My only concern about Martin working on the clock was that he seemed to take some comfort in his return to his once solitary life of working on clocks rather than from his new life as a married man. I think this foreshadows what we will see as his continuing alienation from Louisa
It's Forrabury (sp?) church by Boscastle (walking distance to the village) - I park there in a layby when I do that part of the cliff walk.
The white building on the cliff in the background is a manned coastguard station (which people don't realise and stare through the windows only to realise there are people inside!).
Haven't read all the thread so hope I haven't gone off on a tangent or misunderstood!
According to Wikipedia - Doc Martin Episodes, Richard Stoneman has written S6E3. So far, Jack Lothian for E1, Ben Bolt for E2 and Stoneman for E3. If they follow the same procedure as previous series, they will each have written a second episode. I wonder who the fourth one is - can't possibly be a female writer -- can it?
My only concern about Martin working on the clock was that he seemed to take some comfort in his return to his once solitary life of working on clocks rather than from his new life as a married man. I think this foreshadows what we will see as his continuing alienation from Louisa
A couple of random things I spotted. When JH was in the consulting room with Martin, and Mike took him out (with the stuffed cat), I noticed a small stuffed animal (elephant I think?) stuffed between some of the items on the mantle (in the consulting room). Also, during the dinner party there is a small stuffed animal sprawled on top of the radiator right next to the kitchen table.
This is definitely a household that has been taken over by a baby.
Oh, good! I'll watch for those when I re-watch. That's certainly a touch of realism. I remember toys and baby items turning up in the oddest places in my house way back when. And of course I or my husband had put them in those odd places and forgotten.
One wonders if she doesn't like DM changing as she never changed, she never experienced love, never had a child. She is the DM who DM would have been if he had stayed a surgeon in London.
I agree, she is too close to DM emotionally in my opinion to really help him. IMO he has outgrown her, he has reached a point she can't even imagine.
Maybe DM having his career break has been a break for him personally. Just hope it'll pay off for him eventuall.
I don't think Ruth can see a future in the choices DM made.
An interesting thing to note from having gotten to see some filming. The scene with Penhale sits in the police car on the beach calling into Caroline's show to talk to AR (when he's "Cliff") - i got to watch it being filmed. The boys in the background at the beginning of the shot came around and pushed their faces against the glass of the window making faces at him. (You can see them in the back of the car window at the very beginning). He then chased them off by hitting the window. You can see the marks on the window from earlier takes where they were shoving their faces against the glass. It looks like this got cut completely. Maybe they were going to hint that people don't respect Penhale, but then decided to change it. Maybe not.
interesting to see what ends up on the cutting room floor.
An interesting thing to note from having gotten to see some filming. The scene with Penhale sits in the police car on the beach calling into Caroline's show to talk to AR (when he's "Cliff") - i got to watch it being filmed. The boys in the background at the beginning of the shot came around and pushed their faces against the glass of the window making faces at him. (You can see them in the back of the car window at the very beginning). He then chased them off by hitting the window. You can see the marks on the window from earlier takes where they were shoving their faces against the glass. It looks like this got cut completely. Maybe they were going to hint that people don't respect Penhale, but then decided to change it. Maybe not.
interesting to see what ends up on the cutting room floor.
Oh, what fun to have that glimpse into what does and doesn't make it onto the screen! I'll bet you practically jumped out of your chair when you saw the marks still on the window.
An interesting thing to note from having gotten to see some filming. The scene with Penhale sits in the police car on the beach calling into Caroline's show to talk to AR (when he's "Cliff") - i got to watch it being filmed. The boys in the background at the beginning of the shot came around and pushed their faces against the glass of the window making faces at him. (You can see them in the back of the car window at the very beginning). He then chased them off by hitting the window. You can see the marks on the window from earlier takes where they were shoving their faces against the glass. It looks like this got cut completely. Maybe they were going to hint that people don't respect Penhale, but then decided to change it. Maybe not.
interesting to see what ends up on the cutting room floor.
That is interesting, mazzieblue. It makes us wonder what else was filmed that we don't see in the finished product. I wish they'd offer up a "director's cut" kind of thing so we could see the lost scenes.
