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I do completely agree that many American shows decline in quality over the years. I would say that is often more to do with the writers leaving than anything else. Though sometimes changes in the cast can also affect this such as in The Office or, legendarily, Scrappy Doo. :42:

Yes, I think Big Unc was saying that enjoyed this episode with a big cast and he enjoyed early episodes like Full Steam Behind. Personally I would say I like the A plot in Last Post and Pigeon but the B plot about the church is very weak. Not helped by the terrible dubbing job done on the actor...

I can completely understand that and I can see the similarity in the reminiscing of Clegg, Truly, Billy etc. But would the atmosphere have been spoiled somewhat if every couple of minutes their reminiscing had been interrupted by a couple talking about the golf club or a love triangle or a...

Actually a quick look at IMDB shows that only 8 cast members appeared in more than half of the Taxi episodes and in Cheers only 7 cast members. For the last 190 episodes or so of Summer Wine there would be a lot more than that. Frasier is a good example as while the show only had 6 key...

Four times as long as the average ep of Summer Wine then. :wink: I would say that the way to use an extended cast was shown on Porridge. They probably had 15-20 recurring characters on that show (as Summer Wine had during the later years) but they only used them when they would further the...

I guess there are several distinctive eras in the show`s history... Blamire years Early Foggy years Seymour years Late Foggy years Truly (with Compo) years Truly (without Compo) years Hobbo years If you had to rank these in order of preference, where would you place them and why?

I agree that Jane Freeman`s role in the show (or Ivy`s perhaps) is overlooked by some. She played the character in such a sturdy way that she became a good solid unit to bounce the other characters` stupidity off. The cafe was a very useful meeting place for the characters and could actually...

Well, here is my two penn`orth... In the early series of the show the focus was on the plot and the characters had to fit around that. So if Nora, Ivy, Sid or Wally weren`t going to make a contribution then they weren`t included. In the later series of the show the focus was on the characters...

Oh yeah, those Americans know nothing about comedy. :42: In terms of long running comedies, the U.S. obviously has a lot of experience. So many shows like Bewitched, Happy Days, Frasier, Cheers, The Simpsons, Married With Children etc. have run for hundreds of episodes so they must be doing...

:29: Considering some of the other allegations and revelations concerning BBC presenters, this is pretty trivial stuff isn`t it. Bill Owen was, by all accounts, a difficult person to work with at times. Russ Abbot is apparently a sweetheart. Does it really matter to the viewing public? Even...

Is this something Alan Bell talks about in his book btw? I hadn`t really thought about that aspect of bringing Pearl, Howard and Marina into the show and had only considered the success of the stage play at that time. It`s true that most long running shows do expand the cast over time but they...

How many successful shows did he present? Fully justified his wages over the years I would say...

Good stuff. I`m almost starting to believe that it really will be released. :) Nice to see Burt Kwouk appearing on the cover as well as I think Entwistle was a cracking character.

I think that`s a fair comment. I watched several episodes from series 14 again recently and there are too many repeated jokes and ideas. I do like many of the characters that they added such as Auntie Wainwright and Smiler but including them in every episode was too much. The one positive of...

Could I add my thanks for posting this. I hadn`t watched the pilot for yonks but the quality does indeed look great and it was enjoyable to see it again.

Wasn`t this well after he left LOTSW? So did he put the weight back on again?

Sad news but she will always be remembered as a part of British film history.

I think you are absolutely right and he proved to be a major plus for the show as the years went on. Watching him jogging and doing shadow boxing at the start of, I think, A Short Introduction to Cooper`s Rules it seems astonishing that he was well into his 80s by this point.

Thanks for all of the replies and the fine suggestions about later era stonkers. Today I watched the following episodes (making use of my summer vacation as a teacher :)): Destiny and Six Bananas (Series Eighteen) Gnome and Away and The Coming of the Beast (Series 22) In Which Howard Gets...

You may be right Marianna and I hope that you are. If and when they change the price (it seems too high at the moment) then I will start to feel more confident...