Surprise Surprise - previously unaired show

I don't think it was sat on, so much as there was a long time between the commissioning and production.

Or not aired at all - Making Waves with Trevor off EastEnders was pulled after two or three episodes of a six part series. Also Mine All Mine with Griff Rhys Jones wasn't pulled but it did lose an episode with the last episode being a messy affair with the final two episodes merged into one.

For better or worse it isn't something that happens so much nowadays both here and in the US - new US shows which flop out of the gates tend to be get all their produced episodes on air as the US networks aren't over commissioning as much as they used to, meaning there isn't always something ready to push in the slot. ITV is probably in a similar situation where it isn't producing drama in the volume it once was so often it's better to leave a failing show in place rather than try to fill the slot.

Back to entertainment shows and it's usually legal reasons surrounding the participants or the death of a participant which result in them being unaired. There was one episode of Deal or No Deal which never aired, but just looking it up it seems it did air during the repeat run on Challenge. And I think an episode of Take Me Out had to edit out a contestant due to convictions coming to light.

Are there any more episodes of Heartbeat left in the can? I know the excuse ITV used a few years ago was it was "taking a break". Not saying it should return, it's long past it's decade!

Anyway, getting back on track, great to see this episode of Surprise Surprise. In a funny way it's also quite strange to watch knowing that Cilla's heart isn't really in it anymore and that major changes were afoot at ITV. This comes from the last remaining scrapings of the true LWT where (as a previous poster mentioned) the stories, reactions all came naturally and nothing was over-dramatised and built-up as has to be the case today.

I'd like to see a Heartbeat 1980 as a one off special to see how the village would have progressed. You could bring back Nick Berry moving back to the village. Was Aidensfield ever reverenced in The Royal Today?


It's interesting most of the Heartbeat cast that seemed old in 90's are still alive like Greengrass.

Whatever happened to Nick Berry?

He runs a company called Valentine Productions. Apart from a brief reprise of his EastEnders role three years ago, he hasn't acted in 12 years. At least that's what his Wikipedia article says.

More recently, I believe that there's one episode in the current run of Would I lie to You? that is yet to be broadcast, which has been put in the schedules at least once and then pulled. I can't check right now but I believe it has a listing on the programme page on the BBC website, but no air date despite coming before the Christmas special that has already gone out.

According to wiki and whether that can be believed or not it will be broadcast on the 13th January 2016. The same thing happened last year where the final episode of the 2014 series and compilation show wasn't broadcast until January 2015 and I don't know why they have pulled it.

It was a bit different with Rebus, in that it was scheduled to be shown just after 9/11 and was initially dropped for reasons of taste because it was very violent. However the series, of which that was the last part, hadn't done very well and so ITV weren't in any great rush to put it on again (they may have been looking for a convenient excuse to drop it, really). That incarnation of Rebus was then axed (of course, it was then revived with a new lead and a completely different production team) so in the end they decided never to bother, on ITV1 at least.

There was indeed a period around the turn of the century when ITV were very quick to drop underperforming programmes. I remember in September 2000 they had a two-part drama called Where There's Smoke scheduled for a Sunday and Monday night, but a few days before transmission, after all the listings magazines had gone out, they decided it wasn't strong enough for such a prime slot and weak opposition for a new BBC1 drama, so dropped it and parachuted in a new episode of Midsomer Murders instead, unbilled. They eventually showed Where There's Smoke the following summer, in a less exposed slot.



It's not so much a question of pulling it, the episodes don't run on from each other so they can be shown independently. One obvious reason this time was because Citizen Khan had to start in the week it did because it finished with a Christmas one, and there wasn't enough space to show every episode they recorded. It peps up the schedule a bit to have an extra new show you can pop in somewhere.

Of course game shows in particular, when they used to record in bulk, used to massively over-record and episodes would turn up months or years after the series they were intended for. I've said before they used to show "new" episodes of Big Break in 2000, still with the old BBC logo and 1997 copyright date, and TVS episodes of Catchphrase were still being shown in 1994, because they had a massive backlog. Catchphrase was a great example of how they would hardly ever be a proper "series", they would just record dozens and dozens and they'd be scheduled in dribs and drabs over the next year or so. At this time of year you'd almost always get a few episodes of The Price Is Right or Celebrity Squares that hadn't been shown before. They were excellent fillers.

I've almost certainly said this before but I remember on Christmas Eve 1992 ITV showed an episode of Take Your Pick, about three months after the rest of the series. It actually started with Des doing a bit in vision, saying "Hi, I've just popped in to tell you about the Christmas special of Des O'Connor Tonight, it features X, Y and Z", and then after that little trailer he said "Now here's an episode of Take Your Pick we didn't have chance to show you earlier". Presumably Thames considered it was worth putting that bit on in case viewers got confused as to why it had nothing to do with Christmas. Funny the things, eh? Love to see that again, I remember it vividly.

I'm still wondering whatever happened to the last episode of 'The Colour Of Money' myself!

It was scheduled for a graveyard slot then at the last minute replaced with Midsummer Murders or similar.

For the unbroadcast episode would the contestants still have been paid if they won?

It wasnt a 'graveyard slot'. It was late afternoon slot on a weekday between Christmas and New Year.

From what I've read, all prize money was paid out to the contestants.

I seen the tribute on UTV on Christmas Day - it was a wonderful tribute. I had no idea she was a singer until I seen the Cilla drama. I just thought she was a presenter up until then and y'know I heard a number of songs and didn't realise it was our Cilla.

Did anyone see the itv3 night on her where they repeated the Our Cilla documentary and then they showed the last Surprise Surprise she did?

I didn't realise how deeply Bobby's death affected her until now - I remember when he died but I never realised how much it affected her when it came to presenting Blind Date and Surprise Surprise - I could see she wasn't the same - her heart wasn't fully in it anymore really.

I think everyone can find comfort in that she was ready to go because in an interview with Holly and Phil off This Morning she was asked what she had left to achieve in her life and she simply said "Die" and Holly and Phil laughed and told her Nooo!

So really... She'd done everything she wanted to do in her life, she had a successful singing career, she had a successful presenting career, she got her BAFTA for all her TV work just last year, she had a husband who she loved and was gone, she had her Children and Grandchildren.

What more could you want in life? She was recently going deaf and she was suffering from arthritis so life was beginning to get worse for her really.

It would be purely selfish of us to wish her to stick around longer to suffer.

I'm glad we had her and she shared her talent with us all.