I thought the last episode was the weakest, but I still liked it.
Some of the reasons I was a bit disappointed with it:
No mention of Eddie. Not even a mention...
To begin with, Anthony was shown as acting immaturely, drinking alcohol, playing with the gun, breaking Johnson's allotment windows, but then we saw him maturing into a good man with morals, who was dedicated to his job, but wanted more than anything to make the right decisions. I'm not saying that in the last episode he is shown as a bad person necessarily, but he is shown arguing very pendantically (and childishly) with his mother, and is thinking of leaving his wife and children for no apparent good reason. It just seemed like he lost his maturity all over again, which I didn't find believable.
Lack of returning characters. I would have liked to see another appearance of characters like John Saulway, Benny, Ron Conrad, Harold Chapel, or even Austin Donohugh.
The was pretty much no mention of politics whatsoever, which I found odd, seeing as it was basically the main focus of all the other episodes.
Lack of drama/fast pace. I found the episode too slow on the whole, and a bit of an anti-climax.
That said, some things I loved were:
The moment when the four central characters are alone together, and none of them say a word, but they all look at each other and silently reflect on what they've all been through together through the year, and share a brief laugh. I thought this was an awesome way of rounding off their collective character arcs, and just a really touching moment.
Nicky and Geordi's reunion, after 8 years, Nicky having thought Geordi must be dead, gave me shivers, it was so powerful.
Florrie's funeral was really moving.
Peter Vaughan's performance of altzeismer's-suffering Felix was incredible.
There is hope for Nicky and Mary.
How the last shot is of Geordi walking alone.
And, last but not least, Tosker lived the dream :)
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Mercader79
15 years ago
"Lack of returning characters. I would have liked to see another appearance of characters like John Saulway, Benny, Ron Conrad, Harold Chapel, or even Austin Donohugh".
A few of these would have been dead by 1995 surely?
I agree with most of your points though. The main four all look a bit strange by this point too as they're all notably about twenty years younger than the parts they're playing.
Unavoidable though I guess.
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jcmcgee
14 years ago
Sorry, but the last episode, and especially the ending was fantastic.
(Eddie wasn't in it cause Eddie was dead.)
Loads of little "self referential" references to earlier British drama;
I felt Geordies interview with the Psychologists was a fantastic (and fantastically clever) homage to Yosser Hughes and the priest in Boys From The Blackstuff...with a tonne of allusion and metaphor...in a way that almost make Quentin Tarantinos self referential homages seem clumsy...Then the use of "Common People" in the car crash seen...and then to top it with "Don't Look Back In Anger"...jeez it felt like it was almost written to end this series.
And the wee red head boy, I think his Geordie accent was left impenetrable to all but a Geordie for good reason (Some of my very good friends are Geordies and I couldn't understand 1/2 of what the lad was saying...it was brilliantly clever.)
Simmilarly, and as someone else pointed out on here, the dad's altzheimer, apart from being very touching and brilliantly acted, was a great reflection of how the labour party was now so far removed from it's roots that it literally couldn't remember...
The scene with the 4 friends alone...sorry, I'm probably pushing it here, but to me this made Jean Paul Satre look illiterate....the phrase "You can chose your friends but you can't choose your family" kept popping into my head, but this was showing so much more than.
The whole series was brilliant....and the ending was perfect.
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