Didn't you also see the scene with Penhale and DM and Louisa in the street being filmed, the one in which Penhale is complimenting them?
Also, doesn't it express, to a degree at least, what DM might have been feeling as he was struggling with his feelings about Louisa, and his "abhorrence of the L-word" as BB once said?
But i think the title here is the real significance (to the extent that there is any).
The "she" I was actually referring to was Tina Turner.
Oh yes I think it applies to LG and DM too.
I think it is the lyrics not just the title - I think BP are that obsessive.
Thanks Susie - I actually saw those postings first and thought they had done my work for me. But when I looked at pictures online of the Tintagel church I could see slight differences. That's when I started looking at other churches. The small pointed parts of the tower were the giveaway. There are a lot of churches with similar towers, but most of them are either the same level all around the top or tall spiky parts on the corners. This church has short and simple spiky parts on the corners so it made it easier to identify. Once I found the one that looked right I checked the shape of the large stained glass window (that was also not a match in Tintagel) and then the smaller window above. Once I was 99% sure I had it, I looked on Google maps for what I discovered was the lookout tower nearby - it all fit.
So, although the churches at Tintagel and Bocastle are very similar, I'm 100% sure it is the Boscastle church.
I really didn't understand her "silly daddy" comment at all. Even when he left it unlocked, I'd never shake a bottle without checking if it is tightly shut. If anything, both were to blame.
Oh that's where we're different, I would! :rolleyes:
A couple of random things I spotted. When JH was in the consulting room with Martin, and Mike took him out (with the stuffed cat), I noticed a small stuffed animal (elephant I think?) stuffed between some of the items on the mantle (in the consulting room). Also, during the dinner party there is a small stuffed animal sprawled on top of the radiator right next to the kitchen table.
This is definitely a household that has been taken over by a baby.
Oh no! Is this going to be the "find the stuffed animal" series! :D:D
Just when we had the Buddha sorted! :rolleyes:
According to Wikipedia - Doc Martin Episodes, Richard Stoneman has written S6E3. So far, Jack Lothian for E1, Ben Bolt for E2 and Stoneman for E3. If they follow the same procedure as previous series, they will each have written a second episode. I wonder who the fourth one is - can't possibly be a female writer -- can it?
No no females. Ben Bolt only writes one this series. I listed the others before, I'll have to search when on computer not on phone. There is a new writer this series.
That is interesting, mazzieblue. It makes us wonder what else was filmed that we don't see in the finished product. I wish they'd offer up a "director's cut" kind of thing so we could see the lost scenes.
Didn't you also see the scene with Penhale and DM and Louisa in the street being filmed, the one in which Penhale is complimenting them?
I did. I was sitting and chatting with a very nice woman who turned out to the be wife of the man playing Dennis (his actual wife, not the on-screen one). When he came over to talk to her, his accent was the most soft-spoken, proper BBC English one I've heard in a long time. Fun to hear him in character.
I believe the house that Dennis was working on in S2 is in fact the same house they used for Mr & Mrs Rix in S2. The person who saw the filming indicated it was on Lundy Rd and the Rix home was at the end of Lundy Rd, the side of the house facing the sea. When we looked at her pictures taken during filming it really resembled the house but there were some significant differences. After watching the episode, It clearly looks like a home under construction - or extensive remodel, although his wife refers to it as the "new house".
I just looked at the house in both Google Maps and Bing Maps. Unfortunately we have no street view, so only the satellite image. On the Google satellite it all looks the same as when I found it a year or so ago. But on the Bing map, the side of the house (where the yard is facing the sea) is unmistakably a construction site.
So here is my theory. When I identified the house a year or so ago, one thing I found was that the house was for sale - so the several pictures on the listing confirmed for me that it was the Rix house. I'm guessing whoever bought the house has been doing extensive renovations - hense the "bones" of the house look the same, but it now looks like a different house. Makes sense that Johnny Bamford would look at this house under construction and rent it out for a couple of days so they didn't have to create a construction site for this one scene.
When I get a chance, I will try to get some side by side pictures of before and after.
