Heartbeat (1992 - 2010)

[roman pierce]

Yeah all the announcer announced was that Albert's Memorial in an hour but now (pause) it's Heartbeat.

Now either that pause was indicating its the last but saying that it was poor.

A female announcer said the final episode of Heartbeat at 8pm just before Octopussy began.

[Sweet.im4u]

Heartbeat hadn't become a 'shadow of its former self', though. Whilst I can accept its recent ratings, whilst very respectable, haven't been what they once were, no programmes (including the soaps) command the audience figures they did in the nineties and early noughties.

The main thing that sticks in the throat, however, is not the fact that it has been brought to an end but the manner in which it was done. A show and actors that have served ITV well were shown so little respect and the very least ITV owed them was a proper finale.

[alice H]

ITV have had it in for Heartbeat for some time, look at the way they chopped the later series into small segments and let the awful Wild At Heart benefit from X-Factor follow-on audiences. But when it refused to die they killed it.

They lied about filming being merely "suspended" and didn't even allow the show a proper ending, finishing with the usual end-of-series cliffhanger that will never be resolved. A squalid organisation treating its audience with contempt.

Even though Heartbeat has been a staple for ITV in Yorkshire for many years there has been no report of the show's ending on our local Calendar news programme. You would think the Grim Reaper would have been worth a mention.

At least the final run ended with some very sound episodes, the first one excepted, which was rather weak. Not only did the show achieve good ratings it had a strong export record too.

If the show had to end my preferred scenario would have been a new-year's eve 1969 setting where everything would have been rounded off.

Heartbeat and The Royal took up a good proportion of ITV's Sunday evening output and you wonder what will replace them? More celebrity/talent/reality/game show pap. Likely more Wild At Heart. We'll have to wait and see.

[Guy needing help!]

I think its encoraging to see ITV winding up The Bill and now Heartbeat.

I think/hope it shows ITV realise its time for things to change and might, just might signal a new creative era at ITV.

Heres hoping.

[Myst3ry]

I was there at the weekend. I met David and Deefer the Dog. There was an auction of all the memorabilia from the show.

[doakpersoncat]

Heartbeat is/was one of my favourite pieces of TV, and the ending while dramatic is left on such a cliffhanger it must be brought back for at least a mini series to round it off.
In the meantime I will be buying the series boxsets on DVD which finally have started being released. Series 1 is just