The Great British Sitcom

[Mel O'Drama]

Series Two of A Fine Romance is well underway.

There's little to say that wasn't covered in the first episodes, other than it's extremely well-written and performed and very, very easy to digest. At this rate I'll have finished the entire thing in around five sittings.

Helen and Mike's mews townhouse looks adorably elegant from some angles, but then it's shown from others and it has a row of garages right next to it. I haven't been able to pinpoint an exact location, but according to this source it's in Richmond. I just took a nosy peek and found a similar-looking mews townhouse in the area currently selling for the best part of £1.4m!

Something I haven't mentioned is the physical comedy, but there's a fair bit of it, done with class. The sequence with Laura's lost contact lens in the restaurant back in the third episode was a great example of this, from her winking uncontrollably at the couple opposite them, to her looking down the front of her dress attempting to find it in her cleavage (telling Mike off for trying to aid this search) to her scrambling round on the floor while other patrons are stopped in their tracks from walking by. And then there's Mike sidling on his hands while seated on the long bench to get across without touching the floor, and leading two other customers behind him.Judi Dench also did some great drunk type acting when Laura had been anaesthetised at the dentist. It's all marvellously done.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

I can't shake Judi Dench's rendition of A Fine Romance (the series' theme) from my head. In fact I just had to look and see if I could find it in the iTunes store (sadly, I couldn't).

There are a few other versions in my library - Lena Horne, Billie Holliday and Marilyn Monroe - but none of them say "po-tah-toes" à la Judi so it's not quite the same.

Series Three has now commenced. Laura and Mike are sharing a flat with a view of the graveyard but nearly separated when it emerged Laura had also kept her old flat due to her own commitment issues and those of Mike. It was a touching end to the second series when she decided to stay even though he couldn't directly tell her he loves her.

With Helen and Phil expecting a baby, some interesting changes could be on the horizon for all four.

I'm thoroughly enjoying every minute of this series.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

Looking through the episode list, it's interesting to see how close together the first and second series aired, and likewise the final two series. Series Two began a month or so after Series One ended, while Series Four began less than a month after Series Three closed, meaning that in both cases there were two complete series within the space of four months.

And yet there was quite a large gap of over twenty months between Series Two and Three.

I'm guessing it was down to Judi and Michael's schedules, though I'm not sure how close together the series were shot. Judi's hair is quite different in Series Four to the preceding run of episodes, Richard Warwick is hiding his pretty face with a huge moustache and everyone's got tans which suggests some time off in between so it's unlikely they shot them back-to-back.

With Series Four perhaps being more of a certainty, there was a bit of a cliffhanger at the end of Series Three, with Laura and Mike separating and Laura going to work in Brussels. Series Four has picked up the story with Laura returning but hiding from Mike at first. She's been dating someone else and Mike has a new young girlfriend who tells Mike she has every intention of fighting for him if necessary (reminding me of the conversation Jenna Wade Mk II had with Pam). Meanwhile, Helen and Phil have a new baby boy, and Karl Howman from Larbey's later series Brush Strokes is playing a Jacko type employed by Mike, along with a retired middle manager whose chalk and cheese dynamic adds a little interest (not that they're needed. It was fine when Laura and Helen were helping out at Mike's office.

I've already watched the third episode of Series Four, so I'm feeling glad that there's a seventh episode this series. Anything to make it last a little longer as I'm thoroughly enjoying it.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

Inevitably, A Fine Romance reached its quiet ending last night.

With the penultimate episode seeing Mike and Laura becoming engaged, it felt almost a certainty that things would wrap up with a refined-but-low-key sitcom marriage. Instead, the ending was so downbeat it was almost forgettable. Which felt perfect!

With just five minutes left, Mike and Laura had lost out on the dream countryside home on which they'd made an offer; had realised that - despite planning to marry - they still hadn't reconciled or even discussed their differences over wanting children that had caused them to separate in the first place; and were as unhappy and confused as ever. When Laura tearfully ran out of the room, leaving Mike, Helen, Phil and her parents looking devastated, it seemed there was no way back and I found myself thinking perhaps this wasn't the final episode - that perhaps I still had one left.

But it was the final episode. And in true Laura and Mike style it ended with them having a quiet, stilted, awkward conversation, struggling to find the words, but still reaching some kind of compromise and understanding.

The final episode was called Happy Ever After?, and the question mark is significant, because there's a sense that the two will continue on with their miscommunication and fallouts, but will be OK in the end. It's not about the Big Dream, but the struggle to find it, and it comes across that they have committed to struggling through together.

It's very Bob Larbey, and these two wonderful performers do full justice to the very human understated simplicity of it.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

Next up I fancied a short little "filler" before hopefully starting a more substantial series. Fitting that bill is a very short-lived sitcom I've never watched and can't say I'd even heard of until I saw it on sale...

Notable for being Arthur Lowe's final sitcom, and one of his last roles, A.J. Wentworth, B.A. made its TV debut some three months after Lowe's death.

