This show is over 40 years old though it doesn't seem that long ago when I was lying on the living room floor with my parents and brother and sisters watching 'Annika' on a Sunday evening on Granada TV.
The show is about three groups of people spending summer in the Isle of Wight, the temporary labourers from London who work the beaches and the fairgrounds, the language exchange students who in this case, came from Sweden to improve their English and the local skinheads who hate both of these groups invading their turf.
The Swedes soon get to know both sets of groups and the main man is Pete Daniels, a
deckchair operative on the beach, he falls for 'Annika' though a child, she held every blonde, Swedish female stereotype that she was able to carry - carefree, sexually liberated and experienced despite being a school girl, Pete falls for her.
They consummate their relationship on the island but all good things come to an end and they part with Annika going back to Sweden and Pete going back to life on the dole in London, Pete is lovesick though so makes the decision to make the move to Sweden to be with Annika.
Swedish stereotypes abound with the parents, when Pete turns up, Annika's parents just go 'of course you can sleep in the same bed as our 15 year old daughter' along with nude swimming and midnight saunas but the tale unravels for our hero where he finds that in a foreign country, he is far too ill equipped to handle the transition and one night when Annika is talking to some Swedish bloke, he flips in a jealous rage he heads back to London on his motorbike. Probably a tiny bit wiser if not smarter.
I agree with one of the earlier comments about the disjointed dialogue and one rather concerning bit of dialogue between Pete and his black friend Alan ended up with a disagreement where Pete uses the 'n' word and it was so out of context and out of place where you think 'why would he call him that?' The disagreement and the reasons wasn't leading to that but I suppose the writer/director thought back in 1984 'hey, let's insert some causal racism in the script just to keep our British viewers happy' and if you watch it now it seems disjointed, inappropriate and nasty. I am sure the actor who played Pete (Jesse Birdsall) winces at the thought of it now.
In 1984, this show was fine, now, it would be panned for the racism and the crude stereotypes of Swedish people and Sweden and deservedly so.
