Quote: Ian Fryer @ July 25 2013, 5:21 PM BST

I probably laughed out loud that episode three more than I have at any sitcom in years. It wasn't perfect and it owned a lot to Hancock's The Bowmans, but it was bloody funny!

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Hadn't thought of the reference but come to think of it, as good as Sid James was as a foil, the classic TV Hancocks adaptation came with episodes like that one which were centred on his character. This is what Count Arthur has been lacking.

Quote: Chop In A Toaster @ July 24 2013, 8:36 AM BST

Hi, I've just discovered this show and watched the first episode and WOW! I don't get it? Lots of laughter but no jokes? How did Linehan write THIS! And did someone say it was given a second series?

Black Books, and IT Crowd were pissers from the first scene! Think of Bernard Black pushing everyone out of his shop with a broom, or Chris O'Dowed not answering the phone, and then reluctantly answering the phone and describing how to turn on a computer.

I'll stick with this because it's Linehan.

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I thought the same thing, the first episode of ITC also has Moss accidentally telling the whole company about the time him and Roy hired prostitutes in Amsterdam. Like BB and ITC though, this show has got better. Definitely had a number of laugh out loud moments in the last two episodes. I'm going to stick with it too.

I have now caught up and seen all three.

As a devoted fan of CAS, I was wary of the move to TV (I have heard all the radio shows at least three times each, some more often).

So:

E01 fairly weak I thought but it introduced the locations/characters (if you can call them that). None of them seemed to contribute much in the way that Malcolm and Sally, for example, did.

E02 better. The art class scene was good: I like the 'running out feeling sick' bit!

E03 that's more like it! Very much more like the dialogue and confusion we've come to expect from CAS.

A couple of general comments. What on Earth is the point of Michael Baker?

CAS, to me, is built around malapropisms and a slightly Tourettes type of delivery. See the advert for his new book on this site to see what I mean.

Overall, getting there in my view. I hope it doesn't slip back.

And Michael. . . . take a hike!

I quite like Michael

He's like the only sane person on the show

He's there to be the voice of reason when all around him are fruitcakes and weirdos

We need less of him though and much more Arthur

Quote: youngian @ July 26 2013, 12:09 PM BST

Hadn't thought of the reference but come to think of it, as good as Sid James was as a foil, the classic TV Hancocks adaptation came with episodes like that one which were centred on his character. This is what Count Arthur has been lacking.

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I see what you mean. The Hancock character became funnier the more mundane and realistic the situations we saw him in were, and at the point where he was surrounded with actors rather than comedians. Sid could be both, but his character in Hancock had set plot functions, and in retrospect Galton and Simpson's having to write for that character was as limiting for the series as was Kenneth Williams' 'Snide' character (Snide was enormously popular at the time, but was far more a voice and a set of catch-phrases than a true character, and has dated badly).

Perhaps this sort of late-period Hancock feel is in part what Delaney and Linehan are aiming for, which would explain the presence of an actor of the stature of Rory Kinear, but Count Arthur may be too much a caricature for this to fully come off. Still, the show is steadily improving so far.

Hello Youngian, by the way. I believe we both post on the Mailwatch forum (I use the name Lord Brett on there).

I failed to watch it till the end, it's embarrassing. The acting is terrible but the Count's ok.
Go back to the wireless Arthur and BBC stop doing what you do best: WASTING FKNG MONEY.

Quote: goutyfoot @ July 29 2013, 7:14 PM BST

I failed to watch it till the end, it's embarrassing. The acting is terrible but the Count's ok.
Go back to the wireless Arthur and BBC stop doing what you do best: WASTING FKNG MONEY.

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I've forgotten my sodding password again, [me earlier on]

I'm not staying awake tonight, waiting up till 8 o'clock.
I'm starting to dislike that Kinnear bloke.

Quote: Ian Fryer @ July 28 2013, 9:16 PM BST

Perhaps this sort of late-period Hancock feel is in part what Delaney and Linehan are aiming for

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I suppose that even a cat may look at a king.

The last series of Hancock on TV consisted of Hancock Alone, The Bowmans, The Radio Ham, The Lift, The Blood Donor and The Succession. Of those, four (Alone, Bowman, Ham, Donor) are straightforwardly amongst the best programmes ever made for television, and I would be surprised if many people with an interest in comedy were not able to quote from them liberally. When, in The Blood Donor, Hancock is told that you can get tubes of wine gums consisting only of black ones and responds "but you can't always get them", he pretty much sums up post-war TV comedy.

Plenty of writers would sell their entire families into the white slave trade to bring off even one of those episodes. Galton and Simpson, and Hancock, had seven series to get there, and a lot of the earlier work is not remotely as good. Aiming for that quality in the first three episodes of a new TV series? Seriously?

Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for?

Quote: bob4apples @ July 16 2013, 9:45 AM BST

So what if your 'slow burner' theory doesn't work out? Should I watch 2, 3 or the waste my time on the whole series, just to find out what I knew after episode 1? Or do what I did with this: watch one episode, determine it was an unfunny pile of poo and check out something better?

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Do what you like, obviously. But using that rationale alone you would have missed out on The IT Crowd, possibly Father Ted, Fawlty Towers and the Pythons.

Quote: Tokyo Nambu @ July 29 2013, 8:36 PM BST

Aiming for that quality in the first three episodes of a new TV series? Seriously?

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Why wouldn't or shouldn't they? Especially a writer with as much smoke blown up their arse as some have. What's more unrealistic is that we, the audience, should expect them to actually achieve such heights. If you aim as high as you can possibly manage, you should at least get something half-way decent, not a nadir.

How does moving it to Tuesday help build its audience? I always assumed when a show is moved it means it's in trouble?

Quote: chipolata @ July 30 2013, 6:39 PM BST

How does moving it to Tuesday help build its audience? I always assumed when a show is moved it means it's in trouble?

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Yes I agree with you there. Surely by moving it to a different day it will potentially lose a lot of its audience that have been watching on Mondays as some may not know that it has moved. Very silly and confusing really!

Was it against something big before it moved?

I haven't had any desire to watch another episode of this since episode one. Far too middling to reel me back in.