Les Dawson was disappointed with the reception the series received. In his 1985 autobiography "A Clown Too Many", he wrote: "Alan Plater, the writer, had an idea which we titled The Loner. In this I played a man coming from nowhere, going nowhere, and it was about what happens to him in transit. There was a trilogy of them, and like most things I'd done, frankly, it was ahead of its time. It was performed without an audience present and the whole thing was shot as a black comedy. Again, I incurred the wrath of the press, they simply could not see the situation, and Yorkshire dropped the idea of doing any more."
Dawson's Complaint (1975) was joint 14th in the charts with a rating of 6.65 million under the JICTAR Ratings system, which measured houses rather than individual viewers.
However, the remainder of the series failed to chart in the Top 20.
However, the remainder of the series failed to chart in the Top 20.