British Comedy Guide

Not Going Out - Series 2 Page 46

With perfect facial expressions to match.

As always.

Lee's "Nigella" moment was my favourite part of the show, especially his final expression - worth every second of airtime in my opinion.

Also thought leaving the "F**k off" in there was a great decision - as someone else said; it was so unexpected, it was perfect.

I enjoyed the Christmas special, watched it 3 times allready :D , thought it was going to be 40/45 minutes long so will there be an extended, unrated or director's cut coming to DVD? :D It was downhill afterwards as regards any other comedy this Christmas.
Happy New Year.

I enjoyed the christmas special too, i thought it had a kind of christmasy warmth to it. Maybe iv'e been missing out on this , when i watched the 1st episode of series 2 i thought it the worst show ever but now ive changed my mind. im definitly giving series 3 a chance.

Quote: Dellboy @ December 31, 2007, 1:25 PM

thought it was going to be 40/45 minutes long so will there be an extended, unrated or director's cut coming to DVD?

I don't think they filmed a 40/45 minute version. I think what we saw was it. Wasn't it? Errr

It does seem rather un-fair that all the other main BBC1 sitcoms got 40, 45 minutes or an hour for their special!

Oh well, although an extra 10 minutes of NGO would have been great the half an hour we got was still ace in my opinion. It's great to see, unlike certain other mainstream sitcoms, NGO isn't afraid to take some risks (at this point referencing the 'F**k Off' and Nigella Lawson jokes which have already been discussed)

Bring on series three! I think we should have a BSG trip to Teddington to watch the filming in fact!

You hire the coach, I'll order the pizzas.

Or we could go into that chip shop! I did enjoy those southern fried chicken thingumies.

Without wishing to be too much of a party pooper, but...

For me, the best sitcom Christmas episode repeats of the festive period were the two episodes of Porridge. Both classic sitcom length - 28 mins or whatever. Damn good.

Also for me, the best bit of Christmas special telly was the Extras special. About 80 mins.

Please don't try to persuade me (oh go on, I know you will) that the Porridge specials could have been better at 40-45 mins and Extras better at 60 or less. Genuinely, is there a middle ground that works? Sitcom = 30 mins or less; comedy drama = 60 mins or more. Who thinks it works anywhere in between?

So, what am I getting at? I love the fact that NGO is very popular on here and that some of its writers are generous enough to offer a bit of insight on these forums. But I don't buy the idea that all they needed was another 10 minutes of TV time. Maybe they needed more time in another sense - another week or two to work on it and hone its potential into sitcom length?

Quote: Badge @ January 3, 2008, 12:30 AM

Please don't try to persuade me (oh go on, I know you will) that the Porridge specials could have been better at 40-45 mins...

But they are 45 minutes. Each. Both of them. :-/

Quote: Aaron @ January 3, 2008, 8:57 AM

But they are 45 minutes. Each. Both of them. :-/

I should really check my facts before my argument falls completely apart. My excuse is I watched them quickly.

Quote: Badge @ January 3, 2008, 12:30 AM

Without wishing to be too much of a party pooper, but...

For me, the best sitcom Christmas episode repeats of the festive period were the two episodes of Porridge. Both classic sitcom length - 28 mins or whatever. Damn good.

Also for me, the best bit of Christmas special telly was the Extras special. About 80 mins.

Please don't try to persuade me (oh go on, I know you will) that the Porridge specials could have been better at 40-45 mins and Extras better at 60 or less. Genuinely, is there a middle ground that works? Sitcom = 30 mins or less; comedy drama = 60 mins or more. Who thinks it works anywhere in between?

So, what am I getting at? I love the fact that NGO is very popular on here and that some of its writers are generous enough to offer a bit of insight on these forums. But I don't buy the idea that all they needed was another 10 minutes of TV time. Maybe they needed more time in another sense - another week or two to work on it and hone its potential into sitcom length?

I wouldn't say that is all we needed. Just that it would have been nice, given that the others got it. You can do it in 28min, sure. But it's nice for Christmas specials to broaden the cast from just your 3 main characters to more of a family do, and when it's grown and you've got 6 or 7 in your cast, and more of a 'caper' feel to it, it's nice if you've got a bit longer to do it. I'm not saying it will solve everything, but it would just be nice, given they were doling out extra minutes here there and everywhere to other shows. But I won't grumble - nice to have a Christmas special at all.

Oh, and what he said about the 45min episodes of Porridge. I'm glad you checked up on the show length, cos I wouldn't have thought to.

Porridge - "time flies when you're having fun", perhaps?

No, I really I am just a tit. It takes some skill to choose examples to illustrate your case that totally undermine it.

Apologies all round.

NGO was to me, a 45 minutes story condensed down to 30mins and that's why it would have been better if it were 45mins long. Also, that way, we would have gotten 15mins extra of NGO!

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