I agree, she is too close to DM emotionally in my opinion to really help him. IMO he has outgrown her, he has reached a point she can't even imagine.
Maybe DM having his career break has been a break for him personally. Just hope it'll pay off for him eventuall.
I don't think Ruth can see a future in the choices DM made.
I think Martin should give all his Buddhas to AR. It is she whose character reflects them.
He's not quite as bad a Tricia Soames, now is he? I mean at least he can come and go whenever he wants, wherever he wants. He had been functional enough to be in service "in the desert" (presumably Iraq?). He's also not quite as bad off as Stewart, and even he had found a housemate ( who took him for granted:D).
I agree that his need for tidyness isn't on the healthy side anymore, but just as they start using autistic people for jobs where you have to find little differences, I think Mike would make a good manny. Martin and Louisa would have full information on their son's activities, food intake (six ounces of formula:p), sleeping habits etc. I bet if something would be off, Mike would notice immediately.
Just because Louisa needs a bit of a mess around (isn't her messing up the pens just as compulsive as Mike's need to align them?) doesn't mean he wouldn't be suited for the job. From what we've seen from him so far he's the best child care they had, and probably even with better competition he would come out front.
I just had to smile when the Doc even found a bit of unevenness with the distance between the pens and just ordered them even more perfectly.
Thanks Bodmin DM for engaging with my thoughts so thoroughly. I thought I'd try the same format in responding to yours, though this could fractalise! I agree that the manny is their best option for child care, so far. Martin's argument "JH likes him" is actually a strong point with me.
I found that bit about Joe cringeworthy. I mean even Ruth must have seen through his brilliant camouflage right away. Maybe it's just me, but I didn't really think Joe's problem is that he comes across as being too heroic and self-centred. We've seen the admiration he had for his brother, he admires the Doc, I'd say he did what Ruth suggested anyway ad nauseum. To enhance that even more would be just ennervating for anyone around.
Let's face it - Joe's a moron and there's nothing you can do about that.
I mean even the Portwenn effect has to be stretched that Joe stood by when Denis drove into his police car and he didn't do anything about it just because he wasn't drunk.
Oh, you're not drunk - okay, you can cause damage as much as you like then!
That's true about Joe admiring his older brother and Martin. If the account of Joe's childhood we have in "Perish together as fools" is the accurate one (there Sam says their father "took off" when he was aged 5-6; there is a differing account in S3 where Joe says to Al that he calls his father every week) what Joe is missing is a father-figure, so he spends his life in search of one. To me this only reinforces AR's analysis. She says that he tries to call attention to the heroism of his position because "deep down he feels inadequate." No one believes Joe's PR, not even Joe; all they see is the inadequacy ("unfit for purpose" "a fruitcake" Martin calls him). Taking his focus off himself (how he looks, the role which he has, in every situation and becoming more attentive to the other people in the frame might really help!
I was really annoyed with Louisa. I mean did she expect him to give up his only hobby just to do whatever she likes all the time? I thought it was quite sweet that he took his time to explain everything to her. He was sharing and patient. She was just rude, or had she never heard that leaving in the middle of a conversation is very bad manners?:mad: He was treating her as an equal. She could have at least spend a few minutes of her valuable time to endure his interest.
After all she expected Martin to spend hours at the school concert, and he provided. Maybe the main problem of their relation in this episode is that she wants the facade of their marriage to look good while he is more interested in what's going on behind closed doors (why do I think of Isobel right now?).
