Where the Heart Is

I live in the US and have been streaming this wonderful series through the Acorn channel. I'll be finishing Series 8 tonight. Unfortunately, Seasons 9 and 10 aren't available yet...but, something to look forward to.

WTHI is what I call a slice of life show--it's really about the daily lives of the people of Skelthwaite. They look and act like real people. This is so refreshing compared to the (too) high gloss of most American shows (which I almost never watch). I admit it's a little disconcerting when main characters go away (ta, Peg and Vic, Ruth and Simon), although I have to admit I don't miss a few who've gone (Karen, the male nurse whose name I can't even remember).

Try this, you'll like it. And, if you're from the US, you might want to consider watching with subtitles until you get the hang of the Yorkshire accent -- it's summat different from what we're used to hearing.

Other reviews also mentioned the fantastic show Ballykissangel -- I highly recommend that one as well. Also, although a period piece, From Lark Rise to Candleford is equally wonderful in its not-modern setting.

Loved this show and what's been forever is missing season 10. Like a good book it really stinks when someone's ripped out the last chapter. Very cruel to viewers that enjoyed the show. I've exhausted all resources looking for the famous season 10. Maybe someone can post where I might find it???

I thought this show had promise until Jackie came along. That was start of a fast decline into moronic teenage sex and babies without real parents all over the place. Worthy of soap opera status but not much else. Once Peggy dies it gets even worse. Actually by season 4 it was so awful I was skipping through it at a fast pace. Vic was the best of a cast of characters. Everyone else is pretty boring and messed up. I particularly did not like characters just disappearing with no heads up. What happened to Chris? And good grief. All the main characters who can are flaming alcoholics. I believe it's a tie between Jess and Jackie for the worst characters.

The first episode raises high hopes that we are going to get interesting stories based around the work of district nurses responding to medical situations and their moral and social consequences. At last, I thought, I can enjoy the delicious Sarah Lancashire in something that is not truly awful ( such as Last Tango in Halifax or the indescribably horrendous Happy Valley ) and with the lovely Pam Ferris involved it might actually be positively good.

But no: what we get is a soap and we pay for our modest pleasures with banal cliché-ridden scripts ( the highest count of "we are always here for you" in any drama I can recall ); dreary, moronic teenagers dominating the screen with their tedious sex-lives; endless homilies about how great it is up north; and rapidly decreasing plausibility with nurses going everywhere in pairs and only dealing with one patient per day.

And those were the good times.

Series 1 is just about watchable due to Lancashire, Ferris, and the rugby sub-plot.

Series 2 takes a dive with the arrival of the ghastly Jacqui but is kept afloat by, again, rugby, Lancashire and Ferris

By series 3 we are heading down the slope at pace with characters being ludicrously transformed into effectively different people unsupported by any dramatic logic; Jacqui, sadly, not being transformed; key plots turning on aspects of business life about whose rudiments the writers are plainly totally ignorant ( as they are about everything: "I was fly-half at Cambridge - I was in the Blues" !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ); and a complete absence of any humour to balance the awfulness.

I bailed out half-way through series 4 for reasons that will become obvious to anyone else who gets that far.

I could say more about why this programme was such a missed opportunity to make something decent out of a reasonable idea and some good resources but, unlike some other reviewers here who have no grasp of the basics of common courtesy, I refuse to engage in massive and ruining spoilers.

There's a plain and simple fact here: This is a good show!! It is a soap opera, and it is good. Yes, I never thought I would say this about a soap but this real. It is a real show about real people with real lives and it's normal!! That's the difference with British soap actors and American ones: The British ones are actors, the American ones are stars! ACTOR-STAR they are not the same thing. While American soaps(shows,movies etc.) focus on how perfect someone looks and how much money the show makes, British shows care about quality, both dramatic and visual. "Where The Heart Is", is a wonderful example and I highly recommend searching your local listings for it. Another great UK show is "Ballykissangel"......A-C-T-I-N-G!!!!!!!!!!