Goodnight Sweetheart
clarky323
Posts: 10,860 Forum Member
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hi guys, saw this advertised as new to gold a few months ago, I'd never seen it before but thought I'd watch it because Nicholas Lyndhurst was in it, the first episode I really enjoyed, I don't know why, I didn't expect the find that sort of thing interesting but I got into so much I ended up watching every episode!!
okay it wasn't the most funniest comedy ever, but that didn't matter as the story was intriguing at times, I thought that the show was never the same when the two original actors left although I got used to them both in the end.
I didn't like the way the story went though, Yvonne becoming rich, Gary and Phoebe moving away from the Royal Oak, even Reg working at the place where Gary lived and also Ron moving out and into that pad he had then moving to Gary's. The story became a little silly, like when he met his son in the 90's and when they had the time traveler from the future.
Thought the ending was good, although I still don't understand why the time portal thing suddenly closed just because Gary saved Attlee.
Anyway, all in all, will get it on DVD, I will certainly enjoy watching the first few series again, the last couple not as much but I really enjoyed watching this overall and I hope GOLD will show it now and then and not just forget about it!!
One more thing, don't know if anyone else watched every episode of this on GOLD, but I remember them showing an episode ('just in time' I think) twice, the second time they showed it at the right time, did anyone notice that?
okay it wasn't the most funniest comedy ever, but that didn't matter as the story was intriguing at times, I thought that the show was never the same when the two original actors left although I got used to them both in the end.
I didn't like the way the story went though, Yvonne becoming rich, Gary and Phoebe moving away from the Royal Oak, even Reg working at the place where Gary lived and also Ron moving out and into that pad he had then moving to Gary's. The story became a little silly, like when he met his son in the 90's and when they had the time traveler from the future.
Thought the ending was good, although I still don't understand why the time portal thing suddenly closed just because Gary saved Attlee.
Anyway, all in all, will get it on DVD, I will certainly enjoy watching the first few series again, the last couple not as much but I really enjoyed watching this overall and I hope GOLD will show it now and then and not just forget about it!!
One more thing, don't know if anyone else watched every episode of this on GOLD, but I remember them showing an episode ('just in time' I think) twice, the second time they showed it at the right time, did anyone notice that?
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Comments
I always thought it ended more clearly, but it was left open enough for a possible return - which has been mooted from time to time.
I think the idea was that Gary was the one 'allowed' to access the time portal so that he could be there to be the one to save Atlee, who was in reality a key figure in post war Britain (ie NHS etc). Once he fulfilled this mission the barrier closed.
This is rather like Sam Beckett in Quantum Leap being allowed to change things in the past via some unspecified God like influence sending him here and there.
But they were just speculating in Goodnight, Sweetheart and the plot was left dangling. As Gary said, it had closed and reopened before.
I never really understood why they did not 'investigate' Gary and Phoebe's post 1945 life in 1999 (they could both have been still alive and Gary must have been in two places at once for, say, the 1960s!)
Not to mention how did they get out of the paradox of all the songs that Gary 'wrote' years too early?
So there are lots of ways you could pick up the series.
The creators and writers are still out there and one of their other shows (Birds of a Feather) is coming back to TV after a successful stage tour.
They write musicals now (Big successes with Dreamboats and Petticoats and Save the Last Dance For me that has some scenes that are sort of from Goodnight, Sweethheart).
Indeed they wanted to do a stage version of Goodnight, Sweetheart 10 years ago but nobody would stage it. So it might yet happen.
Would be nice if Gold do a new Goodnight, Sweetheart episode for Christmas....but with Nick Lyndhurst now cast in the new series of New Tricks it might not happen,
For me it was more a comedy drama (like the same writers Shine on Harvey Moon).
