Throng

How would you like to see the glory days of Ted West in a new drama spinoff from South Pacific Pictures' Outrageous Fortune?  A prequel if you like.

When a show such as Outrageous Fortune comes to an end, as it will with its sixth and final season on TV3 in 2010, they leave enormous holes in the television landscape.  Characters who have become so loved and, in many cases, identified with are taken like a close relative and the mourning that ensues can be heart wrenching.  Thankfully though, writers and producers seem to becoming more and more adept at reinventing the stories and giving charatcters an extended lease on life.

Being able to take a highly successful and award winning show and develop a new series based on back story would immediately have a fanbase, and particularly with New Zealand, the reason to fund a pilot and first season.

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Check out the character descriptions for the US adaptation of Outrageous Fortune, bolded italic bits are the interesting bits for Kiwis:

Cheryl West

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ABC has just ordered eight episodes of Scoundrels - based on Outrageous Fortune - and will play it in the middle of this year.

This adaption comes from Richard Levine and Lyn Greene (Nip/Tuck), not Rob Thomas who did the original adaption which wasn't picked up.

John Barnett from SPP is also executive producing with Francie Calfo from ABC.

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?

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Looks like one of our favorite westies will be spending a lot more time states side.

Its been announced that Grant Bowler is joining the cast of True Blood as a werewolf and menacing ringleader of a biker gang.

For more details see Digital Spy and Zap2It

 

Congratulations to Outrageous Fortune for outstanding ratings for Series 5 with an average of 407,000 Kiwis tuning in to see the West family's exploits.

Outrageous Fortune is one of a rare group of TV shows internationally which has able to consistently grow their audience by about 20% each series for the first four series.  In fact, we asked TV ratings experts around the world for other examples of such audience growth and couldn't locate any examples.

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The season finale of TV3 drama OUTRAGEOUS FORTUNE, one of the most anticipated television events of 2009, kept Kiwis glued to their television screens last night with an average 5+ audience of 483,600 (5+), and huge audiences in the key demographics.

The final episode of the South Pacific Pictures-produced drama series won a 46.2% share of the 18-49 audience, and a massive 49.3% share of the 18-49 Auckland Urban demographic.

The episode, which brought Season Five to an end, left the fate of three key characters in doubt after a stabbing and police shootout involving matriarch Cheryl West (Robyn Malcolm), her daughter Pascalle West (Siobhan Marshall), and policeman Zane Gerard (Charles Mesure).

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Last night's Outrageous Fortune Season 5 finale was watched by an estimated* 484,000 kiwis - making it the second most viewed episode of the season and eighth most popular episode of all-time.

The most-watched episode of Outrageous Fortune to date was the Season 4 finale - seen by almost 559,000 kiwis.

* AGB Nielsen 5+