For me, the other reason it sticks in my mind is owed to the headache it's given me in terms of my alphabetical-by-title TV DVDs, and in the index on Page One of this thread. On my "inbox" shelf of series still to be watched it's been tentatively placed under "A", since the initials form part of the title. But because it's a name it also suggests that the initials should be ignored, in the same way my CDs are categorised by artist using their surname where relevant. Then again, this is not an actor's name, so it's not the same thing. The title - with all its initials and commas - creates little dilemmas all over the place. Does one add a full stop and space between each initial? Or just a full stop? Or neither? I've gone with how it looks on the title card, DVD cover and IMDb page. All the same, I keep looking at it and wondering.

Fortunately (if the word can be so used here), this may not be a problem when it comes to moving this to my proper DVD cupboard, since I have a feeling I may not keep this one anyway. At risk of being too critical too soon, it's a slog to watch. Last night I watched two episodes (ironically, to break up An Audience With Jasper Carrott, which is also proving hard work to sit through), and it felt like so much more.

There are only six episodes, and yet the thought of watching the remaining four feels extremely unappealing. It's very difficult to believe this came after the first two series of A Fine Romance, and goes to show how very different two series can be.

Don't get me wrong, the performers are charming - at least, the grown-up performers.

Lowe is playing his usual bumbling, slightly pompous yet rather inept authority figure, something it goes without saying he does extremely well. It's commonly known that his health was suffering at this point, with him having suffered a significant stroke in 1979 and suffering from narcolepsy and memory problems, as well as a fairly high alcohol consumption. I suspect he wasn't the easiest to work with and nor would filming conditions have been particularly easy for his screen mates. Yet there's no evidence of this on-screen. Indeed, I marvelled at how fully he's thrown himself into the physical rigours of this role, including location work where he's up to his thighs in water and treading in cowpats while walking in remote-looking heathland. There's one scene - where he feel into a river and went under - that may have been a stunt double, but I couldn't swear to it, and given his courage with some extremely uncomfortable conditions, I wouldn't be too shocked to find he'd done this himself (in which case, shame on the director for not getting his face in shot).

There are some nicely familiar faces supporting. Deddie Davies is one of those actresses who is instantly recognisable. It feels like she's popped up in every British series imaginable, and a good number of films. Looking at her IMDb there aren't nearly as many as I'd thought (though it's still very impressive). I thought I associated her with one particular role, and looking at her filmography I think it must be as Miss Parfitt in That's My Boy.

Ronnie Stevens is another of those character actors who is instantly familiar to anyone whose watched a number of British films and series. Name a sitcom from the Eighties and he probably did an episode, though this seems to be one of his few ongoing roles. He's very watchable. Looking at his filmography, he's probably best-known to me as the permanently tipsy barfly in Carry On Cruising, though I'd never have recognised him since it was so much earlier than this.

As Matron, Marion Mathie also ticks this box. She's less well-known to me, but still has that character actress thing where one feels you know her immediately. Even if you've never seen her before. Similarly, Harry Andrews gave me an "oh... it's him." glimmer of recognition, even though I have no idea if it's from anything specific. His impressive filmography goes back to the Thirties, and I found it interesting to see that he went on to play Blake Carrington's father Tom in an episode of Dynasty.

The cast, then has it all going on. These four can carry a series and carry it well. But the odds feel stacked against them here...

The kids range between "just about tolerable" and "dear God I can't stand it a moment longer". They're ordinary kids, which adds a certain naturalism. But then most of them aren't performers, which cancels out the good. It's rarely endearing. Most annoying of all is the kid who has to keep bursting into tears and sobbing loudly - very loudly - as the dialogue in the scene carries on. It's annoying for days.

Despite some nice balance between studio and location, everything feels very flat and lifeless. The writing feels equally dull. It's not funny, nor is there enough conflict for it to be engaging on a dramatic level. There isn't really anything of a story. The series and character are translations of those created by H. F. Ellis in the Thirties, originally published in Punch magazine as a fictional diary. Perhaps this limits things. Perhaps I've been spoilt by Bob Larbey's wit performed by Judi Dench and Michael Williams.

The drab and dreary classrooms with their flip top desks and coat pegs on the wall takes me back to school giving a little shot of almost-nostalgia. But at this point there's little else going for this one. The actors are charming. The series overall isn't.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

As often happens with these wobbly starts, a little perseverance has allowed A.J. Wentworth, B.A. to settle. I wouldn't say it's charming me, and there's still a feeling that I'm getting it over with and watching out of a sense of bloody-minded completionism. But I'm getting the rhythms of the series a little more and finding at least a little something here and there to make it worthwhile.

The kids are still pretty annoying, but since I've now watched five of the six episodes I'm at least able to tell some of them apart and pick up on the various characteristics by which they're defined.

The supporting cast of adults is wonderful, and I wish far more had been done on this level.

