Aside from Rik Mayall, I wasn't very impressed.

Agree with everyone else, not really laugh out loud. But I liked it just enough to to stick with it for the time being. Maybe it's a grower.

Pretty ordinary.
Sort of boiled down to a man losing his trousers.

I stuck with it to the end because BCG had praised it so highly, but it was pretty dire.

Quote: Ben @ October 18 2013, 10:05 PM BST

the main characters were too irritating and childish to invest any care in.

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I agree, I had no sympathy for them and was completely on the side of the boring straight-laced characters. I wonder how Graham Linehan is so good at creating these kinds of characters and making them endearing when the majority of writers just make them complete dicks that you wouldn't want to spend any time with.

Quote: Harridan @ October 19 2013, 10:36 AM BST

I agree, I had no sympathy for them and was completely on the side of the boring straight-laced characters. I wonder how Graham Linehan is so good at creating these kinds of characters and making them endearing when the majority of writers just make them complete dicks that you wouldn't want to spend any time with.

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Linehan's writing tends to make clear with fairly simple dialogue and scenarios when we first meet them, that the characters are nice people - hearts in the right place and all that - who are simply a bit thick, or a bit unlucky, or otherwise socially incapable. Here, it opened straight into the main character being a dick, continuing to be a dick, being more of a dick again, and then trying to establish that he really did care for the woman.

I thought this was tonally all over the place. Couldn't make its mind up about what it actually was.

It may well have been a cheese sandwich

WTF was this? It was a load of rubbish. Come On Channel 4 get rid of this and bring back Shameless!

You'll probably love it by the time you see the final episode.

I'm actually quite surprised by the response on here - I enjoyed it and will definitely tune in again. I did agree with the points about the strange start and 'not knowing what it was' (plus the Rik fight scene was a bit long and embarrassing) but overall I thought it had potential.

Let's not give up on EVERYTHING in the first 15 minutes - if we did that in the 70s and 80s think what we could've missed...though this is certainly no Dad's Army or Only Fools, but you get my point.

I liked Dan leaning out of the backseat window of his car coz he's so tall though the the idea of Rik Mayal as his dad took me by surprise. I guess you can't be a university student all your life.

You have a point Tuumble, and I did have that experience with Sue Perkins's sitcom which I really started to enjoy by the end, but I don't want to sit through another episode of this. I really like Greg Davies, but I think this needed another 30 minutes in the oven.

I quite enjoyed this but then again I'd have been happy to watch Greg and Rik locked in a room together for 30 mins. I'm not sure what everyone else was expecting from Greg Davies but I'm guessing he's at his best in front of a live audience feeding of the energy?

Quote: Aaron @ October 19 2013, 12:17 PM BST

Linehan's writing tends to make clear with fairly simple dialogue and scenarios when we first meet them, that the characters are nice people - hearts in the right place and all that - who are simply a bit thick, or a bit unlucky, or otherwise socially incapable. Here, it opened straight into the main character being a dick, continuing to be a dick, being more of a dick again, and then trying to establish that he really did care for the woman.

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Yeah, that was a bit hard to take.

I have to say I like the idea of having a central figure just being a complete pain in the arse to everyone. I think it's a good starting point, potentially. The opening scene in bed, and the singing in the bathroom - that was sort of funny, this big bloke getting on his girl's nerves with his every move.

But then the scene with Mayall running at him repeatedly, screaming, very nearly made me turn off.

I liked the swearing, too, if that doesn't sound daft. Not too much of it, not forced, but there when it helped.

I liked it, overall. I'll be watching again next week and I'm looking forward to it. I really think it'll get better.

I enjoyed the scenes where he actually teaches the children and would like to see more of that sort of silliness in the next episodes.
I do agree with the fact that I may have watched too many teacher-based shows recently what with Bad Education.
I shall be looking forward to the next episode with slight anticipation.

It was very good. Looking forward to next week's episode.