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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mel O&#039;Drama" data-source="post: 191125" data-attributes="member: 23">I'm beginning to understand why the fourth series of Please Sir! is the final one. With Bernard and the original class just a memory (or a spinoff), the series seems to be struggling to find its voice. Bernard was originally replaced by the even younger, even cuter, even more unorthodox David Ffitchett-Brown and his class of forgettable, homogenous teens. I've grown to really enjoy Richard Warwick's presence even if the same cannot be said for the kids. But now, halfway through this extended series (21 episodes, or technically 42 since I'm alternating with the equally long first series of The Fenn Street Gang), he seems to have been written out along with most of the kids. Replacing Ffitchett-Brown are two new teachers: Bernard Holley - the future D.I. Mike Turnbull - as Mr Hurst, and Vivienne Martin as the flighty, sickly, Miss Petting (she has a very familar face. She has an air of the early Carry On women to her). Oh - and another one who is a love interest for Doris. We've finally gone home to meet Doris's mother and the dynamic is uncannily similar to that in After Henry, but this time with Joan Sanderson playing the younger of the two women, resentful of her interfering mother ruining her sex life. Fascinating. As Grange Hill would later do in the mid-Eighties, Fenn Street School has undergone an amalgamation with another school. In come the new gang from Weaver Street. Five or six kids who, in the spirit of The (original) Fenn Street Gang are now played by people who appear to be in their twenties. So far, so terrible. The two girls are tolerable (even though the girl who is said to be "Indian" appears to be white and wearing body make up). But the three main lads are just dire. There's Annoying Guitar Kid who plays guitar and sings badly while screaming in between lines. Hilarity ensues. Then there's Annoying Hard Kid who leads the gang just as Duffy did the originals. He's the least annoying of the three, but that's nothing to write home about. Finally, there's Annoying Thick Kid who makes some of Bernard Bresslaw's dumb sidekicks seem awash with subtleties. Not one of them has done or said a single thing that's funny yet. And the bad news is the the powers that be seem to think the new, new kids are watchable enough to go back to the original premise of the classroom. I'm really hoping this is rectified and we play it safe in the staff room, because thankfully the entire teaching team are the glue holding what's left of this series together. With aplomb. The spinoff is trundling along fine. It's not showstopping, but it's perfectly enjoyable. Though with just a dozen episodes behind me and thirty five still to come I'm starting to feel slightly Fenned Off. Familiar faces on both series this year have included Carmen Munroe (last seen quite recently in Mixed Blessings), Mollie Sugden, Robin Askwith, Sally Thomset (with a broad Scottish accent!), Christopher Biggins and Derek Griffiths.</blockquote>

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