Today's the day! After completing its run on BBC Two, Out of the Blue's repeat airings make their debut on Fiver at 7.30pm tonight. It'll seem a little bit weird to go back to the beginning - lots of us are still reeling following the shock cliffhanger ending in the last BBC episode - but it shouldn't take too long for us to start enjoying the early episodes again.
Who knows what these repeats airings will mean for the show. After all the TV promotion, it will at least pull in a few new fans who can experience for themselves just how great the show is, if they decide to stick with it. If it does turn out to be even a moderate success, it would add weight to fans' belief that there is still life in the show and it deserves a chance.
The best we can hope for is that Fiver realises what the BBC didn't - a soap needs time to build up a dedicated fanbase who tune in every day. It's impossible to gauge anything about an audience's reaction to a show like this after just a week. People will tune in out of curiosity for the first episode, the audience may start to drop afterwards, then the dedicated fans who are left will help to maintain interest through word of mouth. Ideally, after that the ratings will build back up again over time.
Out of the Blue wasn't given the chance to do this on the BBC - after a week it got shunted to a rubbish timeslot and all promotion for the show was stopped. Hardly a great way to convince people to watch and build up those viewing numbers. With 130 episodes of the show, there's plenty of time for it to establish itself on its new channel if it is given the chance - let's hope Fiver are prepared to give our favourite soap some stability!
Here's a reminder/first-look (depending on if you're an old or new viewer) of the first episode, courtesy of Alaina who was kind enough to upload the video:
And so the rollercoaster ride begins again...
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