I've been rewatching for the umpteenth time. It's not often a laugh out loud show, as you say (though it has some very witty lines); I think it's the concept and fantasy of it all I really enjoy. It did get quite silly towards the end (Noel Coward, Yvonne being one of 'Blair's Babes', all that stuff about time travellers opening and closing portals, etc.) but it ended quite strongly. I do wish, however, that Dervla Kirwan had stayed on as Phoebe, although I liked Emma Amos's Yvonne.
Oh, and Ron was an absolutely fantastic character - probably the best on the show. I wish we saw Victor MacGuire in more stuff.
It was the perfect example of a brilliant sitcom that wasn't ever funny. I've watched it nearly every night for 3 months on Gold - never laughed once, barely a snigger, disliked both the replacement Yvonne and Phoebe's but loved every minute of it.
Brilliantly written, really enjoyable and a great storyline.
Yes they did show the episode with Brick buying up the shop twice in 4 days near the end and skipped one out. The rest were in order. No idea why they missed S6 E3 though.
I wonder if it was deliberate that they changed Phoebe into the more homely (I don't mean that in a derogatory way) wife and Yvonne into the glamorous one with the actress change. Phoebe became less his sexy, sneaky bit on the side and more the wife and mother to his child, whilst Yvonne became more spunky and eventually able to offer him a life of luxury and excess.
Watching again, it's striking what a complete **** Gary is to Ron, which is even commented on a few times.
True - even when his son was catapulted into the future with him, he didn't seem to give a damn that Phoebe might be worried or his son might be trapped; it was all about using Ron and his apartment to hide from Yvonne.
I think it's strange that a show with such an unlikeable main character (and a bigamist, to boot!) was so enjoyable. I suspect it was because Lyndhurst is an affable chap, and he'd built up quite a lot of goodwill as the dopey Rodney (although I never watched OFAH).
It's one thing to have your main character a serial liar and a bigamist, but if that's the case, then surely it would have made more sense to make him likeable, in spite of his flaws.
On face value, you'd think the time travel aspect of Goodnight Sweetheart was the most implausible thing about the show. But frankly, I find that more believable than the idea that even one woman would be attracted to Gary, let alone two!
Pheobe was quite a simple girl at heart. Gary was not only using his knowledge of the future to impress her, but lied about being a spy to boot.
And all those songs he 'wrote' and sang in the pub, how was the future not affected by him doing these songs? (ie - he used one of the songs to fund Michael's future)
He also used lies without a shred of guilt in order to disappear at will from his wife and son to be with his first wife.
Me too! Especially given his unconvincing, extemporaneous lies (eg. when she caught him with Michael) and the many times elaborate (but silly) ruses were used so that he could skip of for hours or days on end, leaving her waiting. It's a typical sitcom conceit, I guess. She might not have guessed he was his girlfriend was in 1940, but you'd think she'd have well and truly known he had another woman on the go (as she did occasionally ask him about, before being won over by more lies)! Later on, they used the excuse that she was preoccupied with her new life as a millionaire businesswomen and celebrity luvvie.
I found that lazy writing. I always assumed she was having an affair and then they sort of rushed her through the millionaire business founder storyline to give her an excuse to not notice Gary being away once the affair finished.
With the ending and Gary being stuck in 1945. Wouldn't 'current' Gary go back and warn Gary not to use the portal or at least see Ron and Yvonne since they knew what happened to him?
But if 'old Gary' went and warned modern Gary not to use the time portal, Attlee would never have been saved, altering the future. For that matter, if 'old Gary' warned modern Gary not to use the time portal, then 'old Gary' wouldn't exist and couldn't warn modern Gary about anything... God I hate time travel anomalies!
Perhaps they could have ended it with old Gary shuffling in and telling Yvonne what had happened. Although I actually think the 'writing on the wall' was more poignant, and Emma Amos played it excellently.
The second Yvonne seemed to hate Ron a lot more than the original.
They would have needed a Robert Winston special aftewards to explain it all
I would say they both disliked him to more or less an equal extent.
The second Yvonne however I could understand Gary wanting to return to her, the original I could never understand why he'd want to.