The Big Bang Theory marathon, celebrating its 100th episode, pulled in bumper ratings for E4 last night.
An audience of 1.12m (5.4%) watched behind-the-scenes show Access All Areas at 8pm, as well as 217k (0.9%) on E4 +1.
Then the 100th episode itself, 'The Recombination Hypothesis', drew 1.34m (5.6%) and 321k (4.1%) on timeshift. The next episode of the US sitcom garnered 1.27m (5.4%) at 9pm (+1: 391k/1.9%).
Finally, clip show It All Started with a Bang - narrated by Rick Edwards - amused 934k (4.1%) at 9.30pm (+1: 317k/1.9%).
The figures meant that E4 scored its largest ever primetime share of 3.6% (+1: 1.2%), taking the digital channel above Channel 5, which had 3.2% (+1: 0.1%).
However, Celebrity Juice was still the most-watched multichannel show, picking up 1.47m (7.5%) for ITV2 at 10pm and an additional 333k (2.8%) an hour later.
Despite a lower than usual lead-in from the soaps, ITV1's 9pm hour performed well with Fraud Squad fetching 4.58m (19.7%) and 275k (1.5%) on +1.
New BBC One nature series Land of the Lost Wolves opened with 3.5m (15.1%) at the same time, while One Born Every Minute aftermath documentary What Happened Next? debuted with 2.05m (8.9%), adding 290k (1.6%) on timeshift.
Over on BBC Two, Natural World interested 1.78m (7.8%) at 8pm and The Sarah Millican Television Programme continued to perform well at 10pm, climbing to 1.42m (7%).
Overall, ITV1 topped primetime with 21.2% (+1: 0.8%), ahead of BBC One's 19%, BBC Two's 6% and Channel 4's 5.3% (+1: 0.8%).