There are two sides here, and it has to do with the different "love languages" (see the book The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman) Martin and Louisa speak. In another scene where the script-writers touch on this difference (the beautiful one in S5 where Louisa remarks that Joe's desire to have just one more day with Maggie as his wife before shattering her delusion was "romantic" but quickly adds "you're hardly Mr. hearts and flowers" and where Martin says he doesn't think it's romantic at all: "the guy's an idiot" impeding the access of one he supposedly cares for to proper medical treatment, and then announcing his own love gesture, the naming of their baby according to Louisa's choice, not his) Louisa shows her idea of romance to consist of "hearts and flowers" -- the acknowledgement of two week anniversaries -- saying "nice things" (what Chapman would call 'words of affirmation.' This is not Martin's love language at all. His dominant love language is "acts of service," but here he is offering "quality time" -- so he's showing her how to fix a clock and he's not being particularly attentive to Louisa, but the subtext is: "come, be included in my world, let's spend time here together, which is better than how I've always done this before, just me in my splendid isolation." That is deeply honouring, and I think in Martin's language a way of saying "yes, I regard you as an intelligent equal." Louisa may not experience it that way at all. It may in fact feel patronising to her. She wants a lover not a teacher. Isobel accuses Louisa of always going for the Doctor when they used to play love and marriage games as children, doesn't she? If that's really the attraction, then yes, Louisa is a very superficial person, concerned only with "the facade" of not only their happiness in marriage, but also of the man she married (professional, tall, well-to-do). I am not that cynical about her. I think part of what attracts her to Martin is her generosity of spirit -- she wants to open him up, to "help him" in some way -- but we haven't seen much of that, actually since S2.
I'm not really surprised. We have seen this side of Louisa before, most prominently maybe when she laughed about Martin's blood phobia with Mark Mylow's sister. She isn't immune to ill talk and thinking badly about people, she just doesn't tell them directly.
That's why I take DM all the time - he's honest as the day's long.
Somebody here named a scene in S6E2 as Louisa at her absolute worst. I don't think she is NEARLY at her worst in this episode. The two scenes where I REALLY don't like Louisa is that one where she laughs about Martin's blood phobia with Sandra Mylow in S2, and where she takes "the devil's chalice" from her mother in S5. Both are a betrayal not only of Martin but also of what is one of Louisa's central virtues, that restraint which shines through when she says to Danny at the end of S2 "And I haven't said anything about this before..." She is more generous in spirit than the mean-minded people around her, but in those two scenes she joins in with the mean-minded characters around her. Badly done, Louisa. Badly done. I think what's going on with Louisa in this episode is altogether different than that.
Unfortunately I found this episode bloodless in every respect.
I agree with you on the last one. Loved it! As if it was a deliberate decision to walk into that door. He of all people should know, after hitting his head on the doorframe the umpteenth time. So why do you keep doing that, Martin?
Martin has sometimes said in interviews that when the Doc is being especially "vile" they like to walk him into doors "in order to punish him." Is Louisa being similarly "punished" in this episode? (That would seem to suggest that Louisa's behaviour is being judged the worse of the two here -- and with that I would tend to agree, pace Newpark whose points I do see about having empathy for Louisa if we were placed in similar situations) Is something of the Doc's clumsiness/myopia/physical comedy rubbing off onto her? Or is it just a plot-driven device to ensure that Dennis gets distracted and falls backwards off the roof?
After seeing this week's episode I'm tempted to think that DM's blood phobia returns because he secretly regrets that he didn't take the job in London and needs an excuse to justify him abandoning surgery.
Could be. I'm inclined not to think so, but I am confident in nothing when I make predictions about this show. That ability to keep me guessing is why I respect it so much.
I might add some other scenes .
When DM gets JH from the scratching nanny and carries him into the kitchen, he asks JH if he is itchy. I like the way DM treats his son as a person. He talks to him with respect, but he's not so naive to expect an answer. I think this relation also mirrors in his point that JH likes Mike as his carer.
Isn't it an Ellingham thing? AR speaks to him similarly in E1. Martin always speaks to James this way in S5 too. In fact that comment about him finishing the washing up and then their "having some fun" probably means that Martin will read to him from another medical journal.
When Louisa comes home from school, she asks JH how his day has been, but DM answers instead that his day was fine. Good for Martin that he refuses to be ignored , even when I doubt that it has been conscious.
Generally I wondered, like Mona, why they had regressed their relationship that much since E1 without any good reason I could see. I don't really think there is an explanation, just the way the writers wanted it.
However, if I'd ignore the fact that this is fiction (what, it's not real!:eek:), and if I treat them as real people, then I can see one major difference for Louisa that links her shrewish behaviour to that of S5. It was her first day back at school.
