Options
the royle family xmas special 2012
pstewart90
Posts: 571 Forum Member
✭✭
Hi
Was just wondering is it an hour episode or half an hour
cheers
Was just wondering is it an hour episode or half an hour
cheers
0
pstewart90
Posts: 571
Comments
It's the only thing that keeps me going knowing I have that on my planner - last year I was gutted.
This. I think they realised that episodes set mostly outside the house do not work, so Joe's Crackers was a lot better.
Excluding The Queen of Shiba, The Golden Eggcup is the best episode of The Royle Family!
That's the company that co-produces it.
It was the worst.
And TQoS is overated as well.
The last one was good.
Actually, the listings say Dave...
If they set foot out of the house in this episode, they'll need a very good reason for doing it - it's why the brief hospital section worked in Queen of Sheba.
The Golden Eggcup is certainly my favourite out of all the post-series specials.
'The Queen of Sheba' was an almost-perfect ending to this great show, (perhaps only lacking in the fact that a few of the original characters were missing, but their absences were believable.)
The shows since then have been an example of a show which has continued for the sake of it, or for money, or network pressure, or boredom for the writers or whatever other reason, because it just shouldn't have continued past The Queen of Sheba at all.
The Royle family's brilliance was in the fact it barely even left the living room of the Royle household, let alone left the actual house. The two Christmas specials I've seen - there may have been more, I've given up watching this - took the show away from the house, to Dave and Denise's house and to a caravan and were pretty awful in my eyes. It just didn't feel like the Royle Family we were watching, it felt like watching the same characters thrown into another sitcom.
Another thing which made The Royle Family great was it's understated humour, it was all in the things the characters said and the looks they gave each other in that living room. To see the attempted almost slapstick humour of Dave and Denise trying to defrost and cook the turkey - at one point kicking it along the corridor because it was too heavy, if I remember rightly - just wasn't The Royle Family. It looked like a scene which would have been more suited to a show like Only Fools and Horses or One Foot In the Grave, if the scene was done well, but truthfully it just looked like a scene from some sort of bad sitcom.
I have the 'complete' Royle Family boxset which goes up as far as The Queen Of Sheba episode and I think that's the way I'd like to remember it and I'll just pretend these Christmas episodes didn't exist. It's strange because Aherne and Cash must be two very switched on people, to come up with a sitcom of such observational genius as this, so I find it bizarre that they would let it fall from grace like this, not only by making new episodes after bringing it to a brilliant conclusion but by making these new episodes so very different to the format which made the show brilliant in the first place.
That seems a bit far fetched.
Like the other year defrosting the turkey in the bath ... while they were in it :rolleyes:
And Benidorm
Moving out of the house wasn't clever and killed the show in many's eyes but it sounds like you've not seen Joe's Crackers which imo was a classic Royle Family mix of bittersweet comedy and well worth a watch. The synopsis for this one has me worried, but I'll give it a chance as I don't know how they'll handle it yet
Was 'Joe's Crackers' last year? I think I've only seen two specials after The Queen Of Sheba, so must have chosen not to watch that one. I'll see if I can locate it.
I agree that Joe's Crackers was the best of the post-Queen of Sheba specials, and at the time I thought it was a complete return to form. But if you actually watch it back to back with some of Series 1 (which I did a few weeks back), you realise how much the characters have changed. The humour, too, is much meaner - for want of a better word. Series 1 is sheer brilliance, and it's a pity to see how much it's changed for the worst. It's still very enjoyable, but hardly the same show.
I wish they'd finished with the Queen of Sheba which - IMO (as for many on here) - was one of the most perfect pieces of TV I've ever seen.
Well said.
It lost its magic for me when they took it away from the Royle's house. The difference in quality was huge.
I'll still be tuning in and hoping that it's good though.
It involved Joe being 'dressed' by the Royles - on the kitchen table, no less - all set to music, with Dave and Jim shaving him and Denise and Barbra spraying deodorant under his arms.
What happened to this once brilliant show?