Night and Day (soap opera)

Night and Day
The opening titles, depicting Georgina Walker's character Jane Harper
Genre	Soap opera / Drama
Created by	Caleb Ranson
Written by	Caleb Ranson, John Jackson, Jessica Townsend, Cris Cole, Elizabeth Delaney, Jeff Dodds, Robert Fraser, Adrian Hewitt, Martha Jay, Charles Lambert, Ed McCardie, Adrian Pagan, Bradley Quirk, Tony Ramsay, Catherine Stedman
Country of origin	United Kingdom
No. of series	3
No. of episodes	240 x 20min / 80 x 60min
Production
Producer(s)	LWT / Granada Television
Running time	20/60 minutes
Release
Original network	ITV
Picture format	16 x 9 Widescreen
Original release	6 November 2001 – 5 June 2003

Night and Day was a British soap opera which was produced by Granada Television for LWT and ran on ITV from 2001 to 2003.

Its theme-song, "Always & Forever", was sung by Kylie Minogue.

The series begins on the 16th birthday of best friends Jane Harper and Della Wells, who live in the same street in Greenwich. However, before the day is over, Jane is missing, and she does not return.

Over the next year, the lives of six families in the street become further intertwined as secrets and lies come out about all involved, and as Jane's disappearance has a devastating effect on all.

The soap was launched as part of ITV's new early evening line-up with enormous pre-publicity and trailers and at first it rated well, even drawing comparisons to shows such as Twin Peaks. However, as the storylines became more bizarre and complex, it began to rate poorly, only gaining a small, cult fanbase and was pushed to a later timeslot due to the lack of mainstream interest.

The series combined typical soap opera plots — babies switched at birth, clandestine affairs — with more unusual ones such as the murders at the catacombs, and an episode in which a mysterious stranger came to the street and stopped time in order to uncover the truth about the residents, only to eventually erase their memories of events of that alternate reality and turn everything back to normal. The low ratings eventually led ITV to cancel the series.

This decision, however, was made far ahead of time, allowing the producers to script an ending to the series. In the last string of episodes, Sam - wandering away from home - found Jane working as a geisha, with no memory of who she was. He returned her to her family, and her return - coming on the heels of the year anniversary of her disappearance - only served to increase tensions and bring secrets into the open. The final episode, the 80th when counting only the hour-long episodes, focused on revealing some of the secrets behind the characters and Jane being arrested for murder. The episode then flashed to "4 years later" and looked at one day in the very different lives of the residents of Greenwich, as Jane was released from prison and came to discover what had happened since. At the end, Natalie learned that Jane had not been released - but had died in her cell that morning - and her ghost had been the one present. The series closed with a montage of moments from the series to Björk's All is Full of Love.