Reception
Despite the outcome having been leaked by an e-mail from an unidentified BBC employee, the climax of the plotline, broadcast on 5 April 2001, was watched by 19.8 million people according to BBC figures (nearly three quarters of all television viewers), while the first show in the plot arc attracted 17 million viewers. The National Grid reported that the third highest power surge on record followed immediately after the end of the climactic show (beaten only by the 1990 FIFA World Cup finals and 1984 climax of The Thorn Birds). The kick-off of a UEFA Cup semi-final football game was delayed in order to avoid a clash with the scheduled programme. The episode was the second most-watched non-sport programme of the 2000s, behind an episode of Only Fools and Horses.
The plot was compared favourably in the media to "Who shot J.R.?", the popular 1980 Dallas plot involving the shooting of J.R. Ewing. At the 2001 TV Quick Awards, magazine readers voted Who Shot Phil? as the year's top soap storyline. The storyline also won the Most Dramatic Storyline award at the Inside Soap Awards in 2001. The storyline was featured in heat magazine's review of the 2000s, as their 49th greatest event of the decade.
Read more about this topic: Who Shot Phil?
Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“I gave a speech in Omaha. After the speech I went to a reception elsewhere in town. A sweet old lady came up to me, put her gloved hand in mine, and said, “I hear you spoke here tonight.” “Oh, it was nothing,” I replied modestly. “Yes,” the little old lady nodded, “that’s what I heard.””
—Gerald R. Ford (b. 1913)
“To aim to convert a man by miracles is a profanation of the soul. A true conversion, a true Christ, is now, as always, to be made by the reception of beautiful sentiments.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“He’s leaving Germany by special request of the Nazi government. First he sends a dispatch about Danzig and how 10,000 German tourists are pouring into the city every day with butterfly nets in their hands and submachine guns in their knapsacks. They warn him right then. What does he do next? Goes to a reception at von Ribbentropf’s and keeps yelling for gefilte fish!”
—Billy Wilder (b. 1906)