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March 28, 2024, 10:48:21 PM

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Friday Night Dinner is back

Started by Fambo Number Mive, March 27, 2020, 07:12:14 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Lisa Jesusandmarychain

Friday Night Dinner: The "Royle Family Christmas Specials" Years.


Maybe the episode where we get to see the girlfriends of Will From The Inbetweeners and the other one will be a corker?

olliebean

The bleak thing about Horrible Grandma dying in the show was it reminded me again that Nice Grandma died in real life recently.

chrispmartha

I thought it was tonally off as well, it just seemed to escalate quite nastily (which is fine if it was humorous) but it just came across wrong.

This series has definitely been poor which is a massive shame as I'm a big fan.

canadagoose

It's been a weird series, hasn't it. It's not quite got the balance of humour and ridiculousness quite right this time. I mean, I've still got plenty laughs from it, but compare the episode with the fox to last night's and it's far from as good.

chrispmartha

Forgot to add, as poor as the episode was I did literally LOL when Martin threw the pound coin at Jonny's head

Bad Ambassador

Quote from: Bad Ambassador on April 07, 2020, 03:39:31 PM
Thanks to the COVID-19 bump, the first episode of the new series got 4.63m viewers, not far from double the previous high and the third-highest rated Channel 4 show for the week.

Second episode got 4.01m, third-highest again. Only four things got more than 2m.

Lemming

Great return to form, really funny throughout. Paul Ritter needs some kind of award for the delivery of "WHY CAN'T WE JUST HAVE SOME BLOODY ICE CREAM"

the science eel

Yeah, best of the series so far. Lots of big laughs.

chrispmartha

Yep, total return to form, I think they got the Jim oddness about roght in this one and Paul Ritter is just great.

Thought that was the best for ages too. "FuckBot 1000."

Alberon

The Lucys didn't have much to do but it was an enjoyable episode. If it's the last ever episode (and it does feel like it) then it's a good send off.

Lemming

That was clearly the last ever episode, so I'm not sure why Robert Popper says he has no plans to end it.

I hope it doesn't end, this series was weaker in a lot of parts but it still had a couple of good episodes and demonstrated that the characters and concept have plenty of steam left, if written well.

BritishHobo

I didn't mind last week's but again, like most stuff this series Auntie Val felt dialed up to eleven thousand, way more OTT than she's ever been before. Being horrid to Jackie and mocking her clothes and then they lock her in a cage but she implies she wants to fuck a Tinder date through the cage while the family wait in the hall and the family just go 'alright but Jim gets to watch'? Mate. BOY I SURE HOPE SOMEBODY GOT FIRED FOR THAT BLUNDER

BritishHobo

I've not seen this week's yet. Sorry.

Bad Ambassador

Spoiler alert
The puppies should have all had Mark Heap's face.
[close]

Brian Freeze

Enjoyed this weeks much much more than any other in this series. On the whole anyway. It felt like it had been written by people who actually liked them as characters rather than people doing caricatures of them.
I keep meaning to look if there was much of a change in writers between different series but havent managed to remember yet.

Captain Z

Spoiler alert
I groaned as soon as I saw it was going to be 'the girlfriends' episode. Some of the glass stuff was quite funny ("a bit of glass never hurt anybody") but overall the whole series has felt like the writers forgot how to write comedy. I hope that is the last of it, I won't be watching if they attempt to introduce kids.
[close]

Pseudopath

Quote from: Brian Freeze on May 01, 2020, 11:43:52 PM
Enjoyed this weeks much much more than any other in this series. On the whole anyway. It felt like it had been written by people who actually liked them as characters rather than people doing caricatures of them.
I keep meaning to look if there was much of a change in writers between different series but havent managed to remember yet.

There's only ever been one writer - Robert Popper of Look Around You fame.

Quote from: Captain Z on May 01, 2020, 11:56:11 PM
Spoiler alert
I won't be watching if they attempt to introduce kids.
[close]

Yep. Comedy kryptonite.

jamm

Tonight's episode really felt like the last one but I said that about the last episode of series 4 and 5 too. Do hope it's actually over now, was pretty disappointed with this year's series. Only episode that felt on point to me was episode 5 while the rest were just alright or pretty bad. I feel like they've made Jim far too weird to be funny now (like the "so you're the same person in two bodies" line in tonight's episode) but Martin is still alreet.

the science eel

Last week's was loads better, probably the best of the series.

