Suburban Shootout 2 starts badly

The second series of Channel Five's Suburban Shootout got off to a bad start last night. The hour long episode - which was broadcast between 10pm and 11pm - attracted a disappointing 518,000 viewers, a 3% share of the audience.

The comedy, which features an all-star cast including Anna Chancellor, Felicity Montagu and Ralph Ineson, is the only Channel Five sitcom to have made it to a second series so far. Channel bosses will no doubt now be worrying whether the other two new hour long episodes, which will be broadcast on the next two Thursdays, will perform better.

The critics in this morning's papers weren't particularly nice to the show:

"Maybe it does sound whacky and fun, but good comedy-drama needs more than a whacky idea - it needs sharp writing and good comedy acting (think The Thick Of It), and Suburban Shootout doesn't have either of those." Sam Wollaston, The Guardian

"This is strictly a one joke sitcom, the joke being that the middle-class housewives of Little Stempington are secretly gun-toting, drug-running gangsta bitches; and dragging it out to even one series was an achievement." Robert Hanks, The Independent

Yesterday's episode is repeated on Paramount Comedy 2 tonight at 9pm.

Earlier on Thursday, BBC2's Mock the Week picked up 2 million viewers (a 9% share) and Steve Coogan's Saxondale managed 1.3 million (a 6% share).