Maybe DM really was spot on in S4 when he assumed Louisa wouldn't be good at being a working Mum. Maybe that's what causes her a feeling of falling short in her own expectations on both fronts which causes her to be more unsteady (and unpleasant at times). That would also explain why she wasn't that way in S1-3.
The honeymoon, however disastrous in its own way, was still time apart for them. That's the point which is being made by the last scene of E1 where they arrive back to the surgery kitchen and the "screaming baby, moaning patients, noise of traffic" etc. are all pressing in again in a moment. To me it was very realistic to have them revert to type once they were back in their accustomed milieu, not in some artificial honeymoon world-out-of-time.
No no females. Ben Bolt only writes one this series. I listed the others before, I'll have to search when on computer not on phone. There is a new writer this series.
Sorry, I missed that post but I did scroll back just about a month ago and found your post. You said that Charlie Martin wrote episodes 4 and 6 (past tv credits: Wild at Heart, The Time of your Life, Teachers and Is Harry on the Boat.) Julian Unthank wrote episode 5 (past tv credits: New Tricks, Robin Hood, The Bill and Family Affairs.)
I believe the house that Dennis was working on in S2 is in fact the same house they used for Mr & Mrs Rix in S2. The person who saw the filming indicated it was on Lundy Rd and the Rix home was at the end of Lundy Rd, the side of the house facing the sea. When we looked at her pictures taken during filming it really resembled the house but there were some significant differences. After watching the episode, It clearly looks like a home under construction - or extensive remodel, although his wife refers to it as the "new house".
I just looked at the house in both Google Maps and Bing Maps. Unfortunately we have no street view, so only the satellite image. On the Google satellite it all looks the same as when I found it a year or so ago. But on the Bing map, the side of the house (where the yard is facing the sea) is unmistakably a construction site.
So here is my theory. When I identified the house a year or so ago, one thing I found was that the house was for sale - so the several pictures on the listing confirmed for me that it was the Rix house. I'm guessing whoever bought the house has been doing extensive renovations - hense the "bones" of the house look the same, but it now looks like a different house. Makes sense that Johnny Bamford would look at this house under construction and rent it out for a couple of days so they didn't have to create a construction site for this one scene.
When I get a chance, I will try to get some side by side pictures of before and after.
Yes, I remember that discussion. I'm glad to know I wasn't crazy when I first thought it looked like the same house. I remember that it was for sale; that's how we were able to get a good look. Wow! Cool that Bing maps shows it as a construction site, just as in the episode. Off to Bing now! Thanks, Shop Girl.
I'm glad the mom was ok...the baby seemed ok..MC was such a bad boy...but someone had to do it!
I remember MC saying that with the children he asks their permission or talks to them about what he has to do in his role. So I'm sure he would have done the same thing with the parent of the baby.
A couple of random things I spotted. When JH was in the consulting room with Martin, and Mike took him out (with the stuffed cat), I noticed a small stuffed animal (elephant I think?) stuffed between some of the items on the mantle (in the consulting room). Also, during the dinner party there is a small stuffed animal sprawled on top of the radiator right next to the kitchen table.
This is definitely a household that has been taken over by a baby.
Yes, I remember that discussion. I'm glad to know I wasn't crazy when I first thought it looked like the same house. I remember that it was for sale; that's how we were able to get a good look. Wow! Cool that Bing maps shows it as a construction site, just as in the episode. Off to Bing now! Thanks, Shop Girl.
I like Google maps better than Bing (Bing feels "buggy" to me moving about and zooming), but sometimes they are more up to date. One thing you will notice if you look at this house on Bing. If you try to zoom in too far it reverts to an older satellite image. So you can go back and forth: house with intact yard - house as a construction site. Kind of fun, really
Comments
The white building on the cliff in the background is a manned coastguard station (which people don't realise and stare through the windows only to realise there are people inside!).
Haven't read all the thread so hope I haven't gone off on a tangent or misunderstood!
I thought that, too.
Oh, good! I'll watch for those when I re-watch. That's certainly a touch of realism. I remember toys and baby items turning up in the oddest places in my house way back when. And of course I or my husband had put them in those odd places and forgotten.
