Quote: Chappers @ July 27 2010, 9:50 PM BSTDo you have a vested interest?
GORDON BENNETT-A slang term which means 'Oh God.' Gordon Bennett was a real person, an America newspaper baron whose antics were so extravagant and shocking they would lead people to exclaim 'Gordon Bennett
ooh, thanks, I've only just remembered I asked the question 
I recently got To Hull & Back on DVD. Sublime!
At the time, it was David Jason who was the big lead and who got all the praise, but I have to say watching again Nicholas Lyndhurst's performance is very under-rated. It's subtle, the tone and accent are brilliant, the character is well observed and almost perfect in every scene.
Oooh it's like discovering it all over again!
This is yet another show that has been milked for all it's worth. Last of the Summer Wine is another that comes to mind. The only new thing that has come from this show that I liked was The Green Green Grass. It took a couple of episodes to warm to it but I did eventually and now I like the show. But Only Fools should have ended when they became rich and that should have been it! I just refuse to watch Rock & Chips through Del Boy's mother being in it. I don't want to see what she looks like. The whole fun thing about her was trying to picture her in your mind thanks to Del's stories of her and what she was like. Showing her just won't cut it. And NO ONE can replace Lennard Pearce as Grandad and I mean NO ONE can replace him. It's kind of sad to see this show become a cash cow that it has with needless sequel episodes made after the Trotters became rich.
Quote: Dave Hedgehog @ October 2 2011, 10:25 PM BSTThis is yet another show that has been milked for all it's worth. Last of the Summer Wine is another that comes to mind. The only new thing that has come from this show that I liked was The Green Green Grass. It took a couple of episodes to warm to it but I did eventually and now I like the show. But Only Fools should have ended when they became rich and that should have been it! I just refuse to watch Rock & Chips through Del Boy's mother being in it. I don't want to see what she looks like. The whole fun thing about her was trying to picture her in your mind thanks to Del's stories of her and what she was like. Showing her just won't cut it. And NO ONE can replace Lennard Pearce as Grandad and I mean NO ONE can replace him. It's kind of sad to see this show become a cash cow that it has with needless sequel episodes made after the Trotters became rich.
Hedgehog gets it right I think. OFAH went into terminal decline when Grandad died.
Quote: happychef @ October 3 2011, 3:24 PM BSTHedgehog gets it right I think. OFAH went into terminal decline when Grandad died.
It did indeed.
The show in its prime was the grandad years of OFAH. At least in my eyes it was. Afterwards, as good as it was, it just wasn't going to cut it anymore in terms of being a great sitcom. Once Raquel and Cassandra entered that was it. The show was no longer a sitcom but a drama with comedy elements in it. The storylines tried to go deeper and that is not what a sitcom is about if you ask me. A sitcom should have a storyline but not something that's deep and about relationships and miscarrages and lovers' spats, etc.
"We're alright on our own. We don't need no birds." - Grandad.
I do agree with a lot of that, BUT OFAH is still a great sitcom. I don't think it went into terminal decline when Grandad went, maybe a slow decline, but that had very little to do with Grandad going. Have caught one or two episodes lately with Uncle Albert in, and they were very strong, funny episodes. He annoys a lot of viewers I know, but he contributed to some good episodes.
I agree much more with the Rachel and Cassandra theory, as they really did change the nature of the sitcom. But it was still OFAH, just more soapy, or soppy, as Del might say.
If Lennard Pearce had lived another 10 years and Albert and the female characters not introduced I think you'll find that the series would've ended far sooner - maybe as early as 1990.
Can you imagine an OFAH episode without a "During the War..."? It's part of the show's fabric.
There's only so far you can stretch the three men dynamic so in a way the forced change of bringing in Albert and then the relationships aspect were actually big pluses for the show.
They should've stopped with Time on their Hands I agree but if you compiled the best of the final three episodes in a single clip show you'll have material that stands up against anything they did in the previous series.
Let's face it, are our lives that much poorer for having another three hours of comedy?
Some of us prefer the later episodes to the early ones. The episodes that ran from 1988 to 1996 are my favourites bar 'Fatal Extraction.'
I saw the first ever episode a while back and I thought it was dull; Del and Rodney bickering and Grandad moaning about his cheeseburger.
The final 3 episodes were ok but they should have been pruned a little.
Quote: Alfred J Kipper @ October 5 2011, 10:17 AM BSTI do agree with a lot of that, BUT OFAH is still a great sitcom. I don't think it went into terminal decline when Grandad went, maybe a slow decline, but that had very little to do with Grandad going. Have caught one or two episodes lately with Uncle Albert in, and they were very strong, funny episodes. He annoys a lot of viewers I know, but he contributed to some good episodes.
I agree much more with the Rachel and Cassandra theory, as they really did change the nature of the sitcom. But it was still OFAH, just more soapy, or soppy, as Del might say.
Count me in on being one of those people. I find his whole act to be repetitive. Jumping around like an idiot just to try and get laughs. Grandad didn't need to do that to get people to laugh. His comments got that done without the tomfoolery that Albert brought to the fray when he arrived. Grandad's "Wendy House" comment is mega famous due to the massive roar of laughter the audience gave when they heard it. It made a massive impact on the jokes for the future episodes. So much so that the crew used it as a rating thing for each and every single wise crack and joke on the show that came after it in all future ventures of the show. Like the joke would have been one and a half wendy houses out of five or whatever.
I suppose they couldn't have Albert be exactly like Grandad as that would have been dull seeing a new guy immitate the guy who came before him on the show. But Captain Birdseye (Albert) really did get on my pecs big time with his repetitive "during the war" pish! That was only funny the first 53,592 times that he said it. It was Del Boy and Rodders that saved the day in my honest opinion. And again, in my opinion only, Albert holding the show alone would have sunk the show like everything else he'd supposedly been onboard during the war. Del Boy and Rodders I think were the backbone for the show's stability, even during the Grandad days.
Surely some of the episodes featuring Albert were the best ever, e.g. the Jolly Boys' Outing, the holiday in Spain, and the one with the blow-up dolls, no?
I've never bought into the Grandad / Uncle Albert argument. There were good and bad episodes with both of them.
Basically, the shift in the show that leads to the more comedy-drama aspects of the mid 1990s was when Sullivan started doing more storylines about the brothers' love and family lives rather than their struggle as market traders. That shift started during Series 3, the last series Grandad appeared in, and who is or isn't in those episodes is irrelevant; it's just not drawing comedy from quite the same topics.
As a character, I think I prefer Uncle Albert to Grandad, perhaps because he offered more to the mix with his own questionable nautical background. But I do, on the whole, prefer the earlier episodes where they were trying to make ends meet more than they were trying to get their ends away, and those did have Grandad in.
Another thing to consider is the ages of the Trotter brothers, especially Rodney. His naivety in the earlier episodes has a certain charm. As he grew older I found it increasingly difficult to believe it.
Sometimes I think they throw in bring it back rumours to increase box set DVD sales.
Dont really fancy the newer episodes. The idiocy of them as they age does not seem so funny more sad.
Trying to think of something that's not already been said but like sitcoms being over done, repeated or copied to death I am at a loss.
Every episode till Damien was born I loved. Peckham Spring Water anyone? 
