There was great news for UK channel Gold as its new series of Yes, Prime Minister saw figures double compared to the usual amount that tune in to the station at that time. However that was about as good as it got as the first series of the political drama since 1988 took a critical mauling, which would probably suggest Gold’s success will be a fleeting one.

To the good news first though; Broadcast reports that the show took an average of over 280,000 viewers during the 40 minutes, not a huge amount by any means but over double the 114,000 average the channel can usually expect at 9pm on a Tuesday evening (January 15). Then the bad news; The Independent made a point at how dated it all felt by comparing it to the runaway success of recent political drama The Thick Of It, writing “For one thing, you just can't pretend that The Thick of It never happened, as this seemed to do in featuring a scene of political advisers wincing as their boss flounders through an interview.”

The usually timid Radio Times wasn’t impressed either: "The new Hacker seems much more aware of Sir Humphrey's scheming, which takes away a key dynamic of the original: Hacker mistakenly thinking he had outsmarted Sir Humphrey and made his own decision,"  they wrote. Digital Spy had their knives fully out; they wrote "Sadly, what could have been a triumphant return for one of the best British sitcoms is undone by bad decisions and ruinous execution." Enjoy that ratings boost Gold, it could be your last for a while.