I agree, she is too close to DM emotionally in my opinion to really help him. IMO he has outgrown her, he has reached a point she can't even imagine.
Maybe DM having his career break has been a break for him personally. Just hope it'll pay off for him eventuall.
I don't think Ruth can see a future in the choices DM made.
interesting to see what ends up on the cutting room floor.
Oh, what fun to have that glimpse into what does and doesn't make it onto the screen! I'll bet you practically jumped out of your chair when you saw the marks still on the window.
Thanks for sharing.
That is interesting, mazzieblue. It makes us wonder what else was filmed that we don't see in the finished product. I wish they'd offer up a "director's cut" kind of thing so we could see the lost scenes.
Didn't you also see the scene with Penhale and DM and Louisa in the street being filmed, the one in which Penhale is complimenting them?
The "she" I was actually referring to was Tina Turner.
Oh yes I think it applies to LG and DM too.
I think it is the lyrics not just the title - I think BP are that obsessive.
Excellent work, shop girl.
Oh that's where we're different, I would!
Oh no! Is this going to be the "find the stuffed animal" series!
Just when we had the Buddha sorted! :rolleyes:
No no females. Ben Bolt only writes one this series. I listed the others before, I'll have to search when on computer not on phone. There is a new writer this series.
Yes it's definitely Forrabury church at Boscastle, been there loads of times!
I believe the house that Dennis was working on in S2 is in fact the same house they used for Mr & Mrs Rix in S2. The person who saw the filming indicated it was on Lundy Rd and the Rix home was at the end of Lundy Rd, the side of the house facing the sea. When we looked at her pictures taken during filming it really resembled the house but there were some significant differences. After watching the episode, It clearly looks like a home under construction - or extensive remodel, although his wife refers to it as the "new house".
I just looked at the house in both Google Maps and Bing Maps. Unfortunately we have no street view, so only the satellite image. On the Google satellite it all looks the same as when I found it a year or so ago. But on the Bing map, the side of the house (where the yard is facing the sea) is unmistakably a construction site.
So here is my theory. When I identified the house a year or so ago, one thing I found was that the house was for sale - so the several pictures on the listing confirmed for me that it was the Rix house. I'm guessing whoever bought the house has been doing extensive renovations - hense the "bones" of the house look the same, but it now looks like a different house. Makes sense that Johnny Bamford would look at this house under construction and rent it out for a couple of days so they didn't have to create a construction site for this one scene.
When I get a chance, I will try to get some side by side pictures of before and after.
I think Martin should give all his Buddhas to AR. It is she whose character reflects them.
Thanks Bodmin DM for engaging with my thoughts so thoroughly. I thought I'd try the same format in responding to yours, though this could fractalise! I agree that the manny is their best option for child care, so far. Martin's argument "JH likes him" is actually a strong point with me.
That's true about Joe admiring his older brother and Martin. If the account of Joe's childhood we have in "Perish together as fools" is the accurate one (there Sam says their father "took off" when he was aged 5-6; there is a differing account in S3 where Joe says to Al that he calls his father every week) what Joe is missing is a father-figure, so he spends his life in search of one. To me this only reinforces AR's analysis. She says that he tries to call attention to the heroism of his position because "deep down he feels inadequate." No one believes Joe's PR, not even Joe; all they see is the inadequacy ("unfit for purpose" "a fruitcake" Martin calls him). Taking his focus off himself (how he looks, the role which he has, in every situation and becoming more attentive to the other people in the frame might really help!