The most interest still comes from knowing this was Arthur Lowe's final sitcom role. It may go without saying that it's no Captain Mainwaring or Leonard Swindley, but it's easy to see why he was drawn to this character who is tailor made for his attributes. He does appear to visibly struggle to remember dialogue at times, and from the way he looks around I did wonder if he'd done the Marlon Brando cheat of having his lines written down (which would have been understandable under the circumstances).

There's a great scene between Lowe and Deddie Davies in which they stand either side of a small table with a cello case propped on a chair in between them at the end of the table. As the dialogue went on, the case fell a couple of times in Lowe's direction. He caught it without missing a beat, just giving a little "harumph" kind of sound. Then it flew in Davies's direction, hitting her, but she carried on with her dialogue as though it hadn't happened (presumably she's not an ad libber, thought I). It seemed like one of those happy little accidents that adds unintentional interest to a scene, but then at the end of the scene it crashes to the floor and appears to be written into the script, since another character walks into the room and misconstrues what they're saying. Granted, the misunderstanding could have happened if they were still saying these lines while standing where they were, but it coming at such an important time makes me feel it was all scripted all along. The fact that I'm not even sure proves that they're doing something very right.

Anyhow... just one episode remains so I'm hopeful that I'll have a 100% attendance rate in this particular classroom.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

Predictably, A.J. Wentworth, B.A. fizzled out last night with yet another non-story.

Compared with most episodes, the final scene was at least semi-memorable, with Arthur Lowe doing tipsy very well - hair sticking out on one side and wobbling nicely as he tries to conduct a conversation with the headmaster while holding on to a door frame. We left him disappearing round the corner of a corridor singing, before hearing a crash from the inevitable offscreen fall.

It's hard to say what might have become of this series had Lowe not died. I have no idea how it was received at the time, and even those stats would be influenced by the audience's knowledge that Lowe had died. Perhaps some watched out of fondness or simply because Lowe's death had been reported. Perhaps others were put off watching by knowing that it couldn't run beyond its six episodes. Who can say.

As said, I did find the much of the series a bit of a struggle to watch. There was little that grabbed me in terms of the writing and I found myself tuning out quite a bit. However, if memory serves, the earliest episodes of Last Of The Summer Wine had a similarly aimless kind of tone and I quickly overcame that to thoroughly enjoy the remaining 30 series!!

As it is, Wentworth remains a simple curio, and of historic interest due to Lowe's death. There's little more to it, but there is a kind of rightness to seeing him bow out of sitcoms playing a character who shares characteristics with some of his more beloved roles.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

Many of the British sitcoms I've watched and rewatched in recent years have later been adapted into (generally inferior) American versions:

Man About The House and George & Mildred became Three's Company and The Ropers. Fawlty Towers had at least three ill-advised translations, including one with Bea Arthur as a female Basil and another with Betty White as Sybil (part of me now wants to see them edited together to watch married couple Arthur and White sniping at one another). Miss Jones And Son became Miss Wimslow And Son. As I've learnt in this very thread, Agony! and For The Love Of Ada also received their own American remakes. Even the current Ghosts has received a similar American makeover (the trailer was enough for me).

In this thread (and its pre-crash predecessor), I've steered clear of British remakes of American sitcoms. There are a few good reasons for this. Firstly, to me it seems a little tacky and narrow-minded to create a translation of a successful and popular show made in the same language when the original is available. Secondly, something almost always gets lost in translation. Just as American remakes tend to twee things up and lose the source material's bite and nuance, so do British remakes of American sitcoms often lose their source's cosy appeal. Thirdly, Brits are generally more aware of culture outside of our own island and not averse to watching imported sitcoms. Because of this, we can sniff out a fake a mile away, which is a key reason why our remakes flop so badly I couldn't watch them if I'd want to.

The key example that jumps to mind for me was The Brighton Belles: a British remake of The Golden Girls. It had a terrific cast (Sheila Hancock, Wendy Craig and Jean Boht played the characters analogous to Dorothy, Rose and Sophia), a decent time-slot and a heap of good intentions, but it just didn't work because recapturing lightning in a bottle cannot be engineered this way. The Golden Girls continued to be a hugely popular series in the UK and it seemed pointless to watch the same lines being recited by different actors. The series was poorly received, and rightly so. ITV pulled it when only around half the produced episodes had aired. We breathed a sigh of relief and switched to Channel 4 to watch repeats of the original.

This raises the question of if a sitcom remake is ever warranted. After all, how many King Lears have there been on stage? Or Miss Marples on film? And how many White Christmases have been performed in recording studios? What does it take to make it worthwhile?

One reason might be to introduce a work to a wider audience who would not otherwise have encountered it. Another might be to put one's own spin on things, and hopefully even improve upon the source material.