I watched the first two of the first series, which followed. Anyone else notice how much Jim was different in the second-ever episode? especially his speech?

Alberon

I did catch a bit of the early episodes. The difference in Jim is vast. He goes from a halfway believable human being to a cartoon.

Lisa Jesusandmarychain

Quote from: Alberon on May 02, 2020, 10:07:10 AM
I did catch a bit of the early episodes. The difference in Jim is vast. He goes from a halfway believable human being to a cartoon.

Flanderisation, innit? Normally confined to U.S sitcoms, indeed the Yank version of " The Office" contains a couple of good examples of a character going from " a bit odd and irritating" to " full on mentally ill". It's been mentioned before, but the character arc of the gang  in  " It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia" could well be a shrewd satire of this sitcom phenomenon.

That *did* feel like the very final episode of FND , particularly with the two sons admitting that they'd both have to grow up, but there's always the possibility of the two girlfriends having comedy miscarriages, and resetting the whole sitcom scenario.

Fambo Number Mive

Both Lucy's being pregnant did seem to be stretching it a bit. Can't imagine Johnny and Adam as dads. There is potential for another series I think, they could have Martin and Jackie adopting Jim's puppies which might be amusing. Be nice to have the Lucy's in a couple of the episodes and flesh them out a bit more.

mrClaypole

I got the feeling that the dance scene at the end was abit of a dig at Gavin and Stacey .
Very funny episode though. It was very weird watching the 1st series straight afterwards and hearing Jim speak differently and almost be normal.

Glyn

Quote from: Pseudopath on May 02, 2020, 01:12:48 AM
There's only ever been one writer - Robert Popper of Look Around You fame.


Was it this series though that Popper was talking about on Rule of Three ?(have come to that podcast a bit late but assume it was still fairly recent). He mentioned something along the lines of how he has changed his writing approach from starting with a plot and the adding jokes to starting with jokes and finding the plot later.

Pseudopath

Quote from: the science eel on May 02, 2020, 09:32:05 AM
Last week's was loads better, probably the best of the series.

No way. That rice pudding scene was horrific. If you are going to feature a character with obvious learning difficulties, make sure you're always laughing with them, not at them. It really tainted my view of the series as a whole.

the science eel

Quote from: Pseudopath on May 02, 2020, 12:59:11 PM
No way. That rice pudding scene was horrific. If you are going to feature a character with obvious learning difficulties, make sure you're always laughing with them, not at them. It really tainted my view of the series as a whole.

You mean Jim? Hasn't it been that way for a while?

I'm not saying the episode was flawless, just that it was probably the best in a weak series.

Quote from: Pseudopath on May 02, 2020, 12:59:11 PM
No way. That rice pudding scene was horrific. If you are going to feature a character with obvious learning difficulties, make sure you're always laughing with them, not at them. It really tainted my view of the series as a whole.

That felt a bit off to me too. Not enough to taint the whole series but struck a bit of an uneasy tone in an already odd episode. Might be wrong, but it feels like the first time they've gone from tolerating Jim's "quirks" to exploiting them. But at least they didn't make him eat the shardy chicken soup!

imitationleather

Next episode will be Lucys' miscarriages.

Lemming

The family earned the rice pudding thing after years of Jim being such a prat to them 24/7. I dunno about Jim having an actual learning disability, he's just a hyper-real comedy character.* He clearly has enough self-awareness to realise he's intruding on them constantly but physically forces himself in anyway. Not to mention all the times he actually molested Jackie in the earlier series and clearly knew exactly what he was doing then too. Remember when he faked being unconscious to force Jackie to give him mouth-to-mouth CPR?

THE MORALS OF FRIDAY NIGHT DINNER

*although it's definitely got worse over the last couple of series with the flanderisation. But in the first few series he's definitely just a weird, knowingly creepy guy rather than mentally disabled.