What do Del Boy, ET and Len Goodman have in common?
Apart from their somewhat cheeky streaks, they've all got the power to keep us on the edge of our seats until their show or film ends - and cause huge power surges as we pop the kettle on afterwards.
The National Grid has revealed the Christmas shows of 2016 that it thinks will cause the biggest surges, and top of the list this year is the Strictly Come Dancing Christmas Special.
It's Len Goodman's final show after 12 years with the series, so his own special farewell episode Strictly Len Goodman is also expected to create a spike in electricity demand.
The Great British Bake Off and Call The Midwife are high on this year's list as well.
Previously the three biggest Christmas Day pickups of all time are Only Fools and Horses, ET and Shirley Valentine.
Del Boy and Rodney Trotter's Sotheby's auction, which made them millionaires in 1996, has the record for the largest surge at 1,600 megawatts.
Jeremy Caplin, forecasting manager at the National Grid, said (via The Guardian): "It's literally picking up the Radio Times and seeing what people are interested in."
Caplin and his team keep a close eye on social media and shows' plots to work out if a programme has the potential to be followed by a power surge.
"It is definitely art rather than science. Every morning somebody will go through the previous day and fill in the database to see what programme had a pickup. We can use that history to predict what will happen going forward."
The smallest surge that comes following programmes is people rushing for the toilet while the credits roll, as water companies' pumps draw electricity.
The second largest is people switching lights on as they move to other rooms, and the largest demand is water being boiled for a hot drink.
Posted: Fri Dec 23, 2016 10:39 pm