Night and Day (TV series)

Night and Day

The opening titles, depicting Georgina Walker's character Jane Harper
Genre Soap opera / Drama
Created by Caleb Ranson
Written by Caleb Ranson, John Jackson, Jessica Townsend, Cris Cole, Elizabeth Delaney, Jeff Dodds, Robert Fraser, Adrian Hewitt, Martha Jay, Charles Lambert, Ed McCardie, Adrian Pagan, Bradley Quirk, Tony Ramsay, Catherine Stedman
Country of origin United Kingdom
No. of series 3
No. of episodes 240 x 20min / 80 x 60min
Production
Producer(s) LWT / Granada Television
Running time 20/60 minutes
Release
Original network ITV
Picture format 16 x 9 Widescreen
Original release 6 November 2001 – 5 June 2003

Night and Day was a British soap opera which was produced by Granada Television for LWT and ran on ITV from 2001 to 2003.

Its theme-song, "Always & Forever", was sung by Kylie Minogue.

Synopsis

The series begins on the 16th birthday of best friends Jane Harper and Della Wells, who live in the same street in Greenwich. However, before the day is over, Jane is missing, and she does not return.

Over the next year, the lives of six families in the street become further intertwined as secrets and lies come out about all involved, and as Jane's disappearance has a devastating effect on all.

The soap was launched as part of ITV's new early evening line-up with enormous pre-publicity and trailers and at first it rated well, even drawing comparisons to shows such as Twin Peaks. However, as the storylines became more bizarre and complex, it began to rate poorly, only gaining a small, cult fanbase and was pushed to a later timeslot due to the lack of mainstream interest.

The series combined typical soap opera plots — babies switched at birth, clandestine affairs — with more unusual ones such as the murders at the catacombs, and an episode in which a mysterious stranger came to the street and stopped time in order to uncover the truth about the residents, only to eventually erase their memories of events of that alternate reality and turn everything back to normal. The low ratings eventually led ITV to cancel the series.

This decision, however, was made far ahead of time, allowing the producers to script an ending to the series. In the last string of episodes, Sam - wandering away from home - found Jane working as a geisha, with no memory of who she was. He returned her to her family, and her return - coming on the heels of the year anniversary of her disappearance - only served to increase tensions and bring secrets into the open. The final episode, the 80th when counting only the hour-long episodes, focused on revealing some of the secrets behind the characters and Jane being arrested for murder. The episode then flashed to "4 years later" and looked at one day in the very different lives of the residents of Greenwich, as Jane was released from prison and came to discover what had happened since. At the end, Natalie learned that Jane had not been released - but had died in her cell that morning - and her ghost had been the one present. The series closed with a montage of moments from the series to Björk's All is Full of Love.

Characters

Regular

Recurring

History

The series aired on ITV, premiering with an unusual format: a re-edited, one-hour episode would be produced each week, which would first air as three thirty-minute episodes in an early slot three nights a week, and then as one "omnibus" episode with more explicit scenes (often just discussion or events that could not be aired in an earlier timeslot) included.

The experiment failed after several months, and ITV decided to simply air the one-hour episodes at the later slot.

The first 20-minute teatime episode aired on Tuesday 6 November 2001 at 17:05 on ITV, attracting 2.2million viewers.

On the 27 March 2002, ITV announced it was removing Night and Day from its 17:05 slot the following week. This was in response to the series attracting only a 9% audience share and being beaten in the ratings by BBC Two's The Weakest Link and Channel 4's Richard & Judy. The series' removal was so sudden that TV listings for the next week still advertised the show. Speaking of the decision to axe the teatime editions Tony Woods, the head of continuing drama at ITV stated "The series has already established itself as cult viewing for young adults and repositioning it with a first showing in the evening will build on its appeal". Clearly others within ITV Network Centre did not agree and episodes aired later and later in the night. At some points in late 2002, episodes aired at 2am. Most episodes also aired later than billed, some almost ten minutes behind the advertised schedule.

The vacant 17:05 slot was filled by repeats of game shows such as Catchphrase, You've Been Framed and Family Fortunes. Eventually, in January 2003 a relaunched version of Crossroads aired in the slot before it too was also cancelled after only a few months on air.

The final 60 minute 'omnibus' episode aired on the 6 June 2003.

The series finished filming on the 17 May 2002 (the day before the British Soap Awards), over a year before the final episode aired on screen.

Teatime episodes averaged 1.4 million viewers. The final episode attracted 500,000 viewers despite airing at 00:30.

In Australia, the show screened on ABC TV. It was originally aired weeknights at 6pm, leading into the evening news, but the later episodes were predominantly screened very late at night.

'Thornton Street' was in reality King George Street SE10, one of the most historic areas of Greenwich. Other locations in Greenwich included the Cutty Sark, the Old Greenwich Hospital and the park. 'St Vincents Halfway House' was actually in the borough of Tower Hamlets. Interior shots were filmed at the Three Mills Studios in Bow.

Night and Day was nominated for ten awards at the British Soap Awards 2002, beating established rivals such as Hollyoaks and Emmerdale. It won one award, 'Hero of the year' (chosen by a panel of judges) for the character of Sam giving up football to look after his orphaned siblings.

Some five weeks before the final episode aired in 2003 many TV guides flagged up the weeks episode as the 'last in series'. Indeed, the Radio Times even printed a double page feature about the shows demise after 17 months on air. Quite why this error could have happened is unknown. This led to some fans thinking the series had ended on a knife-edge cliffhanger when in fact the next five weeks tied up all the loose ends to all plots.

In 2006 the Radio Times ran a small article about the fifth anniversary of Night and Day's premier. The programme was described as being stylish but with little substance.

The series was never released on DVD or video. The sheer number of songs used on the soundtrack throughout the series would make a DVD release financially impractical as each artist would need to be paid a royalty fee. At the time of the shows final transmission rumors circulated on fan message boards of a clause in the production contract that prevents a rerun of the series until 5 years after initial transmission. This has not been confirmed by ITV or LWT. As of 2014 (more than ten years since the final episode) the series has yet to being repeated.

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