ThreePointFive

The show has been something of a surprise, and certainly manages to bring some of the old magic back to the screen. There are problems though, the presenting team simply doesn't work. The Morecambe & Wise act that Brad & Lad seem to be going for completely misses the mark, it simply doesn't fit this show. The other issue is that we have two pantomine villains: Legend and Viper. Out of the two, Legend is more convincing, and at least has an element of cheek to his act, and he does look half-convincing as a competitor, but what is the point of Viper? A couple of changes and the magic might be complete.

I have no idea why this is rated so highly, it's just a nightmare to watch. The two main characters are the kinds of people you'd do everything to avoid in real life, so why you'd want them to be front and centre of so many scenes is absolutely beyond me. Bubble is one of the very few good things about the series early on, but her character is destroyed when she's suddenly turned into the kind of character that Julie Walters plays so well. June Whitfield's stinging remarks raise a smile or two to begin with, but that wears off quickly. Any supposed satire gets lost in the oh-so-wacky behaviour of Eddy and Patsy. As for the rest of the characters - Bo and Marshall are about as funny as an Ethiopian famine appeal, John who appears in later episodes is just plain awful, I couldn't work out the point of Fleur and Catriona, and Katy Grin? Grin? Not once! I guess you had to be there at the time for this one, because without that big dollop of nostalgia, there doesn't seem to be much left.