I've found this series is a bit too subtle to get any vibe from it, there's some gentle parts, there's some silly parts, but even though it's more enjoyable than not, I can't really see what they were going for. Maybe in series 2 there will be a clearer direction.
Hold the Sunset is nowhere near comedy-drama, even by the current butchered definition
Quote: jsg @ 30th December 2018, 3:29 PMHold the Sunset is nowhere near comedy-drama
In a recent Radio Times poll, two thirds of respondents thought it was nowhere near comedy.
That having been said, it matters not one jot how many people don't like a TV programme: what matters is how many people do like it.
Regardless of what critics or viewers may say about "Hold the Sunset", the fact is that it's putting bums on seats, and in large numbers - and that is what being a TV writer is all about.
In the (rather unlikely) event that the writer Charles McKeown were to get in touch with me asking for advice, I'd give him the oldest and best advice that anybody has ever given anybody since the world began: if it ain't broke, don't fix it!
Quote: jsg @ 30th December 2018, 3:29 PMHold the Sunset is nowhere near comedy-drama, even by the current butchered definition
Probably not but it's not easy to define this modern style casual dialogue in sitcoms that isn't very funny or even tries to be. If you don't put in references or odd comparisons, if you don't put in surprises, all common constituents of 'jokes' and/or bon mottes then what you are left with is a stream of conversational dialogue which produces no real laughs.
Soapcom might be a better label but whatever you call it it's not great sitcom if it doesn't even try to make you laugh with the dialogue. Quirky themes or characters are not enough yet that is all most new sitcoms give us these days. Except MBB which gets a hiding for trying to be overtly funny. 
The problem for me with "Hold the Sunset" is that I can never lose sight of the fact that it's just a group of actors reciting lines. At no point do they become real people in a real situation.
The same absence of reality exists in "Mrs Brown's Boys" but that's not a problem because MBB doesn't purport to be anything but a group of actors reciting lines. The audience is not expected to suspend disbelief: they know from the outset that it's just a gang of funny people larking about on stage. In my view, MBB does an absolutely superb job of doing what it sets out to do.
At the end of the day it's subjective, some of the things I've seen described this way, "it's nice but it won't make you laugh" etc are things that have made me laugh the most
