Still funny...

M

MST3Claye

Dedicated Member
One generalized comment about LotSW is that the show was less funnier as the years went on and to the end of the show. I think this statement couldn't be more wrong.

Recently I bought a flatscreen HDTV and somehow I am able to get the South Carolina Public TV channel (PBS). No idea how I'm able to do that, here in NC and it's not listed on the SC channel's website. The reason I mention this is because I found out that it shows Last of the Summer Wine. The only station around here that does show it.

Of the recent weeks in being able to watch LotSW, I have had the tv on the station for the full episode length AND have paid full attention. The episodes I have done this with are later episodes:

Oh Look! Mitzi's Found Her Mummy
Plenty of Room in the Back
Variations on a Theme of Road Rage
The Second Stag Night of Doggy Wilkinson

I would have watched In Which Howard Gets Double Booked last night after Variations on a Theme of Road Rage, but it was at 3:30am.

These are Series 26 and 27 episodes and yet they still brought many chuckles. It may not be the same combination or same characters from the earlier years.. Foggy, Compo, Wesley, Wally and Sid, but there is STILL humor in it, if it's given a decent chance.

Yes, there were some low points but there were still laughs.

Going through some Series 30 - 31 episodes and even got a laugh out of a line or two from Hobbo.

I think the show still had it, just in a different way. Maybe not the same that some would have wanted or liked but it was still there.

Discuss!
 
I thought Alvin and Entwistle were excellent additions and were brilliant together.
The series you're talking about Claye were very funny and just as well written as previous series.I loved Alvin's sense of adventure and attempts to make up for lost time.
I still giggle at the thought of Entwistle being Tom's double.
 
I always thought the Alvin character added a great deal as did, in a different way, Billy. He, however, was married and thus never quite as free as the others although Wally, Sid and later on Wesley and Barry did manage to escape from time to time.
 
I guess for me it was the shifts in cast. For so long it stayed basically the same and then into the 2000's people started to either leave, or die. It effected the way the episodes felt to me, because the characters and this sense of a tight group of people were what made it so lovely. In just an example, the later three came together, Hobbo, Entwistle and Alvin, and there wasn't the dynamic. Hobbo wasn't too bad, but it felt more like only two people. Alvin and Entwistle were not as well defined in their differences as Clegg and Compo. (Well, WHO could be more defined then Compo!?) But this is only mu feelings.

In terms of writing, I actually don't think much changed. Roy Clarke, after all that time, did have basic situations he would come back to, some funny some not as. In that way, I think it wasn't all that different.


Clay, I think you are right about those episodes you listed. Good, solid episodes for the later years. It was also the last few years of Clegg and Truly being really apart of the plots. Again, that made the difference for me.
Still, it was a much nicer way to spend a Sunday evening then most. Every era for that show always had something to offer, as you say, when given a chance.
 
Tonight's episode was "Will the Nearest Alien Please Come In".

I've seen this episode before. It was the first episode of the "later" or "new" episodes I ever saw since the days of Foggy, Seymour, Blamire and Compo. I saw it before I saw the rest of episodes with Foggy that I hadn't seen before, which were a handful. It was also the first time watching an episode with Truly.. I hadn't seen his introduction or the sad loss of Compo.

I forget what my initial reaction to this episode was, but I suppose I was with those that weren't too particular to the newer episodes. I might've watched it again when I caught up and went through the episodes in order, or I could have skimmed through it.

Going back to this episode being on tonight, I found that the laughs were still there. More than when I saw it the first time. Nora and Ivy chatting in the Cafe, Cooper and Walsh talking about Cooper's eating habits, even Entwistle joking around in the library.

It's possible that some time away from the series where characters develop and such could also have a part in this.
 
I think that is the problem with such a long running programme as SW.

Dad's Army, Rising Damp, Fawlty Towers and some of the other brilliant sit-coms of the time, didn't enjoy the development of the characters in the same way as SW, due to some of them only running for a third of the time that SW did.

As a result, over the period of SW being broadcast, we lost many of the original players and so new blood had to be brought in, such as Howard, Pearl, Marina, et al.
I think SW would have finished much sooner if Roy Clarke hadn't had the genius to invent the new members, i was in bits laughing at Howard and Marina doing the tango in "Catching Digby's Donkey", that was when it all kicked off with the new members as far as i can remember.

As long as Clegg was involved, with whoever the third man was at the time, then that to me was still the "real" Summer wine.
Once Hobbo arrived and Clegg started making less frequent appearences, i felt that the show was coming to it's natural end, as the two main players, Clegg and Ivy, were struggling in their own ways and i found it a touch distressing to see them like that, the final series IMO wasn't very good, it seemed like it had been rushed through, just to make a point.`

If the BBC do end up releasing more DVD's, i'll likely stop when they get to season 30, although Hobbo tried his best, i didn't feel that it was SW any more.
At nearly 40 years old, SW had took us from Bellbottom trousers and tank tops in the seventies, to the mobile phones of the noughties, not a bad run eh?

G ; )
 
BluprintZ said:
I think that is the problem with such a long running programme as SW.

......
At nearly 40 years old, SW had took us from Bellbottom trousers and tank tops in the seventies, to the mobile phones of the noughties, not a bad run eh?

G ; )
Click to expand...

a very good run - I feel that it was a great shame it stopped at 295 episodes and could not have made 300.

But throughout it all Clegg had a nylon Pakamac which was a 1960s product and still wore stiff (semi stiff latterly to be technical _ I used to sell menswear in the 1960s) detached collars which had almost had their day by the 1970s - I last wore them in 1975.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top