The Night Manager vs. Doctor Thorne: Tom Hollander took over our screens as the BBC and ITV went head-to-head for ratings. Who were the winners and losers, by Jim Shelley 

There was only one thing wrong with Doctor Thorne, Julian Fellowes’ first series since the demise of Downton Abbey. It was on at the same time as The Night Manager, over on BBC1.

It was a poor form frankly – forcing viewers to choose between the follow up to the nation’s favourite costume drama and the latest classic John Le Carre thriller.

We are halfway through The Night Manager’s six episode run. And as Doctor Thorne is only in three parts, ITV could easily have waited until we discovered if hotelier-turned-secret agent Jonathan Pine is going to ensnare arms dealer Richard Roper or whether Roper’s title as ‘the worst man in the world’ will be justified and see him survive.

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There was only one thing wrong with Doctor Thorne, Julian Fellowes’ first series since the demise of Downton Abbey. It was on at the same time as The Night Manager (pictured), over on BBC1

Such dilemmas, indeed the whole concept of ‘Appointment TV’, were meant to be a thing of the past – what with the advent of Sky Plus, iPlayer, On Demand, and the popularity of boxed sets.

But the public’s mania for commenting on television as it happens on Twitter and other ‘social media’ has not only brought them back again but made such ‘watercooler moments’ more pressing and contemporary than ever.

No one wants to wait even an hour to watch the second big programme of the night to catch up/join in on what everyone has been talking/tweeting about.

So it was a nervous night for both ITV and BBC, waiting to see who came out on top in the ratings’ war – even though they had effectively damaged themselves as much as each other by agreeing to screen them separately.

It was a big night too for Tom Hollander who, incredibly, found himself starring in both series, on peak time Sunday night viewing, simultaneously.

It’s just a shame he wasn’t in The Jump on Channel 4 as well. It would have been the actor’s equivalent of the perfect hat trick.

ITV could easily have waited until we discovered if hotelier-turned-secret agent Jonathan Pine is going to ensnare arms dealer Richard Roper or whether Roper’s title as ‘the worst man in the world’ will be justified

Here are my awards for The Night Manager and Doctor Thorne for those of you who only watched one of them and the few who didn’t see either.

Best ‘must-see’ event of the evening: Doctor Thorne

I find modern-day spies more intriguing than the machinations of 19th century high society but even I would concede Julian Fellowes’ return took priority. It didn’t help that the third episode of The Night Manager confirmed its initial allure is becoming stale.

Best romantic hero: Tom Hiddleston in The Night Manager

Now that Jonathan Pine was no longer bed-ridden, Hiddleston was back being a blonde bombshell/Bond –successfully breaking into Richard Roper’s private den and photographing the details of his evil arms deal and gratuitously running along the sand with his shirt off. His rival on Doctor Thorne, Harry Richardson (as Frank Gresham), had the Lovely Hair, well-groomed features, and boyish charm of one of the boys in War And Peace, or One Direction. But frankly looking handsome on a white horse was never going to compete with Hiddleston, who was channelling 007 so perfectly it was a wonder he didn’t introduce himself by saying: ‘the name’s Manager. Night Manager.’

Best romantic hero: Tom Hiddleston in The Night Manager. Hiddleston was back being a blonde bombshell/Bond –successfully breaking into Richard Roper’s private den and photographing the details of his evil arms deal and gratuitously running along the sand with his shirt off

Best romantic heroine: Mary Thorne

Doctor Thorne’s niece was not only destined to be too common to marry her true love Frank Gresham, but not even one of the Thornes from Ullathorne after all. She was illegitimate, while her father had been murdered after ‘seducing’ her ‘village girl’ mother, who had later left her and gone to Australia. Talk about unlucky, not really wanted, and deeply romantic. Surprisingly, The Night Manager hadn’t provided a love interest for Jonathan Pine. The closest it’s come so far is Richard Roper’s girlfriend – the strangely-named ‘Jed’, a gal who is constantly either swimming or bathing, as if she can’t be out of water for long because she is part model/part mermaid. ‘I don’t care who sees me naked !’ young Jed declared, as she stripped off again. Yes, we noticed. You wondered whether – if the scene required it and was done with integrity – actress Elizabeth Debicki would keep her clothes on. Despite their evident attraction, the chances of Jed and Jonathan getting together diminished still further. ‘If you lay one hand on that precious fruit, we’ll chop it off,’ warned Roper’s sidekick Lance ‘Corky’ Corkoran. ‘And I don’t mean the hand.’

