Quote: Tim Azure @ October 18 2011, 10:38 AM BSTDoes that mean you know the real reason? It does seem that transferring radio episodes of Bleak Expectations to telly would be expensive, given that usually each episode is an unconnected story and there would be an endless number of special effects. Make sense to me.
It means I know enough that I have strong reason to suspect that this is not the reason!
Looking forward to this as hopefully a nice antidote to the wearying cringe-porn of Life's Too Short. Is the first episode a genuine one hour special, or just the first two thirty-minute episodes welded together?
No, it is a genuine one-off, written as such, and a self-contained, separate story from the one we'll see over the series in January. Can't wait. 
Quote: Aaron @ October 7 2011, 2:12 PM GMTWe never publish anything we're not confident of.
Just like the Guardian.
Or any other non-tabloid newspaper, yes!
The incidental music seems a bit intrusive at times.
You know, it's amazing that no-one's ever thought of parodying Dickens before...
Very old-hat student sketch humour really, which even a strong cast and elegant production values can do little to elevate. Lots of humourous (if trite) wordplay, but no real invention.
Having not heard the radio show myself, but having read the glowing praise for it on here, I was expecting better things. But not one for me. Can imagine it doing fairly well with normal, healthy viewers though.
Something certainly isn't clicking. There's something curiously uninvolving about it. It might have worked better if, like Bleak Expectations, it was recorded in front of a studio audience.
Yes, it's not been as good as the radio series.
Not written well enough, and all the 'familiar faces' give it that feeling of 'well if we put so many good people in it it's bound to be good'.
I guess it will seem absurdist and funny for most people. ha ha
I think it's pulled together as the episode has gone on.
Some very funny lines.
Was Mark Evans the vicar?
Quote: zooo @ December 19 2011, 9:22 PM GMTI think it's pulled together as the episode has gone on.
I thought the opposite, I was losing interest by the end. The cog line did make me LOL though when the kid stood on the little clock.
Oh dear
Disappointing
Not funny at all really
And Stephen Fry seemed bored too
Shame
Quote: Nil Putters @ December 19 2011, 9:23 PM GMTWas Mark Evans the vicar?
It was. I am boss.