In the hope that this is not only possible but has been achieved at least once, I'm breaking with tradition and watching a British adaption of an American sitcom.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

At 94 episodes The Upper Hand is quite a commitment, but if the first episodes are anything to go on it could be the exception that proves the remake rule. Just to put that to the test, I opted to watch the Pilot of its antecedent back-to-back with the "remade scene-by-scene" first episode:

Who's The Boss? was a series with which I found myself keeping regular appointments in the mid-to-late Eighties. I remember it airing on a Sunday teatime at around 5. I have no idea how many people watched. I suspect it was the kind of series I could talk about with some schoolfriends (though I have no specific memory of doing so). Some of our parents might have been aware of it, but would probably think of it as a series that occupies kids while dinner preparations are underway. Still, at a time when we had only four channels and networks were extremely picky about which imports made it to air, Who's The Boss? did extremely well to be shown here in what I remember as a consistent, regular time slot. Diff'rent Strokes or ALF filled the same sort of function. It was never prime-time popular in the way Cheers or The Golden Girls were, nor did it never felt that way. To me, both felt like a less expensive, generic kind of affair. Entertaining and good fun. Comforting to watch in a predictable and formulaic kind of way.

Incidentally, Who's The Boss? was my introduction to all the actors in the cast. Both Taxi and Soap were both before my time and I seem to recall any repeats of both series were shown very late at night, way past my bedtime. And we never had American daytime soaps here. And so for many years, all the actors involved were associated primarily with this series (and, to a degree, most still are). Indeed, I didn't see Judith Light in anything outside of this until the late-Noughties when I suddenly realised the Sue Ellen-esque mogul's alcoholic wife on Ugly Betty was big-haired Angela from Who's The Boss?

A bit of digging round has unearthed this useful titbit of information (from just last year) about the background of Who's The Boss? and one of its many international translations:

In the late 1980s, Columbia Pictures was in a free fall. While their television programming was doing well, the box office was not. Mega-bombs like Ishtar and Leonard, Part 6 littered the company's slate. The company decided to expand its reach by making its popular show formats available internationally. The first show it made available was Who's the Boss? which had been a huge hit in the United States and a top seller internationally. ITV in the U.K. eagerly snapped up format rights. Rather than merely copy the existing scripts, ITV chose to make changes while retaining the spirit of the original show. Therefore The Upper Hand was born.

In the U.K. version, ex-boxer Tony Micelli became ex-Soccer pro Charlie Burrows. He still took over the household duties from his wealthy lady employer. The show embraced the same "will they or won't they" storyline from the U.S. version but added its own spark, which appealed to the U.K. audience. The show was so successful it actually had an extended run, airing a season that showed what happened after the two leads got married.

While I casually watched The Upper Hand when it first aired, I was perhaps too familiar with Who's The Boss? A large part of me felt the remake was pointless

Watching the Who's The Boss? pilot back-to-back with the first episode of The Upper Hand perfectly shows how the tonal differences come across. And it's quite fascinating.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

Before pressing on, I'll add that I thoroughly enjoyed watching both premiere episodes last night. Who's The Boss? was much as I remembered it, but what jumped out at me was the chemistry between Judith Light and Tony Danza. It pretty much jumped off the screen during their first meeting and continued throughout the entire episode. I don't remember consciously noticing this when I was young, but I was viewing through a different prism then.

There's much about the series that's so similar it seems, on face value, rather pointless: not only is the storyline identical, so (with a few culturally appropriate divergences) is the script. The set layout of the home where we spend 90% of our time is eerily matched, right down to the location of the kitchen with its "accident waiting to happen" swinging door favoured by US sitcoms (presumably to allow action to flow from room to room more easily). Even the staging is very similar. In the first episode, British Tom retrieves his Crunchy Crawlers cereal from a storage area in the exact same place as that from which American Jonathan gets his Crunchy Crawlers.

The value of the remake comes out of its differences. It's not about what the characters say or where they go, but about the way they read each moment. I suspect that most (if not all) of The Upper Hand's cast would not have watched Who's The Boss? beforehand, but if any have they play it a completely different way. And this is a strength. Rather than a karaoke version à la The Brighton Belles, this is a fresh new reading of familiar material.

Helping to further separate them is a difference in era as well as geography. The Who's The Boss? pilot was made in 1983 but, to me, its production values feel very much rooted in the Seventies. The Upper Hand's first episode came along in 1990 and it feels early Nineties.

This comes across in the aesthetic of the series. Everyone is lit to look good in Who's The Boss, butThe Upper Hand looks more polished and natural. The sets may be almost identical, but the cinematography makes all the difference. Caroline's living room feels far less set-like than Angela's. In an episode taking place at night with a fire roaring it felt positively sumptuous. The backdrop outside the front door looks more convincing and spacious in the British version, and there's great attention to detail as well (Tom's Crunchy Crawlers cereal packet is a great example of this).

The cold opening for each series in the links above perfectly highlights the differences that makes each series its own animal. Who's The Boss? feels every inch the American sitcom. There's an artifice to how it looks, with the artificial-looking tenement exterior. Every line Danza delivers (accompanied by broad gesticulations that make one wonder if he's acting it out for the hard of hearing) feels extremely knowing and ends with a "hey everyone, this is a punchline" inflection followed by a burst of rather contained audience laughter that cuts off suddenly and sounds suspiciously like the burst that came at the end of the line before.

