Re: Sweet Medicine

"Jerry Kohl" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Geoff Lane wrote:
>
> > Jerry Kohl <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > > tubs wrote:
> >
> > > > Any one any idea why this prog has been shunted into a late night
> > > > Sunday slot? From a 9pm Thursday slot? It is good so I cannot
> > > > unerstand why?
> >
> > > ITV's usual reason is poor ratings, which of course do not necessarily
> > > reflect the quality of the programme.
> >
> > That's the reason.  If an ITV prime time program doesn't attract an
audience
> > approaching 10M it gets dumped. News and current affairs are exempt.
>
> I've not seen Sweet Medicine (living as I do a third of the way around the
> globe from the nearest ITV transmitter, so it may be a few months before
the
> signal gets this far), but it was being flogged by the producers as a
> replacement for Peak Practice, dumped after 12 seasons due presumably to
> falling audience figures. To what degree does Sweet Medicine fulfill this
> promise to be a rejuvinated Peak Practice, in what ways does it fail to
carry
> on in the format, and to what degree is it an animal of a different
stripe?

It is similar in that it's another programme about doctors and patients in
the Peak District of Derbyshire.

However it's different in that:

- There doesn't seem the same sense of location as there was in Peak
Practice: it could be set in any small town or large village anywhere in the
country

- It concentrates much more on the lives (on and off-duty) of the doctors (a
husband and wife who move away from London to take over the husband's
father's practice after his death; the husband's cousin and uncle are also
doctors, the cousin in the same practice and the uncle as a consultant in a
local hospital). The dead doctor's widow (played admirably by Patricia
Hodge) is a real matriarchal battleaxe who rules her sons with a rod of
iron.

See http://uk.imdb.com/title/tt0377266/combined for details.