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ConCon
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« Reply #11 on: November 04, 2011, 08:25:47 PM » |
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Well...
A sombre opening baby blues between Iris and Glenda - one is, one can't so it's melancholy tears all round. Then off to the Brownlows, 'cos Arthur's put his foot in it again and Kath ain't happy. Never mind, here's Glemna back, somewhat less than all smiles, but she's yet to reach for the knife...
At the motel, a hoarse sounding Meg is peering through glasses the size of portholes while Jill fills in a bit of backstory for viewers who may have missed a few episodes. At reception, Miss Diane is startled by the return of Sharon, (I think that if she'd looked up to find Vera back Diane would have passed out through shock. Along with the audience). Back in Meg's office the titular owner is passing cryptic comments with Sam, the notorious not-a-family-killer-at-all-really. Very ominous. Equally ominous is David Hunter, emoting with all the energy of a stone, that Barbara is leaving him. Meg looks like she's taken tranquilisers already when this news is imparted. Sod that anyway, "it's only a motel" she intones, and tells David he's won.
At the Brownlows, they've moved on from babies to marriage. Ghastly curtains!
So, onto the bonfire, (something the size of a small detached house by the look of things), and after all the speaking cast of this epsiode have had a close-up the camera lingers on the oldest trio of yobs ever seen, (they must be thugs, 'cos they are wearing regulation tv shorthand of tatty leather jackets).
BREAK
We return on that old favourite, the caption board of the exterior of the motel with the big sign in the foreground. That's been doing sterling service for around a decade by now. Pity it looks less than photo-realistic, and more like a pastel drawing!
Unusual guests in reception - they actually get to say a few words on leaving! Meg's almost catatonic when she stirs herself to chat to Adam, who is maining the phones. A bit of continuity, when Adam tells her that taking tranquillisers isn't a good example to set with Jill. Never mind, Meg's going to "explain later" (twice she says that, and so slow is all her dialogue that one wonders if Ronnie Allen has been giving her acting lessons). No sooner has Meg wandered off, (a la THE WAKING DEAD), then those nasty, up-to-no-good-I'll-be-bound yobs wander in...
...and out. Later we are going to learn that Adam had chased them off, but I reckon he's boasting to impress someone.
In Meg's room, we see her putting a letter next to photos of Roger and Jill - along with a bottle of pills, all accompanied by the maudlin version of the theme. And that's it. The last we're going to see of Nolly. It's all back to the bonfire after this, with happy smiling faces everywhere until someone spots that red glow in the sky what looks several miles away - and, as you would, Jill immediately realises the motel is on fire. MUM!!!
And there it ends - the reception set being burnt to a crisp in mere secondsfrom the look of things, and not even a few bars of the theme to play it out, and Nolly, out with. As dramatic it is to see Jill being held back, it's a pity that we didn't get a nicely framed photo of the departing star getting charred.
***
So, that's that. One of the greatest, home-grown stars ATV had is written out in a fairly perfunctuary manner - Noele really should have been the focus of this episode all the way through, and instead she's led sleep-walking to her doom. Actually, though I'm pleased the character did eventually get a happier ending than originally envisaged, dramatically it may have been better for the programme to have stuck to it's guns and to have killed Meg off once and for all. As it was, the shadow of Noele would hang around for the remainder of it's run.
As an episode, it's competently made, albeit with ropey dialogue throughout. It gets across information as inelegantly as possible, but it serves it's purpose.
All in all, it's a lovely piece of tv history. But, gosh, thirty years??? Where'd it all go?
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