Dad's Army: The Lost Episodes

How hard is it to play a character that is well established and loved. The whole cast did very well and I enjoyed the 3 episodes. There was lots of money and top names thrown at the recent film version which was not good unlike this low key re make of original scripted episodes, really enjoyed it so well done to the makers and shame on the bbc for losing the original episodes

I awaited these three episodes with a mixture of anticipation and trepidation, as I am a massive fan of the original series, and was monumentally disappointed with the 2016 film effort. But from that to this I can see the problem - the 2016 film wasn't written by Jimmy Perry and David Croft, while these were, which is why I shouldn't have worried. Yes, the cast are obviously understudies (as they described themselves), but they mostly do very well in finding the characters as we would recognise them, with special credit to Robert Bathurst. It's not a 10/10, but it's as close as it can be. I'm very pleased that, in lieu of the original episodes being found somewhere, we do at least have these that we can go to and (to an extent) now watch the entire series of Dad's Army

Excellent, I don't know why there are a few negative reviews on here, they must be spoilers! I have heard the audio recordings of these 3 episodes and these 3 re-recorded video versions have hit the mark, spot-on.

The cast are pretty good, they will never be as good as the original, but that is not the point and no one (particularly themselves) would expect that, but for stand-ins they are excellent, Kevin McNally plays Capt. Mainwaring pretty well, and if you pay attention you will see some subtle inclinations and a little pomposity which Arthur Lowe made his forte. Robert Bathurst does a good Sgt. Wilson. Timothy West is as usual a top link, as Godfrey, The rest are not quite as good but still do very well as the other characters, none are poor. The writing is as usual from Croft & Perry, excellent, because they are using the original scripts and scenes, you can't really go wrong. For some reason the modern sitcoms just can't crack quality like this.

You will never get the 100% perfect Dad's Army, But this is as near as you can get, so I give this 9 out of 10.

P.s. the recent Dad's Army film was pretty good, not as good as these 3 but still good.

The overwhelming justification for remaking these 3 episodes is because they are genuinely unavailable. I don't know whether anyone with primative video equipment ever pointed it at the telly in 1968. If there IS any footage it must be unusable (unlike the episode which was discovered, restored and colourised some years ago). Some of the writing in Episode 1 of this series has some really good moments and gags which I remember from watching it about 50 years ago. I avoided the newish movie because I don't feel (as with the first movie version) that the format is not as charming outside the studio and dreamy woodland lanes of the TV environment. Cast is much better than hoped for and the reason I can't agree with the previous reviewer is that these are the original scripts - so the comment is nonsensical.......

Ok I'm over half way through the first episode and I'm chuckling away. Unlike the recent movie there has been some real time and care put into the recreation of these lost classics. Croft and Perry's writhing is perfection and the actors play to the script and just keep to the right side of tribute without lapsing into overt impersonation. So far so good.