The Upper Hand opens with a crane shot of a real street, accompanied by a poignant piano piece by Debbie Wiseman - a few bars of its soon-to-be revealed theme (which, as I'd inexplicably failed to notice before it was pointed out here has a melody uncannily like that of Knots Landing. In fact this blogger and many commenters on YouTube are convinced The Upper Hand actually uses Knots Landing's theme). It doesn't scream sitcom and it feels more meaningful.

For me the huge split in the cold openings comes with Tony/Charlie telling the neighbour to take care after saying that he loves his daughter more than he does the city he's leaving. In Who's The Boss? Tony Danza delivers this line in the usual sing-song tone that keeps things light (because it's a sitcom, and the audience aren't here to experience anything real). In that same moment, Joe McCann's Charlie becomes reflective. It's a moment of truth that feels quite touching and suggests a depth to the character and his background that makes the journey ahead seem all the more tantalising.

If there's a British version of Tony Danza with (to put in kindly) his one-note acting style, Joe McGann is most definitely not it. He may not be as whack you round the head pretty and charismatic as his American forbear, but he does bring his own, different, earthy cheeky chappie kind of charm to the table, More importantly, Joe is an actor whereas every line of Danza's says "Tony Danza". While the latter has its own appeal, McGann's more nuanced reading has already fleshed out this series to feel as though it has a heart.

In a genre where, if done well, the humour should come from a character's truthful response to a situations with which they're faced, then The Upper Hand's quite different casting - and the accompanying change in delivery and energy - is an incredibly wise move.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

Honor Blackman is an actress I've grown to appreciate more and more over the years. As a child, Mona was probably my favourite Who's The Boss? character, and I came down hard on Honor here for not being Katherine Helmond. As it turns out, this is exactly the reason Honor's character Laura is already making The Upper Hand so much fun. She has Helmond's playfulness, but feels more restrained than sassy Mona. Apparently Katherine Helmond herself appears in an episode later in the series. That could be fun (she's not playing Mona, which could have been even more fun if they wanted to get meta).

Last night it struck me that Helmond could easily have been playing Tony's mother. They both have a similarly brash, outspoken air.

In The Upper Hand, Laura and Caroline might be quite different in temperament, but one feels they come from the same class background.

This made me realise that in addition to the whole gender role premise and the rich/poor thing going on in Who's The Boss?, the remake has the uniquely British added dynamic of class. Whereas Angela and Tony's stations are largely defined by their income and achievements, Laura, Caroline and Tom's received pronunciation puts them firmly in the upper middle class bracket, separating them further from what would at the time have been considered the "working class" regional accents of Charlie and Joanna (this would be very difficult to pull of in 2022 where contemporary RP is so widely used across the board). This makes a Charlie/Caroline pairing seem even more unlikely, which adds another layer to what I expect to be the slow burn of their relationship. Their eventual pairing seems inevitable, but their vastly different backgrounds make it also seem more unobtainable or even unwise. Because of this, it's easy to understand why the series would continue after the characters' marriage.

It's the younger actors that really make the difference in terms of enjoyability and watchability for me.

As a kid I really liked Alyssa Milano's character (put it down to the callowness of my youth), but my God: last night both Who's The Boss? kids grated like nobody's business with their knowing cutesy sitcom kid vibes. There's little as cloying as a precocious kid who is convinced of their own cuteness, and both have this in abundancee (Milano's Samantha has a smart-mouth thing on top of this, doubling up the irritation).

The Upper Hand's kids were far more tolerable. At the time I knew Kellie Bright from the daft children's comedy series T-Bag and The Revenge Of The T-Set, from the year before The Upper Hand. I did find her a little precocious in that, which was hard to shake, but watching last night she comes across really well. Kellie, of course, is best known today for her long-running soap role in EastEnders. I've never seen her it it, but I've read good things (and it never fails to amuse me that her character is named Linda Carter).

William Puttock as Tom is also a definite improvement on Danny Pintauro's Jonathan from Who's The Boss? Both actors feel inexperienced and amateurish, but young William seems to really get the attitude that's written into both characters, but which Danny - certainly as far as these first episodes go - failed to capture (rather like Danza, he seems to get by on embodying a single characteristic and riding it until the wheels come off).

For me, the Brit who suffers most by direct comparison to their Who's The Boss? equivalent is Diana Weston. Had I not just watched WTB I'd probably find her fine, but compared directly with Judith Light, Weston feels a little weaker, and a tad too shrill at times. But watchable enough all the same.

