Forget Rico vs Badr

Blessed is the land where so much is said about the late-night talk show as here, Eva Jinek said during her debut on Friday night at RTL4. A debut, by the way, that immediately touched 1.7 million viewers. A record for JINEK.

Last night the knives were sharpened because Op1 and JINEK met each other in the ring at the same time and it was hard against hard. Op1 had a start time of 10:30 PM, which made JINEK decide to start her leader just ten minutes earlier. 'We can do that too,' thought the high gentlemen of the NPO, and so the schedules were crossed and hats, there was suddenly Op1 scheduled at the same time. JINEK made a long nose and decided to start at 10:16 PM. This left hook was followed hard by an uppercut from the NPO that simply threw out the entire commercial block that was supposed to be between Spoorloos and Op1.

Op1 smoothly entered the living rooms of 1.3 million people who had all watched Spoorloos. JINEK had to fight her way back from a lead in, as it is called in professional terms, of 800,000 viewers for Married at First Sight and the commercial block that followed. By the way, also a very decent viewing figure for RTL4, but half a million less than Spoorloos, so a slightly less comfortable start.

Willemijn Veenhoven stumbled in sentence one and that didn't matter at all, of course. You would just be there. I have found Erik Dijkstra a wonderful person since his Jackal period. While Willemijn Veenhoven sometimes is just a bit too much the smartest and hardest-working girl in the class (I got a little teacher-ant experience), Dijkstra patiently waited for his moment, spoke smoothly to the intros, and made the joke where it fit: “Can't we shoot carbide anymore if there is a fireworks ban?”

At neighbor JINEK, of course, it was also about the possible fireworks ban. Peter Pannekoek always said he would lie under his dog, he was that scared. He continued with his borderline jokes: “If we keep blasting, all those Syrian refugees will feel right at home here.”

Op1 had a slight lead because with Ank Bijleveld about the unrest in Iran, they were just a bit more on the ball than JINEK with Hugo de Jonge. A conversation that, in my feeling, had no end. I love Eva and find Hugo de Jonge an incredibly nice deputy prime minister (how funny that he admitted he sometimes takes a tanning session), but this was a bit too much of a good thing for me.

There was Ryanne van Dorst who asked for a reassuring beer during the conversation about the dangers of alcohol and thus made the best bridge between the opening topic (Hugo de Jonge) and the second (the negative effects of alcohol): “We're all going to die and there won't be anyone to take care of me later.” I saw the best intro of her program (she enters a house where normally eleven girls live, but where there are now only four and she says: “Oh, I only have two hands anyway”) and Eva was back in the saddle. There was joking, growling, and then Peter Pannekoek hadn't even had his turn yet. He discussed the best jokes of Ricky Gervais and added a few of his own.

Meanwhile, at Op1, Caroline Tensen and Natasja Froger told how they had fared as presenters of Five Days Inside. Remarkably, there were two RTL stars at Op1 and at JINEK, Ryanne van Dorst was promoting her BNN/VARA program.

This morning the ratings came in. Op1 won, but narrowly. A thick million against a tight million (999,000) from JINEK. Neck and neck, in short. Tonight the battle part 2.

Written by: Eline Heeren