We can be honest. This was pretty bad.
I love OFAH and i didn't mind the change in style. I thought most of the cast were perfect and i did enjoy the hidden references to past OFAH episodes. But this really did miss the mark. The drama wasn't dramatic and the comedy wasn't funny. This simply didn't need to be made. All the good stuff we already new.
The cinema manager was especially not funny.
I don't think this series was given a fair chance to be honest, i think it was intended to be more than 3 episodes and you forget...nobody liked only fools and horses when it first came out. Personally i think if it was given time to flourish then it wud have become another well loved favourite.
shareIt was doomed because they cast James Buckley as Del Boy. It wasn't James Buckley's fault (at all), but Sullivan was slipping into writing 'Del Boy type' episodes when it was supposed to be Joan's series.
I think Kellie Bright was exceptionally good in it and Phil Daniel's did very well as Grandad. However, the show had a great deal of contradictions to the series.
Firstly Reg was nothing like the character we had seen early on, his character was ruined because he didn't have that sly way about him. Joan was also very different, Sullivan had clearly tried to make her very loveable, but I had always got the impression (from the show) she was more of a Diana Dors type - who was a bit vulgar. Nicholas Lyndhurst played Freddy as pretty unlikable. In the OFAH episodes he'd been described more as a loveable cad - than an out and out nasty piece of work. All these aspects kind of conspired to make the series watered down.
The BBC may have commissioned a final episode for a Christmas, but it was never going to go much further - because the ratings were so bad. As another poster had said, OFAH's had been flogged to death by the time Rock n Chips came about and I think people had had enough.