The little tweaks in detail to place each in their respective culture make it great fun to compare between episodes. Tony is a former boxer and baseball player who moves from Brooklyn to Connecticut, while Charlie is an ex-pro footballer who moves from Inner London to Henley-on-Thames. Angela's date in the Pilot requests a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, while Caroline's asks for toast and marmalade. Mistaking the date for a burglar, Tony brandishes a baseball bat, while Charlie appears with a Henley-appropriate cricket bat (I'm not sure if Tony being shirtless while Charlie keeps his t-shirt on is a cultural thing or simply Tony Danza demonstrating his range. Either way, it wasn't unwelcome). Since most UH episodes are adapted from WHB scripts I'll be keeping an eye out for Britishisms in future episodes and perhaps investigating to see if they've been "translated".

As I said, I enjoyed Who's The Boss? greatly. Far more than I'd expected. I could quite happily have watched one or two more, but the very idea of binge-watching its entire run of almost 200 episodes seems, frankly, daunting-to-hellish. Perhaps in time the bloom will fall from The Upper Hand's rose as well, but after the first three episodes, I'm hopeful that the remaining ninety or so will be as easy and enjoyable to watch.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

In two sittings I've managed to watch eight episodes of The Upper Hand, so it's far from difficult to watch. Quite the opposite. Let's just say I'm glad I bought the entire series in one set (apart from several of the discs in the chunky case being stacked on one another ).

Knowing that each episode is a remake of another series has added a new layer of interest. It's interesting to see the differences. Angela's First Fight saw Angela order a dry martini, with a fight starting after Teresa spilt a drink on Angela's "Lord & Taylor" clothing. Meanwhile, in Caroline's First Fight our leading lady ordered a double brandy before Teresa spilt a drink all over Caroline's "Harvey Nichols".

During Angela's fight Teresa swung at her but missed which led to a lot of hair pulling and rolling round on the floor. Over in the British pub, Teresa landed one on Caroline (explaining the black eye she later had), but the fight itself was too short. The Caroline/Teresa fight felt more realistic, but the Angela/Teresa fight was better choreographed (lack of hand-to-face contact excepted) and overall more entertaining to watch.

If any episode is the most obviously adapted from an American sitcom, it's Growing Pains. With its "issue" of puberty and a father's denial around their daughter growing up, it veered dangerously into "Very Special Episode" territory. Still, the British earthiness helped remove a lot of the saccharine.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

Perhaps due to the fact that the material is already written, The Upper Hand seems to have long series for a UK sitcom. At thirteen episodes, Series One is more than double the six episodes I'd usually expect (and this isn't the longest by any stretch. Series Four is three times the UK average).

Already I've watched all but the final episode of Series One. There have been some significant storylines, first with the return of Caroline's ex-husband threatening Charlie's place in the household (the series' first two-parter), and then with Caroline and Charlie's first kiss.

Honor Blackman steals every scene in which she appears. With every appearance I appreciate how different she feels from Katherine Helmond's Mona on Who's The Boss?, and how much of a strength this is. When I was young, I struggled with Honor's portrayal simply because I was so used to Mona. Now I realise that while the words are the same, she's giving us something entirely new. The wisecracks sound so very different when delivered by her. If anything, they seem even edgier because of the juxtaposition with her polite-sounding middle class British accent and the smoky voice with its characteristic crackle. And each quip is accompanied by a carefree smile. It really comes across that she's having fun. At this point in my viewing I possibly find Laura even more enjoyable than Mona, but I'm very glad we had both terrific characters, each one perfectly suited to their show.

Watching scenes from the two shows back-to-back, Tony Danza's performance makes me thank my lucky stars for Joe McGann's Charlie. Conversely, a number of Diana Weston's lines have only seemed really funny to me when I imagine Judith Light delivering them.

I like the casting in this - many of the actors are unknown or unfamiliar to me. Even many of the familiar faces are often those one doesn't see very often: Hi-de-Hi's Diane Holland had a memorable one-scene role as the bra saleswoman in the aforementioned Growing Pains, while Kirsten Cooke - best remembered as 'Allo 'Allo's Michelle - appeared as a friend of Caroline's in First Kiss. Thanks to her speaking in RP rather than faux French I didn't recognise her at all. The wonderful Betty Marsden from Round The Horne (and a couple of Carry Ons) appeared as Charlie's temporary new employer Lady Rawcliffe (her only episode, sadly) while Michael Bilton - To The Manor Born's Ned and Waiting For God's frisky Basil - played her manservant Leo (he did return in the following episode, but really I could have watched an entire series based around Lady Rawcliffe, Leo and Charlie).

Since presumably only around half the Who's The Boss? scripts end up being recycled I'd love to know more about how episodes are selected and their running order decided. I find it interesting that First Kiss was the first season finale for Who's The Boss?, but the penultimate episode of The Upper Hand's first series. The British series instead closes with Requiem, a series from the middle of WTB's first season. I know the plot of Requiem, but not specifics, so perhaps all will become clear after I've watched it.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

I find it interesting that First Kiss was the first season finale for Who's The Boss?, but the penultimate episode of The Upper Hand's first series. The British series instead closes with Requiem, a series from the middle of WTB's first season.

Aha. It's now become clear. First Kiss did close both shows respective first seasons/series.

