Series One (1973) Episode Reviews

What is your favorite series 1 episode?

  • Short Back and Palais Glide

    Votes: 2 10.5%

  • Inventor of the Forty Foot Ferret

    Votes: 1 5.3%

  • Pâté and Chips

    Votes: 5 26.3%

  • Spring Fever

    Votes: 1 5.3%

  • The New Mobile Trio

    Votes: 7 36.8%

  • Hail Smiling Morn or Thereabouts

    Votes: 3 15.8%
  • Total voters
    19
codfanglers said:
Thanks for the reviews, David. I could be wrong, but I was always under the impression that Compo's sandwiches were thick slices of bread and a thick slice of a cheap brand of cheese.

I really love the scene at the end when they show Blamire's photos. It really captures the 50-year-olds acting like kids without a care in the world.

I can agree with your statement about this being far and away better than the "much" later years with the heavily populated cast, but I personally find the Series 8-11 era special. It brings in interesting and enjoyable characters like the Pegdens, Smiler, etc. but still maintains a strong focus on the trio.
Click to expand...
I don't know about Hail Smiling Morn (If ever one of those came up in the middle of the North Sea....etc.) but it in the Waist Land, Compo had cheese and picke sandwiches.
 
Really enjoying the write-ups, David. When you mentioned Ronald Lacey on the Mobile Trio episode I could not get a mental picture of who you meant. After a quick search I discovered who and also that he was the guy in Raiders of the Lost Ark who burned his hand! I never would have thought that was the same guy. Thanks on that.

Yes, Clegg along with Howard and Pearl are in different houses at the start of things than later on in the series. Clegg, Howard and Pearl get relocated to new homes about the time of Das (Welly) Boot -1990.
 
Chalk it up to the pool of 1970s working actors, but I've already noticed a Summer Wine-Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? connection. Ronald Lacey appears in a series one episode of both programs. I also understand that our Bill appears in a few episodes of Likely Lads--still making my way through the series, so please no spoilers--Lacey, in his Lads role, is as plain and clean cut as they come. It's a far cry from his near-Compo scruffiness in The New Mobile Trio!​
 
Last edited:
I've added a poll question: Which is your favorite series 1 episode?

A poll will be added after I complete my reviews for each series.
 
lotsw1984 said:
Are you planning on doing every series if so that is some incredible effort
Click to expand...
I'll continue as long as I have the time and the inclination and as long as interest among those here remains; I wouldn't enjoy writing to myself! I value the input of others, especially since I am at a cultural disadvantage, with my being a yank and all. Such a massive undertaking will no doubt require that I take the occasional break.

LotSW has a special quality that even programs I've watched all my life cannot match; I enjoy writing about it.
 
lotsw1984 said:
I am sure i have heard them referred to as doorstop sandwiches due to the size of them somewhere
Click to expand...

I think the term door step sandwiches came from the fact that all loaves were uncut and some people were not as a adept as others at slicing the bread thinly . My mother was particularly inept at slicing bread [even though she worked for Greggs for twenty odd years] blamed it on being left handed sometimes it felt like you were eating a sandwich designed by Salvador Dali as the bread was cut in an abstract style sometimes youd be lucky to get two sandwiches out of a whole loaf.
 
Of Funerals and Fish goes here (for completion's sake). I'll no doubt add a lot more detail on a rewatch! This review's practically blank!

(S00 E00) Of Funerals and Fish

Original Airdate: January 4, 1973

Compo, Clegg, and Blamire go around town, discussing life and death and watch their fellow townspeople with their problems.

"If God's omnipotent, with all that choice available, what could he possibly want with my old woman? No, it implied blind chance working there, not selection.”

~Norman Clegg

On 4 January 1973, Last of the Summer Wine began as Of Funerals and Fish, a pilot episode for the BBC Comedy Playhouse series.

Everything about the pilot sets up all of the Summer Wine tropes. The original trio and their personal characteristics, how they know one another, and their connection to Yorkshire are all present in this, the introduction to Summer Wine Land. The trio are already developed, although Norman Clegg is a lot more cynical and conniving than he would later become. Clegg smokes cigarettes and even does so in the library!

The trio drink pints of best bitter in a local pub, which is something that would disappear in the show's later years. I prefer this early take on our heroes. I also appreciate that the trio are not old-age pensioners, but rather workers in their 50s--my age now--who have been made redundant for one reason or another.

Compo is already himself and has attained self actualization from the very start, making his iconic character all the more endearing.

Cyril Blamire (Michael Bates) is also outstanding. Had he remained with the show, Summer Wine would still have been the hit it became.

There is also a glimpse of the show’s supporting characters: Nora Batty, the cafe owners Sid and Ivy, and the short-lived library staff.

Summer Wine began with a gritty edge that would have long since disappeared by the time of the post-Compo era (2000-2010). The show is dialogue driven, and the indoor-video/outdoor-film concept would continue until the early 1990s. The slapstick comedy of future series is nowhere to be found. I appreciate both approaches, but being a 1970s obsessive, I wish that the show had continued with the more caustic, cerebral, and philosophical directive it began with initially. I still find much to enjoy about Last of the Summer Wine.

My Rating: 10/10​
 
lotsw1984 said:
It can be hard work at times when i was a bit younger i would always smudge my writing
Click to expand...
I always turn my paper entirely on its side, the top facing to the right to prevent that. My daughter and I are both lefthanded and do a lot of fine detail sewing and needlework, but I can slice bread and she can't. If you are left-handed and right eyed or have been forced to compensate for being left-handed at some point, you may develop perception problems. I read that in the 20's in England there was a movement to encourage ambidextrousness in children. Was being left-handed ever discouraged in England like it was in America? My grandmother's brother had his left hand tied behind his back in school, and I had teachers who treated me like I was a hopeless case not to be bothered with when I struggled in elementary with scissors and handwriting.
 
Eithne said:
I read that in the 20's in England there was a movement to encourage ambidextrousness in children. Was being left-handed ever discouraged in England like it was in America? My grandmother's brother had his left hand tied behind his back in school, and I had teachers who treated me like I was a hopeless case not to be bothered with when I struggled in elementary with scissors and handwriting.
Click to expand...

My father was made to write with his other hand too as he is left handed things where a lot different in england in those days he told me about the chalk board brush being thrown at the kids
 
David Piper said:
Of Funerals and Fish goes here ...

The trio drink pints of best bitter in a local pub, which is something that would disappear in the show's later years. I prefer this early take on our heroes. ...​
Click to expand...
Rather than pints of "Best" I think they were drinking what we Northern folk call "cookin'" [cooking] - as in the wine used for flavouring cooking does not need to be the best vintage - so a pint of beer just for the sake of a drink with a chat does not need to be top quality - it is not going to be savoured, but flushed down like a lavatory - well, it is in Compo's case in particular.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top