“We knew a ‘down’ ending would rate less favourably with some viewers.”
Even now it’s finished, Line of Duty is still causing plenty of conversation amongst fans and TV critics, and show creator Jed Mercurio has taken to Twitter to respond to the backlash.
The sixth series of the police drama concluded on Sunday with probably the most controversial television finale since Bran was crowned ruler of the Six Kingdoms and Drogon made sure that no one ever sat on the Iron Throne (it finished two years ago, I’m not giving out Game of Thrones spoiler warnings).
The revelation that bumbling/incompetent/inept Buckells was the fourth man at the centre of corruption in the police force left many feeling underwhelmed. There was no major twist, no running through the street with guns, no ‘urgent exit required’ finish. Just the depressing revelation that corruption doesn’t need masterminds or intelligence to succeed, it just needs morally corrupt idiots.
We’ve already had Martin Compston address the finish, and Nigel Boyle (Ian Buckells himself) defend the understated conclusion. Now writer and creator Jed Mercurio has set out his defence for the show’s climax.
In a Twitter thread, Mercurio acknowledged that he knew a “down ending” would divide opinion amongst fans. However he argues that “audience research shows a far less extreme picture” than what the vocal Twitter-sphere may have you believe.
1. No one disputes the Line of Duty finale divided social media opinion but the audience research so far shows a far less extreme picture. We knew a "down" ending would rate less favourably with some viewers, however all 7 episodes varied by under 10% on average viewer score …
— Jed Mercurio (@jed_mercurio) May 5, 2021
He explained that the research looks at the opinions of a random sample of 1,000 viewers, as opposed to review websites which “can be skewed by users strongly motivated to register their immediate anger/adulation”.
Each of the 1,000 viewers were asked to rate the episode from 1-10, and this was then used to calculate “the Appreciation Index as a score out of 100”.
And the upshot of all this? Well the finale was only seven points below the next lowest ranked episode from series six.
3. 1000 random viewers submitted scores from 1-10 which have been used to calculate the Appreciation Index (AI) as a score out of 100. The AI for the “down” finale was only 7 points below the next lowest in Season 6 (Ep 1) …
— Jed Mercurio (@jed_mercurio) May 5, 2021
So whilst it was still the lowest rated episode of the series, which may raise more than a few questions of concern seeing as it was the ‘big’ finale, it maybe wasn’t as hated and loathed as the likes of @Jenny27695o034 would like you to think.
Of course there is always this argument as well…
https://twitter.com/MQUTins/status/1389915378231414788
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