Should Only Fools and Horses return?

Well, should it?

I know the comeback specials of 2001, 02 and 03 were very bad indeed - especially Sleepless in Peckham, but if John Sullivan got his act together and charted storylines better, should it come back for one last two hour extravaganaza?

I know it's been about three and a half years or something since Del and Rodney drove off in their yellow three wheeled van down the motorway and into the distance, but if it redeemed itself and had a return to form. I haven't watched it much since it finished, but as I remember, the last episodes were bad.

It was meant to come back in 2004, but just when John Sullivan was writing the script, David Jason bottled out and announced that he was too old to play the role. Maybe he saw the script ...

The Green Green Grass should get cancelled. It's crap - it always was and always will be. The script is covered in dried up, day old vomit.

But if Nick Lyndhurst and David Jason could be persuaded to return, do you think a return for the Trotter's is possible?

Yeah, they could call it 'Flogging a dead fool' !

My view is no. It was great, but the story has been told.

It ended perfectly in '96.

Jesus, no! It shouldn't come back.

But it probably will.

Why do only fools and horse work,
Because they captured,
the capitalistic mood,
of the eighties,
and guess what,
it's not the eighties now,
na-na-na-na-na-na.

...stick a pony in me pocket....

the song would be funnier if it was ferret instead of a pony.

Uncle Albert, you were supposed to stick the ferret down your trousers, not on your face!

Buster Merrifield was a neighbour of mine. We live in the same village - well, one of us still does on account of him being very dead for the moment. Anyhoo, if it helps I can always nip across to the cemetery and have a quick word if you like. Y'know, dig him up and wait for the one knock for yes or the two knocks for no.

Do it Baumski.

Was he really a sailor?

Quote: Frankie Rage @ August 31, 2007, 4:39 PM

Was he really a sailor?

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His first episode, "Strained Relations", is the only time Del or Rodney admit that they don't believe his stories.

In the second episode he was in, "A Hole in One" which was originally written for Leonard Pierce, the barrister (who played Penny's husband Graham in Just Good Friends) tells the court that he spent most of the war on the Isle of Wight in an amuntions depo.

Of course, Uncle Albert tells a stream of endless yarns and now it seems that he has either been lying through his back teeth for years or was telling the truth from the beginning. I believe he was telling the truth, because in the penultimate episode, 2002's "Stangers on the Shore", Del and Rodney go to Normandy to respresent Albert in a reunion of sailers who crash landed there on a mission in HMS Cod in 1942. There they meet an old friend of Albert's, George Parker - played by Z Car's James Eliis.

So it seems he was telling the truth, but by the end John Sullivan tended to contradict himself - which is a shame, because between 1981 and 1996 there was many sharply written - and often skillfully hidden - references to their past and episodes gone by.

No, it should not.

Quote: Leevil @ August 31, 2007, 3:16 PM

Why do only fools and horse work,
Because they captured,
the capitalistic mood,
of the eighties,
and guess what,
it's not the eighties now,
na-na-na-na-na-na.

View original

Quote: Baumski @ August 31, 2007, 3:40 PM

Buster Merrifield was a neighbour of mine. We live in the same village - well, one of us still does on account of him being very dead for the moment. Anyhoo, if it helps I can always nip across to the cemetery and have a quick word if you like. Y'know, dig him up and wait for the one knock for yes or the two knocks for no.

View original

Quote: Frankie Rage @ August 31, 2007, 4:39 PM

Was he really a sailor?

View original

If you mean the actor, no. Well, I've no idea what he may have done during the war of course. But I seem to recall that professionally he had been a bank manager.

And in answer to the original question... Whilst in theory there's nothing wrong with a return if the scripts are right, in practice Lee's probably hit the nail on the head. The whole mood that the show encompassed has largely vanished. It was brilliant in many ways. And the shows from that era will remain so. But it's gone, and the show should be left alone.

Leevil is right. It should have ended in '96.

I found the 2001 special very embarrasing, the 2002 one was boring and I just didn't see the point of the 2003 special.