“Molly” tops Sunday’s ratings

The first part of Seven Network’s Molly telemovie drew 1.793 million viewers last night, topping Sunday night’s ratings.

In comparison, other entertainment-themed shows paled, with Nine’s second episode of Australia’s Got Talent reaching 884,000 and Ten’s I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here dropping to its lowest with 626,000 viewers.

Seven pulled out its marketing for Molly: yesterday’s Morning Show, for instance, was devoted to the series with interviews with the likes of Marcia Hines and Mark Holden about the Countdown era.

Molly was riveting viewing, fast-paced, and combining an expose of the drama in his personal life and the inventiveness and chaos of his public one. The latter was largely told through his involvement in Countdown (The Rock Show, Groove Town and The Pop Half Hour among names first considered).

Meldrum’s 2014 The Never, Um, Ever Ending Story autobiography, upon which the series was based, abounded with humorous anecdotes. But translated to the visual screen, train wreck episodes like the Prince Charles interview and the 100^th Countdown show before which he popped a pill to combat jetlag, were hysterical.

Actor Samuel Johnson looked enough like Meldrum to be the real thing. He played the Cat With The Hat as free-spirited, neurotic and fiercely loyal to friends.

Molly had a strong supporting characters. Michael Gudinski was not as realistically portrayed as Meldrum. But his mercurial relationship with Molly, as well as his wink-wink-let’s-work-around-the-rules approach to things could be an indicator to his own mini-series – which Seven thinks is already in the bag, going by public comments by its executives, while the Mushroom founder insists things are still only in negotiating mode.

Strong supports also came from the characters of Meldrum’s drag queen flatmate Caroline who despite her own challenges provided a strength to Meldrum’s own anxieties, and also Countdown’s long suffering executive producer Michael Shrimpton who stood as a buffer between the ABC’s stuffiness and Meldrum’s volatile inventive streak.

In fact the prime appeal of Molly was that Meldrum’s personality already drew mad people to his sphere. More so when the character worked in the music industry which operates in perpetual madness. And even more so when the character has to operate within the stern-lipped bureaucracy of the ABC.

One incident showed Meldrum walking into the Skyhooks’ dressing room to find Shirley Strachan getting a blow job. He turned abruptly and left – only to encounter the stuffiest of the ABC bureaucrats wanting to enter to say hello to the band. Quickly, Meldrum explained that he couldn’t enter because the band were, umm, meditating before their appearance.

Part One finished off with Meldrum on an emotional and health low, needing to deal with his demons to climb up again. It sets up Part 2, next Sunday, to have another mass tune in.