Best romantic heroine: Mary Thorne (R). Doctor Thorne’s niece was not only destined to be too common to marry her true love Frank Gresham, but not even one of the Thornes from Ullathorne after all

Best Baddie: Rebecca Front in Doctor Thorne

Lady Arabella Gresham’s machinations were nothing if not complicated - trying to ‘persuade’ Doctor Thorne that her son’s love for his niece Mary Thorne must desist because there had been ‘love-making of a very advanced kind’ whilst not changing ‘the friendly intercourse’ between the good doctor and her family, which she needed to facilitate Sir Roger Scatcherd’s loans. The fact that she performed them while carrying a pug – rather than stroking a white pussycat – was all the more admirable. Richard Roper, the arms dealer in The Night Manager meanwhile, may be ‘the worst man in the world’ but Hugh Laurie’s performance is still veering more towards parody than clever casting against type.

Best Baddie: Rebecca Front (L) as Lady Arabella in Doctor Thorne. Lady Arabella Gresham’s machinations were nothing if not complicated - trying to ‘persuade’ Doctor Thorne that her son’s love for his niece Mary Thorne must desist because there had been ‘love-making of a very advanced kind’

Best Tom Hollander: Doctor Thorne

Hollander’s roles in Doctor Thorne and The Night Manager couldn’t have been any more different and, as ever, he was terrific in both. The problem with his part in The Night Manager was that Lance ‘Corky’ Corkoran was such a slimy, snide, piece of work he was hard to watch with any great enjoyment, while Doctor Thorne was patently a saint.

Best locations: Doctor Thorne

It was a good night for the English Tourist Board as Julian Fellowes decided one stately home wasn’t nearly enough and delivered several that made Downton Abbey look like a council house. The croquet lawns and grounds were so verdant they looked like they’d been coloured in by felt pen. By comparison The Night Manager was marooned on the Thames at MI6 HQ, a rather mundane café in Madrid, and at Roper’s (admittedly lavish) fortress on the Mallorca coast. Still, episode three missed the spectacular snowy Alpine heights where Pine was working in the opening show. Even Devon was better.

Best Tom Hollander: Doctor Thorne. Hollander’s roles in Doctor Thorne and The Night Manager couldn’t have been any more different and, as ever, he was terrific in both

Most ludicrous plot: The Night Manager

It was a small world in Doctor Thorne, where the fortunes of Rochester’s doctor, his murdered brother, his niece, his patient Sir Roger Scatcherd, Sir Roger’s sister, his niece’s beloved, and his niece’s beloved’s mother were all intricately, often secretly, linked - like a cross between something from Jeremy Kyle and Ye Olde EastEnders.

But these storylines were still more plausible than anything in The Night Manager. Here, Jonathan Pine had become the first British or American secret agent to infiltrate the sinister inner circle of Richard Roper, a man selling napalm in the guise of tractor parts - even though this was Pine’s first assignment as a spy. 

Roper and co. had their suspicions about Pine and knew that he had lied about his real identity, but his bodyguards left him alone long enough to a) coax Roper’s little boy into effectively grassing on his dad and tell him everything he needed to know to complete his mission, b) steal the kid’s mobile phone when mobiles ‘weren’t allowed’, c) break into his den (Roper’s that is, not the little boy’s) by stealing the only key which Roper had left in his bedroom drawer (rather than carry with him) exactly as the alarm was being tested, d) photograph the details of a massive arms deal and email them to his handler (Olivia Colman) and e) tip off Olivia Colman that Roper’s sidekick Lance ‘Corky’ Corkoran was on to him while ostentatiously standing next to her at an ice-cream van. So much for Roper’s ‘impenetrable’ organisation.

 ‘Corky’ was a inveterate, talkative, drunk. Roper’s money man Sandy was having an affair with his children’s nanny – much to the fury of his wife. She knew all about Roper’s forthcoming arms deal and disapproved of it – as she proved when she told Pine all about it.

‘We run a tight ship here,’ Roper had boasted. Hardly. It was leaking like a sieve.

Most ludicrous plot: The Night Manager