Parade's End loved by critics - but viewers switch off Parade's End lost almost one third of its viewers when the acclaimed period drama returned for its second episode. (TELEGRAPH)

By Laura Donnelly7:20AM BST 02 Sep 2012

The first episode scored one of the highest BBC2 drama viewing figures in recent years, with 3.1 million viewers and 15 per cent of all viewers - double the channel’s usual share.

However, ratings figures show that when the series returned on Friday, almost one million people stayed away, with 2.2 million viewers in total.

On social networking sites there were complaints that the plot - which centres on a love triangle - left them confused, and that mumbling dialogue could not be understood.

White, best-known in Britain for Bleak House, the BBC’s Bafta-winning 2005 adaptation of Dickens’s novel, had warned that viewers might struggle to follow the plot, while promising that complex strands would fall into place.

Speaking before the first episode was shown, she said: “This is like Downton Abbey meets The Wire in some ways,” referring to the American television series set in the Baltimore drug world.

“There are bits of dialogue that at first sight you won’t understand at all,” she said. “But you’ll have to trust that it’s going to pay off. The effect is cumulative.”

A spokesman for the BBC said the figures for the latest episode were above the average audience for the time slot, and that the BBC was “incredibly proud” of the drama.

READ MORE: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/9514309/Parades-End-loved-by-critics-but-viewers-switch-off.html