Dream Sequence Ending? - The Brittas Empire (1991) Discussion

[–] Startanew 17 years ago

Most of the fans ignore the last episode.
But... Gordon wakes up, after he'd fallen asleep on a bus or a train i forget which, with Helen next to him, she's still his wife, on his way to a new job. But they do'nt really show if Gordon is still like that, personality wise or not. Tim and Gavin were just random guys on the bus, and Linda was a nun...

I'm pretty sure the later episodes were shown, since I saw this episode and i'm pretty sure it wasn't on foxtel.

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[–] emuboy 17 years ago

Thanks for filling me in. As you said, maybe it is better for us diehard Brittas fans to ignore this ending.

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[–] shazeroon 17 years ago

yeah, we pretend the ending was all a dream

this face, the infection which poisons our love

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[–] speccyboy 17 years ago

What would be the TRUE ending for you, then? The end of Series 5 when Brittas "dies"?

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[–] Startanew 17 years ago

No, that episode can be the ending, but we're saying that that episode ending was the dream, rather than the whole episode or the whole last few series. Wasn't there a gas leak and stuff? He was probably high on gas, and then straight after that bit where he's on the train he wakes up and finds all the staff and his wife standing over him, and it really is real that that centre exists...

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[–] TriciaG28 17 years ago

At the end Gordon wakes up as Helen is asking "Gordon, what are you going to say when they ask you "Why do you want to be the manager of Whitby Leisure Centre""
I thought this was a brilliant ending!! I mean, the situations in the show were so out there that it made perfect sense that it be a dream! Plus it explains why Helen was married to him in the first place, he wasn't as totally mad as depicted.

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[–] laurence01 17 years ago

I also thought it was a brilliant ending. making the whole series a dream, while he was on his way to the interview for the job in the first place. As a previous poster said, most of the cast from his dream were just random travelers on the same bus.

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[–] deem714 16 years ago

yeah, we pretend the ending was all a dream

and in that dream that we all have... Someone else is his wife....

You're laborers, you're supposed to be laboring! That's what you get for not having an education!!

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[–] jamiehughes 15 years ago

I thought the ending was perfect, one of the best tv endings in fact.

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[–] richard.fuller1 15 years ago

I found the dream ending amusing, but in America, we had endured three shows going from the sublime to the ridiculous with saying the series was nothing more than a dream.

First was Dallas, circa 1988, when Patrick Duffy's character of Bobby Ewing returned to the show after he had been killed off. The entire season in which he had been dead was declared a dream of his wife, Pam.

About the same time, a hospital drama, St. Elsewhere, would end with the entire show being a dream, all the fabrication of a young autistic child, grandson of one of the characters or something like that.

It was supposed to be a parody of the Dallas dream season, but fans of Dallas were not the same fans of St. Elsewhere, so they didn't catch the joke, or find it completing.

by far, the best was 'Newhart' the comedy show with Bob Newhart, that ran from about '82 to '90.

Bob Newhart had a previous show in which he was a doctor named Bob Hartley, and Susan Pleshette was his wife, Emily. This show ran from '72 to '78.

In the final episode of Newhart, Bob's character, Dick Loudon, is hit in the head with a golf ball and wakes up in an all too familiar bedroom, and tells his wife he had a dream about managing an inn in Vermont (the setup of Newhart).

The wife turns on the light, rolls over and it was Susan Pleshette. This pretty much sealed all dream sequences for finales or anything else on tv. None of them were going to top Newhart. When I saw Britta's Empire, it reminded me of Newhart's finale.

Altho Roseanne did do something in her final episode, no one made note of it, and it went about as well as St. Elsewhere's.

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[–] somarka 15 years ago

i think it is just lazy endings

Also I used to watch this as a kid we did get the last few seasons because I remember no longer watching the showw after they changed the writers and it became realy stupid, which is where that dumb ending camefrom

if it all been a dream, Laura should have been there for the ;ast little bit too, even if she is just walking past on the train

I dont even want to think the ending is a dream, I just wish they had ended it better

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[–] richard.fuller1 15 years ago

somarka: "i think it is just lazy endings

Also I used to watch this as a kid we did get the last few seasons because I remember no longer watching the showw after they changed the writers and it became realy stupid, which is where that dumb ending camefrom

if it all been a dream, Laura should have been there for the ;ast little bit too, even if she is just walking past on the train

I dont even want to think the ending is a dream, I just wish they had ended it better"
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Well, in America, we had dealt with one very popular, long running show failing to mention a seemingly crucial family member. The show was Happy Days, which ran for about ten years, mid-seventies to mid-eighties.

In the show's first season, Richie Cunningham (former child actor and current award-winning director Ron Howard) was established as having an older brother named Chuck, as well as the younger sister, Joannie.

After about five appearances and two actors portraying him, Chuck simply vanished and was never mentioned again.

Even stranger, one of the actors who portrayed Chuck Cunningham, Gavin O'herily, would appear on the show later on as a DIFFERENT character, a date for future Dallas actress Charlene Tilton.

Ron Howard left the show before it ended, but he returned in the final episode with the actress who had played his wife as well (not like she was in demand for anything else).

Still, no mention was made of Chuck.

Final line said by father Howard Cunningham referred to his having two children.

Having endured this show like this, it was no surprise for me to watch Britta's Empire and see no mention of an actress who clearly quit the show.

Yes, it would have been nice, but again, it wasn't a surprise she was absent.

Tho it wasn't so much a catch-phrase for ol' Brittas, he did say a few times "I Have a dream" so that was the way I took the conclusion.

We also had on an American soap opera where a young son went upstairs and didn't come down for years. The character was hardly stellar or a breakout, so no one really missed him and the producers and writers either just forgot about him or didn't care to refer to him as other characters became more prominent.

Finally they recast the role and had the missing son return, almost two decades later, I believe.

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[–] somarka 15 years ago

I know about Happy days that irked me about that show too.

But i still say that the ending to brittas empire was just stupid. it could have been done better

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[–] Munstrum_Ridcully 11 years ago

The show just went down hill after Fergen and Norris stopped writing it, until the whole thing was just so stupid that the final episode was a blessed relief.
For me "In the Beginning" was the true last episode.

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[–] danny736 11 years ago

That first episode of Season 6 seems like it was written by someone who'd never even watched the series - for one thing, both Tim and Gavin suddenly appear to be bisexual for the duration of just one episode showing romantic interest in female characters that's never mentioned again !

A Distorted Reality Is Now A Necessity To Be Free

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[–] Munstrum_Ridcully 11 years ago

The show just went down hill after Fergen and Norris stopped writing it, until the whole thing was just so stupid that the final episode was a blessed relief.
For me "In the Beginning" was the true last episode.

Atheism is a religion in the same way that celibacy is a sexual position

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[–] Jarvio 8 years ago

Maybe the ending wasn't waking up from a dream, but was the afterlife - maybe Brittas died. Afterall, he did eat his own cake.

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[–] youngsteve 8 years ago

The last two series are a waste & no where near as good as the first 5 series. Once Laura went it went right down hill, as she was the one who held it together.

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