If you had told me that this would be a show I'd become a big fan of after I first saw a clip I'd think you were crazy. Seeing a huge man intimidate a child from a swimming pool with a remote control boat that runs amok before getting chastized by an adult wasn't my usual idea of comedy gold.
Some people use the term "disposable entertainment" negatively. But there was something reliable about an episode of Benidorm. You could watch it in the hotel room, casually in the middle of the week or as part of your weekend viewing.
Set in the Mediterranean sun, it was ingeniously simply to just make a show where characters were just always on holiday but yet still find problems.
Filled to overflow with rich vibrant comedic characters that came and went and then came back again when needed. Sometimes appearing for a short time before then making a bigger splash. This kept the show fresh and to some extent wasn't really one show but at least two shows on a sort of spectrum that turned from one to another. Hardly any episode can be considered truly bad to my mind because every episode always had a mix of things going on until the final season but i'll get to that...
I imagine the show divided into three basic eras. The first three seasons are the vintage period. The show began basically as a satire (is that the right word?) about the British abroad. A rich cultural cross section including the nuclear Garvey family (as stable as a nuclear plant too), the gentrified gay coupe (ah...the 2000s...) , the intellectual man-child with his mother (and this is just the beginning) all experiencing the highs and lows of the budget vacation; those who wish to travel to sunny Spain and remain locked in a British enclave with nay a paella in sight. When a certain character didn't occur in the next season, you never missed them for long since there were so many more to pick up the slack. You kept getting old friends and exciting new faces.
The humor was an intelligent mixture of broad gags and nuanced characterization that always went down smooth (except for when it...didn't, I'll get to that). The plots were engaging and the format of each episode corresponding to the events of a day made the whole thing just feel relaxed no matter what happened.
The next few seasons saw a bit of a reshuffle which made me wonder if the best years were behind us but new characters actually became new old favorites. To think Kenneth and Joyce would rise to become the very face of the show.
The final four years see a big change (I won't spoil it) but by now we've worked into a comfortable format that is less about sending up the British abroad and just utilizing the excellent characters and it became 50% a workplace comedy with the staff fully integrated into the story lines. An additional workplace element was the misadventures of the staff at the Solana's hair salon Blo and Go in which we get four characters, each initially part of their own separate clique but eventually coming together into a well functioning comedy power quartet.
There are so many details regarding the characters and the memorable elements and how they develop over time entertainingly. Wise cracking dad Mick Garvey trying to do right by his family but who keeps messing up, the Elderly Swingers who could fill a risque desk calendar with the thing they say, Mateo, the "greasy barman" who goes from negative cultural stereotype to a cultural stereotype who became a premier character. I also liked how Tiger went from trouble maker to really maturing to being a sympathetic youthful presence in the show. His sister, by the way, is totally naked in the movie "Diary of a Young girl".
Back on Mateo a moment: future generations will watch this show and be anything from shocked to bemused about how much Mateo is sexually assaulted/harassed during the series. I'm not making this up. You might say he has it coming as the lying, philanderer he is but...I still feel it needs calling out. Try to see his actor out of character. He couldn't sound more English.
I've rewatched this, in fact, much of it twice. (Edit: third time!) There's enough of it to just binge on it shamelessly. Though I must say it nice to be able skip some not so choice moments. Namely, a lot of yelling and things getting lavatorial.
The show kept a consistent quality for 9 consecutive seasons but sadly it was the tenth that really crashed. I only noticed this on rewatching, but it doesn't quite work and I think the reason for this was the type of stories they were telling. The frustrating misunderstandings of Rob, his girl and his family were just pulled from a hundred cliche family sitcoms and let's face it: Rob and Cyd are perfect for each other because they are incredibly bland characters. This storyline and Monty's trouble with Sammy Valentino are stories that might work very well as a single episode of something but the aforementioned format of each episode corresponding to the events of a single day meant that these below average stores just got way too much air time. I think they expected a new season but ultimately the final episode is one of the worst final episodes of any show. The absence of Jodie (she is such a cutie!) was sadly the least of this season's worries. But never mind.
This is a show where things get super silly and then occasionally super serious but not for too long. Relationships are tested, forged and strengthened. I will say this also for the show: you will see people at their lowest and their highest. It makes an effort to reward the viewers that stick with it. I had tears in my eyes during the Pauline storyline, perhaps the most poignant character in the whole show by a strange turn. They play her alcoholism for laughs (ah...the...oh wait that was this decade) but like I said it gets both serious and funny. You'll know the moment I'm talking about when you see it.
Joey (especially with Tiger) was also one of the stronger assets of the final 3 seasons.
I think this maybe could have recovered and given us one more GOOD season but I'm just glad we got so much of this.
