England: EastEnders
Depicting more often than not a depressing view of life in East London, the long-running BBC soap opera just celebrated its 25th anniversary with a live episode. The comings and goings of the residents of Albert Square, Walford, contained all the usual elements of a 30-min. episode (characters attempting to sort out issues, many scenes taking place in the Queen Vic pub) as well as some uncommon ones (fumbled lines! Hey, it was live TV), culminating in the grand reveal of who had killed someone else just after another character had plummeted to his death. This particular episode — one of four shown each week — drew 15.6 million viewers and was the BBC's highest audience figure in nearly six years. The show regularly pulls in more than 10 million, though its glory days of three times as many watching "Dirty" Den Watts walk out on his wife during the 1986 Christmas Day episode is clearly behind it.