This Life + 10

The excitement around this a appearing at Christmas 2007 was everywhere. Radio 4 was discussing it. Everyone who was a fun of this series was eager. Jekins is a great writer. The characters had received a great deal of affection. Finally the long awaited episode was aired. Finally the silence was broken after we were able to lift our jaws from the floor after watching this.

First was the direction. There didn't seem to be any. Evcveryone on screen wandered around without purpose and aimlessly. The script always a high point of this show must be as good as ever? A couple of ideas were thrown in the air then ignored by the writers to wander and ramble through the remaining screen time.

It had to get better it couldn't continue this way. The series was set in London with a group of lawyers flat sharing and the wildly moving camera work reflected the hectic pace of London and their life styles and demands. Here in the countryside at Miles's country retreat the pace was missing as there was no cut an thrust or purpose to them.

The script idea appeared to be to concentrate on their relationships between the characters and leave out all their hectic lives, sensible since they weren't all lawyers anymore. So the country setting should work. But the writing and directing ensured this ingenious conceit was a failure.

Trying to recapture the magic the magic of This Life 10 years after its initial release was always going to be a difficult task, and so it proved to be.

One thing the writers of This Life + 10 arguably got right is that, for the most part, the character narrative arcs are largely believable, with Egg's being the one that most stretches credibility. Of all the characters, it's not a big surprise that Miles comes across worst after the 10-year break from the original series. His behaviour back then was highly questionable at times, and it's not difficult to see how he turned into such an objectionable 30-something. It's hard to disagree with Warren's assessment of Miles halfway through (which out of politeness I won't repeat here).

The grand country house setting makes it difficult to warm to the characters, which is probably the main problem with this reunion. It was much easy to relate to the cash-strapped twenty-somethings of This Life who made bad decisions, rather than the cashed-up thirty-somethings who still make bad decisions in This Life + 10.

Saying all that, this isn't a truly terrible one-off. By and large, the dialogue is decent, and the acting is fine. The story isn't great, but it's passable. However, it does leave a little sour taste in the mouth that a rare great show that didn't outstay its welcome in its original run, and which had a pretty much perfect ending first time round, spoiled things somewhat with this ill-advised reunion.

Maybe I shouldn't have watched this just after binge-watching the original series. This was 10 years later not 10 minutes. The concept was good. I too met up with old friends when an old school pal died so I can partly resonate. As a stand alone film it was ok. I would probably have given it an 8 or 9 but it's not a touch on the original series. No sex scenes, nudity, cottaging, drug snorting, no gay lovers and the swearing was rather tame. It was good to see old friends and what they have done with their lives but I can see no need for a This Life + 25 (or more!).

I was so disappointed! i just loved this life, but this was terrible. The thing that was so good about the series was that it seemed to be such a well observed picture of a very specific social demographic, it just seemed to ring true because of the detail and the dialogue. Yet the ten-years-on drama introduced a whole sequence of unlikely plot devices just for the sake of it - why did Egg need to have become such a hugely successful writer? why did miles have to have bought a really ugly large hotel? Why would Warren have ventured into cheesy self help websites? these things all just seem to have been picked out of a hat marked 'farcical plot ideas'. surely the ideal thing would been for their lives to be shown to have developed along realistic, mundane trajectories and then the writer could re-visit the canny social observation that we saw before. The plot always used to be driven by character and situation, not by daft, unlikely random events. And i think the location choice of the supposedly impressive country house was just ghastly. and the final line being 'i love you guys!' Jesus! i actually can't think of a comment on that.

Incredibly good attempt to tie up up the time elapsed since the original series. Anna seems to be the only one not to have moved on, she seems just the same as 1997. Egg is now a success on the writing front but still he has issues with Millie,perhaps the addition to the family is the glue keeping them together. Miles with his shaggy hair looks more carefree these days, but I remembered him as a focused individual, who I am sure would not have got into the trouble he has at present. Warren has moved on professionally but at what cost to his private life? The documentary format works quite well and the constant sight of black and white images in the camera view finder perhaps indicates that all of the group are bearing their soles with gritty honesty. The music(especially) Portishead really does take you back ten years. A searing. marvellous piece of TV drama.