I have to start by saying I love this series. I grew up with it as a child, I watch it now, and I'm just charmed to pieces, my American girlfriend loves it too. The only black eye so far is Johnny Byrne.
The episodes were written by a few different people... so for example, in Series 1, episodes 1,2,4 were written by various others, 3 and 5 by Byrne. We had to fast forward through parts of 5 it was so bad. These nicely drawn characters with their witty byplay collapse into 2 dimensional cutouts when he writes, the plot points are preached at you directly, rather than played out... We got to the beautiful music at the end of 5, which is the part at which you normally feel uplifted, and we both just felt violated instead.
"Why do you do this endearing thing?" says James to some minor character whom we see only once.
"Because {SOB STORY ABOUT YOUTH}"
"Oh I see. Well, bye then."
or
"Good morning James. You look tired" (rather than James just LOOKING tired, or "Late night there James?", or something involving actual drama)
"Yes I am tired. Because {PLOT POINT}. I really think it's because {EXPLANATION OF PLOT POINT}."
Arghhh! Now given that this guy wrote about a third of the episodes, we're undecided about whether to just skip the rest he wrote or to plow through. I love the show so much I'd be loathe to miss them (especially Robert Hardy, who's the only one who carries off any of Byrne's lines really at all), but I don't know if my heart can take the beating he lays on it.
The episodes were written by a few different people... so for example, in Series 1, episodes 1,2,4 were written by various others, 3 and 5 by Byrne. We had to fast forward through parts of 5 it was so bad. These nicely drawn characters with their witty byplay collapse into 2 dimensional cutouts when he writes, the plot points are preached at you directly, rather than played out... We got to the beautiful music at the end of 5, which is the part at which you normally feel uplifted, and we both just felt violated instead.
"Why do you do this endearing thing?" says James to some minor character whom we see only once.
"Because {SOB STORY ABOUT YOUTH}"
"Oh I see. Well, bye then."
or
"Good morning James. You look tired" (rather than James just LOOKING tired, or "Late night there James?", or something involving actual drama)
"Yes I am tired. Because {PLOT POINT}. I really think it's because {EXPLANATION OF PLOT POINT}."
Arghhh! Now given that this guy wrote about a third of the episodes, we're undecided about whether to just skip the rest he wrote or to plow through. I love the show so much I'd be loathe to miss them (especially Robert Hardy, who's the only one who carries off any of Byrne's lines really at all), but I don't know if my heart can take the beating he lays on it.