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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mel O'Drama" data-source="post: 360822" data-attributes="member: 23">7 May 1980 - 17 July 1980 3305 - 3334 continued There was a bit of a meta-moment in Episode 3323 when Arthur and Ron watched TV which opened with the familiar ATV ident. For one  moment I really thought we were going to hear the Xrds theme, but  it turned out they were watching boxing. Still, it’s as close as Xrds has come to breaking the fourth wall outside of Noele’s singing. Alison Cotterill has been as frustrating as ever in recent episodes. Her crush on Chris Hunter had its moments but it’s depressing to see that after Chris has departed everyone blames HIM. Two consecutive episodes ended with Barbara saying she hated Chris for what he’d done, which is probably as one would expect of someone who goes through life and builds a career our of engineering drama, but for David, too, to essentially agree with her seems unfair. However, I’m fine with unfairness, so long as the characters - and not the writers - take a specific subjective stance. There’s talk of Chris returning so I’m interested to see if he’ll continue to be pilloried or if we’ll see his side as well. Alison - who spent endless episodes telling “Uncle” she couldn’t break her “promise” to the Hunters, packed up and moved back into the farm the second Chris left. Her “promise” was broken the second there was nothing in it for her. What’s most interesting about the character’s hypocrisy is that it feels the writers aren’t aware of it, which makes the message feel curiously mixed. Even Doris is becoming something of a controlling busybody in recent days. It seems in every other episode she’s dragging this person or that into the motel to apply for a job that may or may not exist. Meg even quipped that Doris could open an employment bureau. Over in the garage, Sharon’s been shagging Vic’s brother Eddie and basking the resulting hand-wringing angst over HER predicament. My sympathies were entirely with solid, dignified Vic… until he proposed to Sharon within 24 hours of discovering the truth. Yuck. Eddie’s been involved as some kind of getaway driver on a shady job organised by spivvy Noel Lamont. It’s interesting to see Reginald Marsh play this kind of dodgy underworld type since he’s best known to me as Terry’s boss Sir Dennis in Terry & June and as Mildred’s brother-in-law (with the aversion to her ugly lamp) in George & Mildred. Along with Meg, the men are the series’ saving grace at the moment. The likes of Benny, Vic and Lloyd are as solidly reliable as ever. And it’s pleasing that gruff, narrow-minded old Reg has become such an integral and dare I say warm part of the series. A couple of contradictions in recent episodes: On her first morning at the Brownlows’, Iris loudly proclaims that she never eats breakfast. A few episodes later annoying fusspot Kath is concerned that it’s unusual for Iris to leave the house without eating breakfast and puts it down to the excitement. Meanwhile, depending which episode you watch, Mac and his perpetually offscreen wife Trina have just celebrated either their first or second wedding anniversary. In pop culture, Chris taught Alison to dance to an instrumental (an official instrumental, I’d say) of Liquid Gold’s Dance Yourself Dizzy after she became infatuated with both it and him. And Eddie Lee sarcastically told Vic that he’d had Legs & Co. leaping round his bedroom the night before. Looking at transmission dates, it seems there was a large gap between the final episode in this batch and the following one. #3335 aired on 17th July 1980, but #3336 wasn’t transmitted until 5th August, almost four weeks later. I’m curious what could be the reason for this, and also whether there’ll be any noticeable clues or differences onscreen. Watch this space.</blockquote>

Verification: What month follows July?