Too arch, too arch!
What's wrong with arch. Why don't you clear off to the Arc de Triomphe?
If by Arch you mean handling complex subjects from moral point of view.
Then yes it is but then you have; Brechtian classics such as Steptoe and Son or the Beckett like Porridge.
Both were classic sitcoms with cues for laughs aplenty. Rev is a modern non audience 'sitcom' that isn't getting laughs out of the odd characters' habits, ala All Gas & Gaters and its offspring. It's trying to get most of its humour from the headline grabbing aspects of modern religion, which is why I used the term arch. It's an interesting idea to try it out, but the big subject material doesn't look right in the sitcom form, to me. 
The religious angle is just that an angle.
An angle that is being ploughed so much, it is overwhelming the characters and making it very difficult for the writer to deliver the finale his ambitious stroylines have promised. It's overwritten, for a TV sitcom. Nice try, but this is crying out for an hour long slot as a comdram.
It's the lady vicars that got you riled innit?
Woe be a sitcom that dares to have plots centred around interesting events and occasions in the characters' lives rather than humdrum, every-day existences. How dare they?
But it's making the characters look unreal, Aaron, as if they are just pegs for pinning on these events. And we can't get to know or love characters who change their attitudes every week to fit the storyline, as that dishevelled one did.
Nice to have plots for a change in sitcoms, but Rev's plots are too ambitious for what Rev is, but isn't really - a half hour sitcom. And it is clearly struggling to complete them successfully.
Quote: Alfred J Kipper @ December 3 2011, 12:02 PM GMTBut it's making the characters look unreal, Aaron, as if they are just pegs for pinning on these events.
Well I disagree.
Quote: Alfred J Kipper @ December 3 2011, 12:02 PM GMTAnd we can't get to know or love characters who change their attitudes every week to fit the storyline, as that dishevelled one did.
Yes, and that has been a character trait that the character, Colin, has stayed true to since the first episode. He constantly changes and wavers depending on his mood. His change in attitude is a continuation in characterisation.
And this is pretty normal life for a vicar. The background detail like the rag and bone trade in Steptoe.
But to me he looks much more like a device than a real character. He is probably the 2nd most important character in Rev but he's being used so blatantly as a writer's device to to spin the stories off in all directions.
What's he going to be into next week, as the episode starts? Paganistic nudist ritualism, to suit another far flung storyline?
Quote: sootyj @ December 3 2011, 12:11 PM GMTAnd this is pretty normal life for a vicar.
No, for a single Vicar in the real world, I'd say it's far from normal life, Sooty. For a composite fictional Vicar who takes on all the most sensationalist headline grabbing aspects of modern religion on his own head, is it only normal. It is very contrived and it's a shame.
Alf old boy my dad was a minister, I grew up in that whole world.
Maybe it's a little intensified but it's realistic.
Single?
As in single, or single?
I am enjoying it but it reminds me of the early series of Lead Balloon in that you get the feeling it'll never be a great sitcom, merely good. It tootles along and makes you smile, and you care about the characters, but there are never any real belly laughs.
It's quite interesting Rev and Life's Too Short follow one another. I actually laugh out loud at Life's Too Short but never at Rev. Yet Rev has a believable (at least to me) story line that is smooth and seems realistic. LTS in no way has that and is completely unrealistic in it's delivery. My point. Who knows? Perhaps a combination of both? Life's To Rev?
