickering was having none of it. He had the floor and thanked a long line of people in the network, crew, family, cast and audience.”
Of course the unintended victims are viewers who recorded the final episode of Secrets and Lies on an hour after The Project finished, which after six-weeks came to a (Dr Mumbo presumes) thrilling conclusion. The problem being that anyone who did record it to watch later will not have the last few minutes of the show, when the killer was finally revealed.
Of course every cloud has a silver lining, and those viewers watching the show on record will now have to watch one of the many catch-ups or on TenPlay to find out whodunnit. Or turn to Twitter, Facebook, or their social network of choice.
The first ten minutes of what was to be Modern Family was his indulgent farewell. This meant that the recording ended early for that as well. It was pretty funny watching him say goodbye in fast forward though. You only hosted a TV show brother, you didn’t walk around the world seeking donations for charity for the last five years!
Anyone recording free to air these days knows to record the show afterward as well, such is the random nature of scheduling. Even the “add 20 minutes” option doesn’t cut it anymore
This happened to me when Nine first showed The Amazing ’80s last year. The final episode was the best but my recording of it ran out about five minutes from the end despite me leaving about 20 minutes extra recording time at the end. I thought it must have been a longer episode, but when the series was repeated on GEM earlier this year and I recorded it again found that the final episode was the same length as the others. Nine had originally started it late and loaded it up with so many ads that it went almost 30 minutes after the advertised completion time.
The ACMA needs to change the laws to stop TV stations over extending their shows.
The only consolation is that it could have been longer. What if the cameras lingered longer whilst Charlie signed his carefully written scripts of jokes for the final time? That always cracked me up and I’ll miss it so much!
@Brendan. Agreed. The worst offender is the Nine Network. How many times waiting for Love Child after The Block goes overtime everytime is incredible. Another big offender is The Voice – always running over time every episode. In one infamous audition show last year they actually had to cut off power to the judges chairs, red buttons and their microphones because it went 25 minutes over schedule.
The Project is a “news show” for those missing a chromosome
@viewer
nice guess, but the voice auditions are filmed several months ahead of time. They aren’t live. They have plenty of time to edit all the auditions they feel like showing into the time frame. They audition thousands and only show the handful they want to in the time provided. so they didn’t cut power to stop them going over schedule.
If it went overtime that was a network choice
A commercial network ran over time on a Monday night? It must have been a mistake! I can’t believe they could ever do that intentionally…
Anyone, these days (and for a lot of years actually) who does not add time to the end of the recording isn’t really all that bright.
The network TV stations for years have not kept to their schedules. Most reality TV shows, recorded and edited months before, don’t finish when they are scheduled to finish. I remember the footy show going overtime easily 15 to 20 years ago.
If TV running overtime into the next slot gets you all hot and bothered, I’m afraid you might need to live in a fridge.
Charlie’s farewell was a bit OTT and bigger than Don Lane’s. He was, after all, merely hosting a tv show.
Do the advertisers realise that because the networks never keep to time, most of record what we want (and the show after) and forward through ALL the ads, never watching any of them?
John, I think what annoys people ‘these days” is that intentional overrunning of programs is often done, not by accident but with total disregard for the viewer…. it’s not that people “aren’t bright” it’s actually quite the contrary… people are aware that the networks are making plays for increased ratings/share results, and the viewer might not want to sit up until 11.30 at night to watch their favourite show – just because it contributes to the networks share results…
Its on channel 10 people.. only 5 people will be affected 😉
I like Charlie, and I’m glad he got his say. Charlie is one of the few of our (Gen X) generation with something to say about the world around him, with passion, logic and charm.
It really annoys me that after recording Secrets and Lies I finally got to watch it and as usual I have missed the last part of the last episode. I even had my program set to run 20 minutes overtime.