hmmm I do agree with a lot of what you say, but I really like Russ Abott as Hobbo, he has great comic timing and given time I reckon he will do well, the thing that really winds me up is the under usage of Peter Sallis, he is still more than capable of turning in a great performance,ask Stephen Fry, the episode of Kingdom that Peter did was excellent ,because of a great performance by Peter.. it`s just the tight fisted BBC that prevent, Cleggy and Truly from being more central to the show, and it suffers for it..Pay the insurance, these guys won`t be around that much longer and it will be a crying shame that their talents were so underused..
I still think the show has legs, Roy Clarke is a genius and yes he has made a few stinking episodes lately and the Pearl and June Whitfield(I don`t even know her characters name, I care so little for her character,although I adore June as an actress in other shows) storyline`s are pathetic ,very predictable, I think it`s a crying shame what this fantastic show has become, but after seeing a couple of the new episodes at the studio,they were rather good and I hope they get another series as I do think Mr Clarke will find a winning formula, who knows he may read this claptrap, I just wrote and completely ignore it..