Channel 5 debuted the first episode of new thriller The Holiday starring Jill Halfpenny on Tuesday evening, but several fans missed a major plot point in the show when text messages on screen were 'too small' for viewers to read.
The four-part series charts a group of families on vacation against the blissful blue waters of the Mediterranean, but the sojourn is thrown into disarray when a bombshell affair is revealed.
The new Channel 5 drama stars Coronation Street and EastEnders star Jill Halfpenny as Kate, who discovers her husband Sean, played by Killing Eve actor Owen McDonell, has been sleeping with one of her friends.
However, as Jill's character Kate made the devastating discovery of her husband's infidelity when she opened his phone, several fans took to Twitter to complain they could not read the text messages on their screens at home.
As many missed the explosive revelation of the cheating drama at the heart of the thriller series, fans urged TV shows to make the font on messages larger, with one writing: "Watching The Holiday on Channel 5; note to directors, if your character is reading texts on a phone, please do close-up of the phone otherwise the words are too small to read from my armchair."
Another wrote: "What have I missed, can’t read the texts", as a third posted: "I hate it when they show phone screens and I can't read what the messages say."
A fellow social media user posted: "Going to have to either get a bigger TV or my eyes tested, can’t read those phone messages!"
A fellow fan said: "Trying to read the texts" as another moaned: "Why do producers continually think we can all read what’s on people’s phones? They do it again and again!"
The new thriller is adapted from T. M. Logan's novel of the same name and joins a group of friends as the former Strictly Come Dancing winner’s character tries to get to the bottom of the infidelity - but the stakes ramp up as a death was teased in the concluding moments of the first episode.
The cast also includes Midsommar actress Liv Mjones, Sherlock’s Siobhan Hewlett - both of whom play members of the friendship group holidaying together - as well as their husbands played by The Trial of Christine Keeler actor Aidan McArdle Doctors actor Andrew Macklin.
Former soap star Jill explained how her role as Kate Mitchell on EastEnders helped her prepare for her latest turn on the Mediterranean.
She told Digital Spy: “I think that soaps work so quickly, that the way they can help you is that when you're on set and you're particularly under pressure, or you have an hour to do the last scene of the day, because soaps work so quickly all the time, it's not so much of a shift in gears for me to go 'Okay, we're going to do this, we're going to probably going to take the first or the second take, I've got to be right on it'.
“So it doesn't throw me maybe as much as it throws people who haven't worked at that speed.”
She continued: “I think people just don't appreciate the speed that soaps have to work out to get the content out.
“Of course, everybody would love to have way more hours than they do on soaps, and to be able to light it in a way that is different for each person.
“But sometimes it's just like, 'the scene is linked, it's multicam, this is what we're doing'. So once you sort of experienced that, I think it does stand you in good stead to go 'this is this is all right, I don't have to work on the pressure labels'.”
