Last of the Summer Wine (series 1) episodes, however the pilot still was not included in the re-release. The pilot episode was released on the final boxset series 31 & 32 as an extra on disc four on 15 August 2016. Last of the Summer Wine (series 1) Last of the Summer Wine's first series originally aired on BBC1 between 4 January 1973 and 29 December 1973. All episodes from this series were written by Roy Clarke and produced and directed by James Gilbert. The pilot episode, alternately known as "The Last of the Summer Wine" and "Of Funerals and Fish," originally premiered on the BBC's "Comedy
Last of the Summer Wine share of viewers in the 6:20 time slot with an average of 3.2 million viewers. "Last of the Summer Wine's" audience grew from 2.7 million to 3.4 million over the 30 minutes. The show was beaten for the night only by Channel 4's "Big Brother" with 3.6 million viewers at 9:00 p.m., although the reality show had a smaller share of viewers for its time slot. The 29th series finale, which was broadcast on 31 August 2008, was watched by 4.2 million people, giving the network a 22.5% share for the night. Several members of the royal family were viewers