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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Spells &amp; Karma" data-source="post: 416605" data-attributes="member: 23">Episodes 523 - 530 Damon & Debbie Episodes 1 - 3 2 - 24 November 1987 In the run up to Damon & Debbie starting, I wasn’t sure whether I would watch it in strict date order with Brookside or watch Brookie all the way through and watch all three D&D episodes together right before the “pickup” episode of Brookside where news reaches the Close.My main reason for considering the latter was my distant memory telling me that Damon & Debbie had a different tone to the main series, and I thought it might be a little jarring to jump between the two series several times.In the end, the purist in me demanded a strict chronological viewing. To do otherwise had the potential to miss little references or allusions that might be made, and I felt that potential reward would far outweigh the effort of switching between series.This has definitely been the case. It’s a nice little touch that it’s still Bonfire Night on the first episode of Damon & Debbie, meaning this episode begins on the same night Doreen walked out on Billy. In that first episode we saw Damon’s collection of postcards to throw their families off the trail, one of which arrived at Number Five the following week.It’s so long ago, I can’t remember specifics, but it looks as if Brookside aired on Monday and Tuesday at 8pm, with Damon & Debbie on the Wednesday at 10pm! I was stuck with watching on S4C where Brookside aired on different days to C4. I can’t remember D&D’s day and time on S4C but Friday night rings a bell.Considering the programme didn’t have the pre-watershed restrictions that Brookside did, I still find it a little surprising that Phil Redmond didn’t go much harder with this series. Compared directly with Brookside, even late 1987 episodes, the more whimsical Damon & Debbie mostly feels distinctly less edgy. Still, there’s always Debbie becoming the first Brookside character to utter the word “shit".I can’t help feeling the poorer casting of this Brookside era is detrimental to the bubble, because Damon & Debbie is like a nightmarish vision of what Brookside might look like if every character was cast with 1987 sensibilities. And there’s no getting round the fact it’s poorer. Just as on the main series Tommy McArdle has been replaced by the less interesting s-s-s-Sizzler (whose “sinister” voice is the object of Sheila’s ridicule), so does Damon now find himself surrounded by chirpy goths and flamboyant computer geeks (with his colourful glasses and loud shirts, the guy is practically Biggins) and opinionated university snobs.Even Debbie’s thuggish brothers have more than a dash of the Keystone Cops in their approach and results, and fleshing one of them out with a backstory of serving in the forces and a repeated catchphrase of “infinite patience” didn’t do much to improve things.  It has to be said that there’s more than a dash of contrivance, such as the brothers’ first stop in the City Of York being the place where Damon had been working. Brookside itself isn’t free of this at the moment. The business with Barry happening to shag Sizzler’s bird, and Sinbad happening to steal the car meant to be used by the perpetrators to the art gallery theft in which Sizzler has a stake (adding insult to injury, Sinbad’s ridiculous calling card of a tinsel-covered poppy wreath which he had just been flogging door-to-door on the Close has conveniently led Barry right to him).But the bubble’s DNA arguably has more in common with Redmond’s Grange Hill than it does Brookside, Almost as though he’s doing some of the stuff here he couldn’t get away with on that series. And viewing it through this prism has made it feel more interesting.I also enjoy that the series is somewhat pioneering. Not only for being a nice concept (I don’t think  any soap had done a spinoff in this specific a way before) but also for experimenting with things that it would later attempt in the main series, such as the music underscore, and internal dialogues. The latter of these works very well for the character of Damon since it allows us to connect with him on a different kind of level. And since this is his swan song, why not?There’s a lot of romantic whimsy which is almost reminiscent of Karen and David’s romance a year or two earlier. I also like that the whimsical feel can lull the viewer into feeling secure, only to occasionally subvert expectations. The ugly National Front type racism in the final episode was an example of this, and I recall this would eventually be explored over in the parent series.The freedom of the more experimental nature also allows things to be injected into this series that wouldn’t work on Brookside. One scene that worked really well for me was Damon sitting in an empty theatre, watching dancers (who may or may not actually be there) act out romance which turns to violence, symbolically mirroring the recent trajectory of his own life with Debbie, as fragments of dialogue can be heard playing out in his head (even Sheila’s there, with her recent warning that university was going to change Debbie).I’m still undecided if Damon’s intimidating physical behaviour during their second episode argument is out of character given his usually easygoing nature. As I watched, it seemed so, but the more I reflect the less sure I am of that given the occasionally volatile environment at Number Five. There’s often a physicality to his family’s disagreements, with Damon often on the receiving end from his parents (and occasionally his older siblings), so it’s not that much of a stretch.Simon O’Brien in particular gave this series some much-needed grounding. The series found its heart when it tapped into what Damon has been about ever since leaving school, his almost constant optimism balanced by the gradual erosion of his sense of worth. The above dialogue came from this place, as did his dialogue after a dinner party with the middle class Indian couple who offer Debbie work as a programmer:Even this quite sweet scene exploded into volatility when Debbie asked to sleep with Damon and he read it as pity. The second episode in particular was held together by the unpredictable peaks and troughs coming from their challenges, and it’s very much in the vein we'd expect from the Grant household. continued…</blockquote>

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