David Cameron knows he faces a serious battle over the next three weeks.
It would have been abundantly clear from our audience reaction to him - an audience weighted to reflect a third Leave voters, a third Remain, and a third undecided.
It was not so much that the audience was hostile. We already know that Brexiteers are more enthusiastic for their cause than Remainers, but are they in a mood to listen to a case that relies on economic doom-mongering?
Mr Cameron delivered a closing message imploring the audience not to "roll the dice on our children and grandchildren's economic future".
That is a message to motivate turnout among what I call "reluctant Remainers".
But he will be worried about the message on economic risk being blocked by a perception of scaremongering.
Trust was the thread linking all the questions I asked of the PM on immigration, sovereignty, the economy, and scaremongering.
On immigration, there was some concession from the PM that he might not ever reach his "tens of thousands" migration target.
"I'm not going to put a date on it," he told me after I asked him if the target could be met before he left Number 10 by 2020.
He also suggested to me that migration will fall towards the target after the eurozone crisis finishes.
On sovereignty, he would not directly confirm the supremacy of the Luxembourg-based European Court of Justice over the UK Supreme Court - a key point made by Boris Johnson and Michael Gove.
He rebrands the European Court of Justice's (ECJ) judgements as single rules for a Single Market - the first of many references to it.
At times, it was almost as if he was recasting the whole debate as being about leaving the Single Market ("effectively makes Britain part of the biggest economy in the world") rather than just the EU.
When pushed on the ECJ's extension into opening on child benefits, head-scarves, and foreign criminal deportations, Mr Cameron conceded that the EU "drives me crazy" at times, but the benefits outweigh the costs.
On the economy, Mr Cameron could have and wanted to talk all night.
But he did not choose to defend particularly strongly the "households £4,300 worse off" figure from the Treasury, which the Commons Treasury Select Committee has criticised as "misrepresenting" Government calculations.
Most memorable perhaps was the rowdy hostility of some in the crowd.
They laughed too, more than I might have expected, at my question asking whether Global Brexit Recession would precede World War Three.
The idea that the Stronger In campaign is over-egging post-Brexit fears has clearly "cut through".
This matters, as for Remain to win, the Prime Minister's fear for our economic future needs to be widely believed.
Above all the first TV special showed that the PM needs some backup.
He cannot sustain a winning coalition of voters from pro-EU Tories.
He needs Labour and SNP voters to turn out, and yet the leaders of both those parties, while backing Remain, are critiquing his Brexit economic warnings daily.
If Leave can turn this into a referendum on Mr Cameron, then there are plenty of potential Remain voters who might be persuaded to stay at home.
Such a strategy would destroy any hope of Tory unity after the referendum.
For now, much rests on Michael Gove's performance. He is a formidable debater, but an unknown quantity in this format.
:: Sky News will be hosting another debate on the EU referendum at 8pm on Friday featuring Justice Minister Michael Gove, a leading figure in the Leave campaign.
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