The Green Green Grass

I am also a OF&H fan.I was worried than show spin offs like this won't work. Like the Friends spin off Joey...which honestly made feel sleepy. After watching the first episode I am eagerly waiting for the next one, where we will meet rest of the new characters. The characters of Boycie and Marlene work great together so it would make an interesting show based around their family life. The show is set in the present as their son is now teenager and will be interesting how his character develops. They moved to Shropshire out in the sticks and it would be interesting if they evolve or still have the London banter going on. But,John Sullivan has made a good first humorous episode and long it may continue be that way.

For those who have BBC Three , they will be surprised to see Simon Day's "Grass" being well and truly ripped off by John Sullivan in this Only Fools and Horses spin off . In "Grass" Simon Day's character Billy Bleach "grassed" on a local London gangster and through the witness protection act was relocated to the sticks of Norfolk. The underrated six part comedy tackled the ideas of country meets city and a fish being out of a water. Replace Billy Bleach with Boycie and add Marlene and son Tyler and you have the plot for the "Green Green Grass" staring you in the face . The basic idea of the show is taking Sullivan's well loved east end (of London) humour from Only Fools And Horses and setting it in a completely different background , the opportunities for humour being how will a cockney con man interact with manure kicking yokels instead of the likes of his own ? Coming on BBC 1 on a Friday at 830 vastly limits and waters down the potential for border line humour and leaves the audience with the sort of harmless weak humour that has done "My Family" and "My Hero" no favours and also being an Only Fools And Horses spin off within the early moments the jokes feel very tired because we've had twenty years of it in Sullivan's first sit-com , for instance there is a scene at the beginning where Boycie finds that his satellite navigation system is not up to scratch and guess who sold it to him ?? This joke sets the tone for tired Only...jokes to be repeated again and again , I can imagine Boycie meeting country high society types in the next few episodes and making "hilarious" faux pas , which could be funny if Del Boy hadn't of done it for two decades of Only... . This show will ultimately fail because of the writer and because it is on 8.30 on BBC 1 , devoid and humour and ideas , the strings in your heart it will try to tug are better served by watching old episodes of Only on DVD.

This show is not the funniest British comedy but it is certainly not one of the worst around. I actually laughed and look forward to it. The cast is good, the plot and setting make it interesting, and the characters need time to get developed but the actors who play them are quite worth watching. I like the husband and wife and son. The fact that Gareth Gwenlan who also produced Waiting For God produces this show gives me faith that it will get better. I don't know who Sullivan is. Yes, Only Fools and Horses, was a classic British comedy but it doesn't just happen. A good comedy takes time and work to nourish it along the way. It's not perfect but it's not rubbish neither, it's worth watching and there are few good new British comedies that are around to enjoy and this one is a favorite of mine. I wish British comedies did have the season of American shows. A season in American can range from 14 on the cable stations to 26 on the networks. There are some shows who have less episodes than others but that's a whole other story of politics and money. I wish BBC and other British stations would nurture British comedies in the same manner that they nurture reality television shows which are just awful.

I haven't felt so ashamed to be English since last Wednesday when Northern Ireland beat us at football. This show is AWFUL. I thought it would be bad but even my very worst expectations were surpassed, and then some. John Sullivan wrote the utterly brilliant Only Fools & Horses which - for more than 2 decades - was Britain's best loved sitcom and then he comes up with this trash. Boycie & Marlene, 2 of the characters from OF&H leave Peckham for a new life in the country and to avoid the infamous Driscoll brothers. Boycie's evidence "sent them down" but now they're out on a technicality and looking for revenge, apparently. I only hope they find the Boyce family, AND SOON. John Challis & Sue Holderness were both hilarious in the fabulous show which made them famous but this pathetic drivel doesn't even get off the starting blocks. They both seem to be struggling to remember their Boycie & Marlene characters and their son "Tyler" is played by a young actor who has about as much charisma as a whelk, and he looks like one too. There's no "soul" to this horrible show and it simply isn't funny. The only time I've even "smiled" so far has been when Boycie makes references to his mates the Trotters and that by the way is incredibly cheap of Mr Sullivan. Only Fools & Horses was SO successful because the audience didn't just care about Del & Rodney & Uncle Albert, we LOVED them and you just can't have Boycie & Marleen WITHOUT "the trotters" and their Reliant 3-wheeler. I'm prepared to bet anyone out there £100 that this show does not complete it's first series and then vanishes without trace. It should never have been made. 1 out of 10.

STAR RATING: ***** The Works **** Just Misses the Mark *** That Little Bit In Between ** Lagging Behind * The Pits

When the testimony of Boycie (John Challis) nearly sends the Driscoll Brothers, two of Peckham's most notorious gangsters, down before the case collapses due to a technicality, him, his infamous wife Marlene (Sue Holderness) and their teenage son Tyler are forced to relocate to the Staffordshire countryside, where their big city ways create a 'hilarious' culture clash with the stuck in their ways locals.

This long-awaited spin off of the hugely successful (and rightfully so) BBC comedy series Only Fools and Horses finally came to the end of it's series last night. But I missed it, along with the last two episodes before it. Which should be an indication of, despite how eagerly I awaited it, intently missable I ended up finding it.

I had this strong suspicion it would all fall flat on it's face before I even saw it and I'm sure there were those whose knives were sharpening straight away who wanted it to fail. But, sadly, to a large degree, this is what's happened.

Being as huge as OFAH was, a spin-off show was always going to happen one day. And, short of Del and Rodney being the two leading stars and basically just starting another series again, Boycie ('heh heh heh heh heh heh heh') and Maaar-lene were probably the best characters to choose (although the writer showed a bit of indecision by having Denzil make a guest appearance in the first episode!) But whichever way you look at it, it's a series that's simply clutching at straws and the desperation cracks are apparent from the off-set, even with John Sullivan back as the writer (more money in the bank.)

The main problem is simply that it's rarely ever funny. There were only one or two moments that raised a mild chuckle, and I can't even remember the jokes. Challis and Holderness desperately try to re-ignite the chemistry they once shared, but the dead script simply kills any chance of it. The show appears very cheap and slapped together in light of it's source of inspiration, most apparent in the opening and closing credits, with some clunky production values to match it. The only other redeeming feature is Sullivan singing the opening theme again in true OFAH vein.

You knew it was desperate to begin with, and that it would never match the quality of where it came from. And, sadly, here what you see is what you get. **