There are two sides here, and it has to do with the different "love languages" (see the book The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman) Martin and Louisa speak. In another scene where the script-writers touch on this difference (the beautiful one in S5 where Louisa remarks that Joe's desire to have just one more day with Maggie as his wife before shattering her delusion was "romantic" but quickly adds "you're hardly Mr. hearts and flowers" and where Martin says he doesn't think it's romantic at all: "the guy's an idiot" impeding the access of one he supposedly cares for to proper medical treatment, and then announcing his own love gesture, the naming of their baby according to Louisa's choice, not his) Louisa shows her idea of romance to consist of "hearts and flowers" -- the acknowledgement of two week anniversaries -- saying "nice things" (what Chapman would call 'words of affirmation.' This is not Martin's love language at all. His dominant love language is "acts of service," but here he is offering "quality time" -- so he's showing her how to fix a clock and he's not being particularly attentive to Louisa, but the subtext is: "come, be included in my world, let's spend time here together, which is better than how I've always done this before, just me in my splendid isolation." That is deeply honouring, and I think in Martin's language a way of saying "yes, I regard you as an intelligent equal." Louisa may not experience it that way at all. It may in fact feel patronising to her. She wants a lover not a teacher. Isobel accuses Louisa of always going for the Doctor when they used to play love and marriage games as children, doesn't she? If that's really the attraction, then yes, Louisa is a very superficial person, concerned only with "the facade" of not only their happiness in marriage, but also of the man she married (professional, tall, well-to-do). I am not that cynical about her. I think part of what attracts her to Martin is her generosity of spirit -- she wants to open him up, to "help him" in some way -- but we haven't seen much of that, actually since S2.
Somebody here named a scene in S6E2 as Louisa at her absolute worst. I don't think she is NEARLY at her worst in this episode. The two scenes where I REALLY don't like Louisa is that one where she laughs about Martin's blood phobia with Sandra Mylow in S2, and where she takes "the devil's chalice" from her mother in S5. Both are a betrayal not only of Martin but also of what is one of Louisa's central virtues, that restraint which shines through when she says to Danny at the end of S2 "And I haven't said anything about this before..." She is more generous in spirit than the mean-minded people around her, but in those two scenes she joins in with the mean-minded characters around her. Badly done, Louisa. Badly done. I think what's going on with Louisa in this episode is altogether different than that.
Martin has sometimes said in interviews that when the Doc is being especially "vile" they like to walk him into doors "in order to punish him." Is Louisa being similarly "punished" in this episode? (That would seem to suggest that Louisa's behaviour is being judged the worse of the two here -- and with that I would tend to agree, pace Newpark whose points I do see about having empathy for Louisa if we were placed in similar situations) Is something of the Doc's clumsiness/myopia/physical comedy rubbing off onto her? Or is it just a plot-driven device to ensure that Dennis gets distracted and falls backwards off the roof?
Could be. I'm inclined not to think so, but I am confident in nothing when I make predictions about this show. That ability to keep me guessing is why I respect it so much.
Isn't it an Ellingham thing? AR speaks to him similarly in E1. Martin always speaks to James this way in S5 too. In fact that comment about him finishing the washing up and then their "having some fun" probably means that Martin will read to him from another medical journal.
The honeymoon, however disastrous in its own way, was still time apart for them. That's the point which is being made by the last scene of E1 where they arrive back to the surgery kitchen and the "screaming baby, moaning patients, noise of traffic" etc. are all pressing in again in a moment. To me it was very realistic to have them revert to type once they were back in their accustomed milieu, not in some artificial honeymoon world-out-of-time.
Agreed about Morwenna. They have really brought her character to new prominence so far this season.
Sorry, I missed that post but I did scroll back just about a month ago and found your post. You said that Charlie Martin wrote episodes 4 and 6 (past tv credits: Wild at Heart, The Time of your Life, Teachers and Is Harry on the Boat.) Julian Unthank wrote episode 5 (past tv credits: New Tricks, Robin Hood, The Bill and Family Affairs.)
Yes, I remember that discussion. I'm glad to know I wasn't crazy when I first thought it looked like the same house. I remember that it was for sale; that's how we were able to get a good look. Wow! Cool that Bing maps shows it as a construction site, just as in the episode. Off to Bing now! Thanks, Shop Girl.
I remember MC saying that with the children he asks their permission or talks to them about what he has to do in his role. So I'm sure he would have done the same thing with the parent of the baby.
Well spotted, Shop Girl.!!
I like Google maps better than Bing (Bing feels "buggy" to me moving about and zooming), but sometimes they are more up to date. One thing you will notice if you look at this house on Bing. If you try to zoom in too far it reverts to an older satellite image. So you can go back and forth: house with intact yard - house as a construction site. Kind of fun, really