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<blockquote data-quote="Mel O&amp;#039;Drama" data-source="post: 337529" data-attributes="member: 23">As often happens with these wobbly starts, a little perseverance has allowed A.J. Wentworth, B.A. to settle. I wouldn&#039;t say it&#039;s charming me, and there&#039;s still a feeling that I&#039;m getting it over with and watching out of a sense of bloody-minded completionism. But I&#039;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&#039;ve now watched five of the six episodes I&#039;m at least able to tell some of them apart and pick up on the various characteristics by which they&#039;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&#039;s final sitcom role. It may go without saying that it&#039;s no Captain Mainwaring or Leonard Swindley, but it&#039;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&#039;d done the Marlon Brando cheat of having his lines written down (which would have been understandable under the circumstances). There&#039;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&#039;s direction. He caught it without missing a beat, just giving a little &quot;harumph&quot; kind of sound. Then it flew in Davies&#039;s direction, hitting her, but she carried on with her dialogue as though it hadn&#039;t happened (presumably she&#039;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&#039;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&#039;m not even sure proves that they&#039;re doing something very right. Anyhow... just one episode remains so I&#039;m hopeful that I&#039;ll have a 100% attendance rate in this particular classroom.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Mel O'Drama, post: 337529, member: 23"] As often happens with these wobbly starts, a little perseverance has allowed [I]A.J. Wentworth, B.A.[/I] 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. [/QUOTE]

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