Reviews

Below par comedy wastes the talents of Peter Davison. Pippa Haywood fails to sparkle in this stinker. While Davidson, Haywood, Moffett, Essell and Rawle try to soldier on, and Katherine Parkinson steals every scene,it can't disguise the fact that this is a plodding and poorly written sitcom.

Lucy Aitkens is truly excruciating to watch in this series and what comedy might be there, is completely lost in her scenes. How on earth did she get cast?

Compared to US sitcoms, or even half decent British sitcoms, this is definitely one that should have been binned by the commissioning editor's. It's like watching something warmed over from the 1940s with a few 1990's topical phrases thrown in. It seems incredibly dated and stilted in portraying a family in that middle-class English way that fails to be either funny or interesting.

Definitely a miss.

I haven't seen the NZ version; sadly it hasn't been shown in the UK to my knowledge. I wish it had been broadcast so I could compare it to this.

Amanda Redman is as good as ever, but some of the supporting actors are absolutely terrible, particularly Mrs Hong, who is either a NZ or Australian actress, and embarrassingly bad. A really, really poor actress who wouldn't even make the grade in a school production...you can only wonder how she got cast! A few too many stereotypes for my taste. The chemistry is good between the detective and Redman. There are some funny lines, but somehow it leaves me expecting more. Wish they had screened the original instead. We are so used to Australian programmes, I can't understand why they didn't show the NZ version, because everyone who has seen it raves about it, and we are left with second best.

Also, I don't know who is doing the make-up for this series, but they are a bit slap happy with the pancake - they all look like orange corpses. Very distracting especially on the detective.

Not one of the UK's best. What could have been a great series was let down by patchy casting and below par writing, this episode probably being the worst of the series. It tried too hard to be clever and funny, and lacked originality. It should have got no further than the cutting room floor.

Peter Davison was in good form, and most of the cast were above average trying to wade their way through, except for Daisy Aitken, who, as Lucy Chadwick was miscast and embarrassingly out of her depth.

It lacked the sparkle and wit of recent US sitcoms. Apart from Steven Moffat, David Renwick, the Irish writing team of Graham Linehan, Dylan Moran et al and the inspired output from Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, there is little quality sitcom material being written in the UK. Fear, Stress and Anger typifies the low quality and very dated material produced.

There is a lot to be said about writing as a team, US style, and including only the best lines, rather the zero quality control of a solo rather jaded writer.

John Thomson