Looking at the airdates, Requiem was evidently a Christmas special, airing on 27th December 1990. This was some four months after First Kiss was first shown, and less than two months before Series Two began.

While it's included in with Series One in the DVD set and in Wikipedia's episode list, IMDb classes it as Series Two. Obviously it falls in between the two, but I'd feel confident in saying it was shot either as part of or very close to Series Two's run of episodes. The Who's The Boss? version doesn't have this same problem, since its TV season ran from September to April, so its Christmas-set episode fell mid Season One.

Tuning in to Requiem, Caroline's now got a shorter, more coiffed Princess Diana kind of hairdo, while Charlie's hair has grown into the beginnings of a scruffy Nineties mullet. Watching this the day after First Kiss, the differences in appearance are a little jarring. However, watching Requiem back-to-back with the first Series Two episode, as I did, it's pretty seamless.

Aesthetics aside, there's a different energy in Series Two. The entire cast seem somehow more relaxed and confident. I'd put it down to the success factor. Series One had aired by this time and I'd think was very well-received (receiving a Christmas special in its first year seems even more of an accolade that the order for Series Two). I'm sure this success (and probably members of the public now treating them differently in Waitrose and coffee shops) would have impacted on each of the actors as individuals and on the cast dynamics.

Laura seems much cattier in these two episodes, her quips now including some openly denigrating comments about Caroline's awkward schooldays. I wonder if that's a choice on the part of the UK production or if Mona was equally so.

Perhaps the latter change comes from Series Two's first episode being based on a script beyond Season One one of Who's The Boss? Common Entrance is, in fact, based on the WTB episode Daddy's Little Montague Girl. It's a good episode, but I can't help wondering why a script from a later season was used to springboard this new series. Perhaps it's considered a classic.

Deddie Davies is one of those actresses who is instantly recognisable. It feels like she's popped up in every British series imaginable

And already, she's appeared in my next consecutive sitcom. Following on from the public school theme of A.J. Wentworth, B.A., she played a teacher at Jo’s prospective exclusive school (and Caroline's former school), enthusiastically giving a slideshow about school life.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

Incidentally, The Upper Hand is one of only six series singled out in this article as TV remakes that were as good as the originals:

Viewed nearly three decades on, ITV’s remake of US sitcom hit Who’s the Boss? feels like a soft-furnished manifestation of 90s New Man culture, with the hunky widowed ex-footballer Joe McGann agreeing to become housekeeper for affluent ad exec Diana Weston to achieve some stability for his daughter. At a time when Who’s the Boss? had zero UK profile, The Upper Hand had nothing to live up to, and even improved the recipe by adding the mischievous Honor Blackman as a man-eating grandmother. Most impressively, it did what US execs never dared do for fear of ruining the lucrative prospect of syndication: it married off its will-they-won’t-they? leads and allowed them a final series as man and wife.

 

[Daniel Avery]

....improved the recipe by adding the mischievous Honor Blackman as a man-eating grandmother.

Did this writer not know that "the man-eating grandmother" character was in the original Who's the Boss?

 

[Mel O'Drama]

I've hit that point of watching a series where it goes from being an enjoyable way to kill an hour or so each evening to that part of the day I look forward to hitting. Already the series is feeling like one which could possibly leave a sense of absence when it ends. But I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. There are still seventy six episodes ahead of me and anything could happen between now and then.

The episodes set in the South of France were fun. With every member of the cast wangling a trip to Michael's wedding in Cannes, my expectations were leaning towards a few stock exteriors followed by some studio-bound hotel and wedding venue interiors. Sure enough, there was a lengthy series of glamorous French Riviera shots followed by a decent-looking hotel interior. It was only as the episode progressed and we saw the cast driving and then sailing round the sunny locales surrounded by azure blue water that I realised this was a two-parter in which Central/ITV had invested some money. Perhaps this jolly was the cast's reward for such a successful first series.

With a series of this kind it seems almost frivolous. Not that I'm complaining about it. I'm just hugely impressed that this is one series that actually delivered on its claim to visit an overseas location. It seems the Who's The Boss? episodes were set in California which, I'm guessing, is where the series was shot anyway. I'm not sure if there were perhaps more exteriors in this WTB two-parter, but shots of California in an American series just seem like coals to Newcastle.

Incidentally, I just took a peek at some clips from the equivalent Who's The Boss? episodes. The three I found on YouTube are mostly the interior-based hotel scenes, but even that looks suspiciously like the living room set redressed. The Upper Hand did at least feature (to my eyes) different-looking sets that gave a convincing "away from home" feeling, even if in the studio-bound scenes.

Another couple of strikes in favour of The Upper Hand's version:

The Wedding Bells title is certainly a cliche one and I'm sure has been used in countless sitcoms over the years. Given the premise of this series, though, the tease is a welcome one (not that I seriously thought Charlie and Caroline would be married for real at this stage of the series). More importantly, it allowed Michael's revelation at the end of the first part to be more surprising. As we neared the end of the first episode, I really thought Michael was building up to say that he still loved Caroline and didn't want to go ahead with his wedding. The news that he wanted shared custody of Tom felt like a genuine twist for me. The Who's The Boss? two-parter was titled Custody, which stomped all over the impact and, in turn, the dramatic potential of the cliffhanger.

