Just finished watching this 12 disc (! PHEW!) box set (rotating per disc the sets I have - this, Bilko, Inbetweeners, Young Ones currently) and it has been a most pleasant journey through the life of "Sykes" the character, but it did in my view, sadly, tail off quite badly from about disc 9 onwards so that disc 12 (last four episodes of Series 7) was nowhere near the quality (funny that is) that the earlier episodes were and I struggled with it to the bitter end determined to finish the set.
I don't think it helped when Richard Wattis (Mr Brown) died as I thought he made for a good foil for Sykes as did the brilliant Deryck Guyler (Corky) who sadly didn't feature in every episode. Hattie was superb of course, but you could see in the later episodes that Eric was clearly running out of ideas as silly plots started to appear, which the Eric, Hattie and Deryck struggled to make anything of as the scripts lacked that earlier comedy bite.
Sorry Eric, love your stuff but could see why the Beeb pulled the plug on this series - it wasn't just a change in the public's taste for comedy - you had, literally, lost the plot.
