Land Girls

Well, despite what has been written I thought this was a smashing little series, or three. It is a bit 'soapy' but I don't like soaps yet I like this. It does lean on sentimentality, but in my opinion not too much. More than anything it's a character study, where few characters are either all good or all bad. Mark Benton provides the comic relief and it's something he expertise's in. It does stand as a drama though, the trials and tribulations of a set of decent women in an harrowing time. I've just watched it daily on bbc, and have felt cheer for the characters at a personal time where I need something to believe in. The acting is excellent, the story lines strong. It can be disappointing when characters or actors drop out between series'. But I presume that's a testament in itself. As with all wartime dramas (as opposed to war dramas) it shows the best of British resolve. All I know is, when good things happen to the main characters I feel glad, and when bad things happen I feel sad. And if a drama manages that, it's more than halfway home.

This series is repeating on The BBC. Whilst watchable it is ultimately a bit silly with very little farming to be seen. Ultimately if their efforts were replicated throughout the nation everyone would have starved

I am a huge fan of British drama, especially WWII homefront stuff, which Land Girls is. I stuck it out only because of this and the lovely English village and countryside locations. It reminded me of series like Heartbeat, which have some heart-stirring bits mixed in with the silliness. Here, Mark Benton plays the Mr. Greenglass part of the "comic relief", only it's not so comic and nowhere near relief.

What kept coming to mind while I watched this whole series was "stupid people making stupid decisions and doing stupid things". If someone could mess up or make the wrong choice or do the dumbest thing possible, they would. Sometimes to "advance" the plot but sometimes just because they were annoyingly dumb. Some stuff was just ridiculous for the sake of being ridiculous. Or maybe the show runners thought it was funny, but it could only be interpreted as humorous if you like very juvenile, slapstick silliness. And I realise that some people do.

I'm not going to get specific to illustrate my point because 1. spoiler alert would be necessary, and 2. I just can't even remember much of what I found so objectionable because it's just not important to me.

What I DO recall is how annoyingly stupid so much of it was. And I'm not basing that on 20 minutes into the first episode and then giving up in disgust. I actually watched the entire 15 episodes and it was all cut from the same silly cloth.

Scenery was wonderful; acting was generally convincing; scripts generally dreadful.

The series is well acted. The complaint here about "cliches" is itself one. Look up the history and look it up from first-person, eye-witness research. The events are based on real-life experiences and the protagonists being women should not frighten away legitimate historians who understand the time period and the sacrifices British women had to endure. The shape of the events are far closer to real history than some of the bleating-heart (not a typo) critics imagine. Yes, it is a soap opera. That was a given, by the way, to anyone who started watching it. But the position of women in Britain during the war and the dynamics that could and did occur are a part of history that also shapes the future for that society. For that focus, alone the series deserves respect. If the negative critics of this series are Americans, they can be forgiven for their ignorance. If the critics are British, they can only be apologists for the behavior of officials who had totally lost their moral bearings.

This program has very fine actors doing their best with woefully inferior scripts. Every character is a stereotype of others we have seen before. Time and time again they behave stupidly in order to advance the plot and intensify the false sense of drama. Sorry, but it just rings hollow and false. There are precious few honest steps taken through the course of "Land Girls." Instead, the audience is manipulated, often with the use of modern PC sensibilities. I have forced myself to watch all fifteen episodes, and it has not been an easy chore. The scripts of Dominique Moloney, Dale Overton, Paul Matthew Thompson, Jude Tindall, Joy Wilkinson, and even series creator Roland Moore fall flat, dumbed down to the shallowest of viewers.

And then, in the midst of all this mediocrity, there comes a single brilliant episode that shows what might have been. Rob Kinsman has written a terrific script for "The Enemy Within," which is episode 3 of series 3. Here the dialogue crackles with intelligence. Suddenly, we are confronted with real people, not television templates. After watching "The Enemy Within," I thought perhaps "Land Girls" had finally found its stride. But, alas, it was not meant to be. Back to the same old predictability we go, and our patience is tested by stupid characters behaving stupidly. Clearly, this production should have hired Rob Kinsman from the start and stayed with him for the entire run. Then they might have really had something to be proud of. As it is, all too often the result is embarrassingly bad.