This is a Tom/Jonathan-heavy episode, which is no problem at all in The Upper Hand. Over in Who's The Boss?, the child actor playing Jonathan is so cloying and saccharine even the three short clips I watched were an endurance test. Each line is delivered in an infantile sing-song tone that seems to aim for maximum cutesy-wutesy-ness. I'm assuming he's meant to be nine or ten, but he sounds and acts like a pre-schooler. This archetypal American sitcom kid is something that nauseates me*. The kids in the British version might not be perfect, but they do at least act like real kids of their own age.

Incidentally, TUH's vomit scene was much funnier due to the "it's going to happen" face he made just before he threw up, and the gloopy sound effect. WTB had the kid making the usual "bleurgh" sound.


I'm intrigued by the way The Upper Hand titles its two-parters. The first parts' supers have no on-screen suggestion that it's a two-parter (simply displaying as Welcome Home or Wedding Bells) but they end with "To be continued...". Meanwhile, the second parts supers simply add the roman numeral "II" to the onscreen title (Welcome Home II or Wedding Bells II), suggesting that the episode is almost a sequel rather than a continuation. It's an interesting way of doing it. I wonder if this done so that an audience tuning in for the second part won't immediately tune out. Welcome Home II even incorporated its "previously on..." recap as an in-canon flashback when Charlie told his story to Betty Marsden's character, which is a nice way of doing it.





*This also perhaps explains why SORAS is so noticeable. If kids of almost high school age are acting like tots, the shift to adolescence or young adulthood will seem ridiculous. Either you have sixteen year olds acting like ten year olds to create a flow or you have a jarring jump from kindergarten to teen.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

Did this writer not know that "the man-eating grandmother" character was in the original Who's the Boss?

This made me wonder as well.

It's possible they're suggesting that Honor Blackman's casting elevated the series over its predecessor, but this would have been clearer if he'd written that she was cast "as the man-eating grandmother" rather than "as a man-eating grandmother".

As you point out, the phrasing seems to indicate that they didn't even know about Mona from WTB.

I'm also not convinced that WTB had "zero visibility" at the time TUH began, but the chronology isn't clear enough in my memory to be certain. Perhaps I'm taking it too literally, though. WTB was always very much under the radar in the UK. My own perception is probably slightly skewed around that because I was one of the small number of people who watched it regularly.

Yesterday I watched an interview with the two leads of TUH given as the second series aired. Actress Diana Weston was quick to credit the original version, saying it was in its seventh year. The presenters were aware of Who's The Boss? enough to fill in the name. Perhaps that's down to research of their subject matter, but Richard Madeley is the presenter who irked me back in the late-Eighties by thinking that Knots Landing was a daytime soap (I know you're a daytime buff, Daniel, so it might interest you that they also discuss Diana's stint on As The World Turns later in the interview).

I thought the comment tying the series in with Nineties New Man culture was interesting, and TUH is certainly very much the antithesis to the contemporaneous Men Behaving Badly which ran at the same time. It goes to show that the adaption was probably perfectly-timed, and WTB ahead of its time in some ways.

 

[Daniel Avery]

I watched that clip just to find out who DW played on ATWT, since I had no recollection of her being on that show. Still don't remember...but IMDB says she only appeared in six episodes, and according to her in that clip, the character got (unceremoniously) strangled. I'm surprised they even brought it up, since it sounds like one of those "cannon fodder" characters they introduce with intent to kill them off (soaps have to do this to add "juice" to a dangerous plotline, since they can't go around killing off too many "main" characters). The lack of attention to her needs (not letting her know if she needed to report the next day, etc.) speaks to this status as a temporary hire, since most actors hoping to break into soaps put up with this sort of disrespect because they're so desperate to keep getting called back, so to speak.

I felt I knew her from something, though....turned out it was as Val on Agony.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

I had no recollection of her being on that show. Still don't remember...

Ah - I forgot how eventful these shows can be, and how much probably gets lost in the mix. When she mentioned getting strangled I thought it sounded like the kind of thing that would be easily remembered, but I suppose this kind of thing happens relatively frequently on a soap like this.

I'm surprised they even brought it up

Oh, This Morning was (and probably still is) one of those morning shows where the presenters frequently know little-to-nothing about their revolving door of interviewees. They were probably handed a sheet with random facts and picked out the ones that seemed interesting to them, no matter how insignificant it might have been. On a CV filled almost exclusively with British shows, an American soap would tend to jump off the page.

I felt I knew her from something, though....turned out it was as Val on Agony.

Oh, of course you'd know her from that. It's so long since I watched Agony I'd practically forgotten she was in it. Looking at her IMDb, Val is her second longest-running role, after Caroline in The Upper Hand.