Throng

It promised so much and yet delivered so little.  Cinematically gorgeous but just not appealing enough to viewers as the ratings declined, ending with season finale matching its worst ever rating and ultimately being beaten by repeats of Outrageous Fortune over on TV3.  And that's in the 5+ ratings.  In the 18-39 demographic, TV3's repeats had close to twice as many viewers.

45% of the audience that saw the pilot were gone by the time it came to the finale.

So what went wrong? The premise seemed fine.  The show was incredibly well shot.  Was it the characters?  Were they just not like-able enough? Was it the storyline?  Was it just not compelling?

There have been two other suggestions which I think deserve comment.  Firstly, the lead in to the show was hardly a brain stimulant.  The fact that TV2 shed up to half of its audience the minute the show started suggests that those already tuned in were not in the mood to sit through something that required them to think.

The other suggestion is that perhaps it should have been on TV One.  The older demographic who haven't discovered the channel buttons on their remote controls would probably have been better suited to a show where the characters don't have the "cool/young" factor that TV2 tends to ooze.

It's really unfortunate because the pilot held out so much hope and promise of being one of the best TV series New Zealand has produced.  Such a shame that its ended like this.