Hokey Outsiders, Bad Girls banged up?

As reported in today’s print and online editions of today’s Broadcast, a leaked email from ITV’s director of television Simon Shaps to colleague Laura Mackie must have created a few red faces around Network centre over the last couple of days. The contents of the email, which you can read in full here, reveals a cautious lack of confidence in the long-term future of action pilot The Outsiders, and the more than distinct possibility that Bad Girls will come to an end at the close of its eighth and current series…

It seems the email was sent to controller of drama, Mackie, who then forwarded the correspondence on to head of drama Nick Elliott, but, buy fair means or foul, the contents arrived in the inbox of an executive at a rival channel. It’s the stuff of nightmares in this IT-charged world – one wrong flick of a qwerty keyboard can reveal innermost secrets to your entire inbox, and I can only find myself sympathising with the crushing embarrassment this must have caused, not just on a business level, but personally.

But the contents of the email are, undeniably, meat and drink to the media, and I’m sure Shed Productions are more than a little annoyed about the situation.

“Should we also be planning to announce Bad Girls comes to an end this series?”

ponders Shaps in his opener to Mackie, believing the cancellation of Footballers’ Wives earlier this year to be a useful sweetener to more possible bad news they may have for Shed. Mackie’s response is very much a wait and see view, saying:

“it comes down to what choices we have, particularly in that price range.”

It’s not all bad news for Shed, though, with Mackie very much looking forward to the first script from the production company’s Rock Rivals, which she describes as:

“really promising”

But should Bad Girls really be under the threat of the axeman’s gaze? It’s true the prison-based drama’s ratings have not been up the highs of the 2001 series’ average of 8.6 million, with the current series averaging 4.6 million But, in current ITV terms, that’s huge, and it is winning the time slot. But on the other hand, it’s been around since 1999, and that’s a good old run in this day and age. Perhaps it’s time to retire gracefully and go straight after the forthcoming Christmas episode.

But for Shed, that wouldn’t be the ideal scenario. The independent currently has a second series of Waterloo Road in production for the BBC, and with an uncertain future for Bad Girls, Rock Rivals in development and Zoe Lucker military vehicle, Bombshell, sitting unaired in the archives, they’re definitely not at peak output. And that’s a shame – for a time, Shed was the only independent providing sparkly, vibrant drama for ITV. It was glitzy and a bit tawdry in places, but at least it didn’t have “heart” in the title.

And what of these “choices” Laura Mackie refers to? The rest of the email discusses the merits of upcoming drama pilot, The Outsiders, starring Nigel Harman, to which Mackie responds:

“Outsiders looks very glossy, with well-executed action sequences, very photogenic leads and hopefully will appeal to the audience who enjoy Hustle. It’s a bit hokey and doesn’t deliver quite the tongue in cheek ‘Persuaders’ type humour that we’d hoped for and if we go to series then we need to push for wittier, more knowing scripts.”

So, hedging bets across the board there. I could write all sorts into this statement (considering what TV Today has already written about The Outsiders), but in all probability, this is just the kind of discussion that top TV execs must have every single day about upcoming projects. It’s good to see that blind faith doesn’t rule the roost at ITV, and a realistic approach is being taken to development.

However, Mackie does feel that, as far as the critics go, they’ll be:

“a bit sniffy”.

Erm… She might just have me banged to rights on that one.

Read the email in full here.