Series Thirty And Thirty One.

Ahhhh , here it is. This is likely to be my last post on this site. I will however, eventually get on the new site.

Last week we were hit with a major blizzard and the schools have been shut down for a whole week, which gave me the week off and I made sure to catch Summer Wine each day. I ended up starts the beginning of Series 30. A lot of people might think that is misfortunate, here I am, an unexpected week off where I can enjoy Summer Wine for a change, and it ends up being Series 30.

However, I feel fortunate. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I am not going to wirte about each individual episode, but I am grouping the five episodes together. I enjoyed the storylines with (I believe his name was) Norris Fairburn, Howard's envy thinking that Pearl is out running around with a guy on a motorcycle, etc. Perhaps the funniest was Barry and Glenda trying to hook Morton up with Mrs. Davenport and Hobbo getting mixed up in it.

I enjoy the Hobbo years. A lot of sentiment in this thread is it is too drastic of a change from the glory years of a true trio. Actually, at this point, the show didn't have a consistent trio for quite some time. Before series 29 is was Trully, Clegg, and various groupings of Tom, Alvin, Billy, etc. Also, I noticed that Clegg's roles were sometimes quite small in the later seasons leading up to the Hobbo years in the first place. Also, when Series 29 came, it was all kinds off cast variatons with special guests, etc. Therefor, a brand new trio from this point wasn't such a bad thing and could have worked if the BBC didn't put an end to it.

Lastly, I think the key to enjoying the Hobbo years is not to compare it to the golden years of Series 6, 8, etc. We should accept it for its own era. In my opinion, it is better than stopping the show at Series 29.

Summer Wine survived so many changes in its cast over the years. However, I don't think it fully survived losing Billy, Nora , and Smiler in such a short span. Mrs. Davenport, however, was a fantastic addition and Ivy was always a strong part of the show from the beginning to the end. So perhaps, the women were stronger characters than the men in the end.
 
wstol said:
Firstly, I have to say it's a bit unfair to lump Series 30 and 31 together.

They are two separate series, and quite different in that the earlier one has a Special and a lot of episodes, the later series consists of just six shows, in a serial form.

Telling off over and done with!

Each time I revisit the Hobbo series', I have to say it gets better.

If it was the only way the series could continue, and still allow Peter Sallis to still be 'in it', albeit for a few moments, then I think it just, just worked.

I said on an earlier post perhaps the introduction of Hobbo did refresh the show - I think many series before these were getting a bit tired.

For me, the problem wasn't Hobbo, or Russ Abbot - it was having to watch a trio which didn't have much to do with the older, classic episodes.
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Hobbo has grown on me too. Never thought that would happen
 
Having acquired these two final series, I got around to watching them the other week and have been thinking about them. What really stands out to me is that the new trio didn't fit the tried and true formula. Russ Abbott's Hobbo is more then just another "authority figure" in that he is also the physical comic in the group. This reduces Alvin, the "child," to a lesser role. And Entwistle as "philosopher" doesn't work because he never really gets developed as that character from his previous role as secondary character. It really does make me wonder what they were thinking, and if maybe Bell got too caught up in resetting the show around Hobbo to realize what he was losing by making him the focus.
 
The thread that runs through these main characters Foggy, Truly, Hobbo, Seymour [not sure about Blamire] is their over stimulated belief of there own self importance in the context of what they did in their careers .

Foggy, the Corporal Signwriter who believes he is a top General responsible for single-handedly overcoming the Japanese army .Truly, the desk bound copper who single-handedly arrested all of the major criminals and tackled the areas of ill repute in the Metropolitan area .Hobbo , the milkman who purports to be James Bond and Seymour, the headmaster of a small boys school who thinks he is chancellor of Oxford and Cambridge, it borders on narcissism .

In my personal view Roy Clarke's writing is consistent it just happens that by the time 30/31 came along there was very limited choice of actors who could play that role and were of an age that mirrored the rest of the cast, yet that person had to be fit enough to fulfil that main character role.
 
captain clutterbuck said:
The thread that runs through these main characters Foggy, Truly, Hobbo, Seymour [not sure about Blamire] is their over stimulated belief of there own self importance in the context of what they did in their careers.
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Blamire was certainly self-important, but more on the basis of imagined social status than military service or career. He was in the Chindits, the British India 'Special Force' that served in Burma and India in 1943 and 1944 during the Burma Campaign of World War II (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chindits), so genuinely heroic service, but he mentioned it only once, and only the name of the unit, when Compo's put-downs about his service became insufferable. It was as the trio was setting out to find its way home on foot in Ballad For Wind Instruments and Canoe. His snobbery seemed to be based on having "pulled himself up by the bootstraps out of Hardwick Street" to a rented room with half board in a semi-detached house on Royd Mount, a solidly middle-class neighborhood.
 
Assume by age alone a number of the cast would have done their National Service or are ex services wonder what they experienced , did National Service disrupt their acting careers , did any join ENSA [I know Dora Bryan did ] would be interesting to know because it must have added to their portfolio having to play all sorts of parts , it would have also given them an appreciation of a disciplined approach that would be useful in their acting career .
 
Peter Sallis often marched in his character as though it was second nature.( Who's got rhythm??) My elder brothers said it soon became so after you'd done basic training.:42:;)
 
dick said:
No worries H J , I am in total agreement with Herself!! :46: The Howard saga was way too long, !!LEAVING HOME FOREVER OR UNTIL TEA TIME did it in the one episode!! Sweet Ferret was ok but a bit predictable! :mad:
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Agree .....
 
onyx(John) said:
....I agree with (our)Pearl about the Howard/Pearl saga dragging on too long. I dont think there had been a previous storyline that carried through so many episodes???
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The only time we had a story line continuing was over two epsiodes as at Scarborough or the Flag and its snags, and the Blueyonder pair.
 
barmpot said:
The only time we had a story line continuing was over two epsiodes as at Scarborough or the Flag and its snags, and the Blueyonder pair.
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I think the Compo Passing trilogy probably counts as well, so another example, though under different circumstances.

I was re-reading Bell's book and he mentions that the final series was commissioned rather late. He called up Clarke to let him know and found out Clarke had already been told, which apparently bothered Bell a bit. But the way Bell puts things in the book, it sounds like Clarke decided to do the final series as a linked series of episodes and that Bell had nothing to do with that decision.
 
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