British Comedy Guide

Not Going Out - Series 2 Page 10

Hi Stan, welcome to the BSG Wave

Quote: Leevil @ September 10, 2007, 9:13 PM

I just thought Sally Bretton was pretty poor a delivering those type of lines, but she's good in The Office and Green Wing.

In fairness, this is, as far as I'm aware, the first time she has done a sitcom like this. A.K.A On front of an audience. It may have taken her an epsiode or two to get used to it as it would, I imagine, require a different type of acting.

Hi Aaron, many thanks. Glad to see NGO back on the box. Love the humour although it might not be everyones cup of tea! Does anyone know when the DVD of series 1 is out?

Cheers

Stan

The DVD will be released on the 15th of October.

See Amazon product listing
[p=http://clkuk.tradedoubler.com/click?p=20047&a=415536&g=606309&url=http://www.play.com/DVD/DVD/4-/3245514/Not-Going-Out-Complete-First-Series/Product.html]

Better tonight, although the whole 'pretend to be gay' plot has been done many times before. Still, some sharp lines and funny moments. Enjoyable rather than side splitting in my book. :)

I agree Jay - enjoyable. Neither of the first two episodes has been as good as those from the last series though, IMHO.

Quote: Rustle T Davis @ September 14, 2007, 11:29 PM

I agree Jay - enjoyable. Neither of the first two episodes has been as good as those from the last series though, IMHO.

Yeah, hasn't hit the high spots yet like in Series 1 but that's not a huge criticism. Its a good, watchable BBC1 comedy and how often has that been said in recent years?

Glad to see they didn't do an obligatory gay plot ;)

I thought tonight's was very slow early doors and it seemed, despite four writers, they had no idea how to get Lee to play gay without having a pretty dull conversation about him having to do it. I still don't see why he couldn't go out. "How do we make him play gay? We'll just say he's got to do it for her." Very contrived.

The bit in the bar with Tim was good and the bit with Lee dancing and Tim catching him was very good, but it seems such hard going at times. Sally Bretton's pause for the audience to laugh seems too exaggerated while the cleaner is just pointless.

i agree it was slow to get going but once it did there were plenty of laughs.
with this sort of show i think you have to just ignore any attempts at wafer thin plots and enjoy the jokes.
for me i only think the show works when lee or tim (or both) are on screen. its really just a vehicle for their gags. the scenes where they are absent are just painful.
and the cleaner is just not needed. and not funny.

Again it was enjoyable but it's definitely lost something that the first series had, the gags came thick and fast last series and it seems a lot slower this time around.

Andrew Collins wasn't involved in the first two episodes though but he's back next week so maybe we'll see a return to form.

Agree for the most part with what everyone else is saying. Not quite up to last series, but maybe the expectation level is too high? Nonetheless, it's still very enjoyable and there's still plenty of laughs and a few belly laughs too. I don't think the cleaner is completely useless. It's her who shrinks Lee's t-shirt, which makes him look gayer. See. Not completely useless. ;)

Not as enjoyable this week, but it was still good. Lee is great, still not keen on Sally though and Tim is pretty cardboardy, but he's likable.

I must admit, this grew on me the second time, although the girl in it doesn't look nearly as hot as when she appeared in The Office. I'd still do her, though, if she's reading this and wants to get in touch.

Sorry I'm late. It's been very interesting reading these comments. Because it's the second series I'm feeling less sensitive to criticism, and I'm not taking it personally! Also, the figures have been good again - 3.3 million for the first episode, 3.2 million for the second, with a much higher audience share than the first series (which began with 2.9 million and something like 13%, and we're up to 16% this time) - and I'm glad that, even with caveats (mainly based on the new characters and new set-up), the jokes are still being appreciated by people who liked the first series. No excuses. It's been hard going - I wasn't available for the whole of January, and thus missed the writing of the first episode, and a lot of the setting up; we had five writers working on it this time, overlapping, on various episodes, some writing drafts, others "gagging up", others storylining episodes, as we had the same amount of time to write eight episodes that we had to write six last year (five, if you discount the pilot, which was already written). And they moved the transmission date forward, which means they're working their arses off to get it filmed and edited in time. (We're about two weeks in front at the moment, which isn't a lot.) With all that taken into consideration, I'm pleased with the way it's working out. I wouldn't expect anyone who didn't like the first series to suddenly like this one, but I hope the upcoming episodes repay your patience!

I did co-write Gay, by the way. Contrived? I'll say. That's the fun of writing a sitcom, rather than gritty social realism! Because I haven't been able to get to the recordings yet, I watched Gay go out on Friday night with the rest of you. Many of the gags had been added in rehearsal, so I'd not even heard them myself. I rather enjoyed this. It was like an out-of-sitcom experience.

Thanks for caring enough to write such a long thread about it, even if it's not all positive. We live and learn.

Just to be different, I think this episode was my favourite so far, more Sit and less com (well gags), slower maybe but this is much more to my taste. More what I would call reaction comedy a rise of a eye brow or a side way look can have me rolling with laughter.

I also like Miranda Hart in most things she does she was by far the best thing in Hyperdrive (the fact there was no mentions on her first series appearance still annoys me wouldn’t now seem right if I went and re-watch the first series)

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