Land Girls

I am a huge fan of British drama, especially WWII homefront stuff, which Land Girls is. I stuck it out only because of this and the lovely English village and countryside locations. It reminded me of series like Heartbeat, which have some heart-stirring bits mixed in with the silliness. Here, Mark Benton plays the Mr. Greenglass part of the "comic relief", only it's not so comic and nowhere near relief.

What kept coming to mind while I watched this whole series was "stupid people making stupid decisions and doing stupid things". If someone could mess up or make the wrong choice or do the dumbest thing possible, they would. Sometimes to "advance" the plot but sometimes just because they were annoyingly dumb. Some stuff was just ridiculous for the sake of being ridiculous. Or maybe the show runners thought it was funny, but it could only be interpreted as humorous if you like very juvenile, slapstick silliness. And I realise that some people do.

I'm not going to get specific to illustrate my point because 1. spoiler alert would be necessary, and 2. I just can't even remember much of what I found so objectionable because it's just not important to me.

What I DO recall is how annoyingly stupid so much of it was. And I'm not basing that on 20 minutes into the first episode and then giving up in disgust. I actually watched the entire 15 episodes and it was all cut from the same silly cloth.

Scenery was wonderful; acting was generally convincing; scripts generally dreadful.

I tried, I wanted to live this but the script is just awful. I don't know if the "Yanks" are really American but the accents are horrible. The real Land Girls deserve a lot better than this.

Riddled with clichés, this daytime drama about the land girls (women conscripted to work on the land during World War II) is in five parts and boasts a competent cast in a sanitised script - a very PC and simplistic view of a country under siege.

We first meet the four new land girls at the start of the first episode - snooty Nancy (Summer Strallen) who wears high heels and expects a soldier to carry her luggage from the station, sisters Annie (Christine Bottomley) and Bea (Jo Woodcock) - one bitter, one naive, and salt of the earth Joyce (Becci Gemmell) whose family were wiped out in the Coventry bombings. We also meet Esther (Susan Cookson), who keeps the girls in order, black-marketeer and farmer Finch (Mark Benton), and the Lord and Lady of the House (Nathaniel Parker and Sophie Ward).

There's also a Home Guard Sergeant, Tucker (Danny Webb) who likes the feeling of being in charge, and in town there's a group of GIs.

From here it is very much ticking the boxes - there's an illicit affair, a soldier going AWOL, suspected collaborators, a marriage based on hate, and a bit of political correctness about black GIs and segregation. It's watchable enough but somehow I was expecting a bit more.

Although it looks great and as if a bit of money has been thrown at it, Land Girls is historically shaky and very much has the air of 'we've seen all this before'. A bit of a missed opportunity.

What a bunch of wingers we have in here! People need to chill out, relax and stop nit picking. This is superbly acted and very entertaining. Thank you to all involved. I've just got Netflix and loved this series - hurry up with Episode 4 please!

Liked the series but they left you hanging without wrapping things up with several stories. One character came back as a different person (the first one was better looking). There isn't going to be a 4th series and again left dangling. Changed the girls too many times. Could have been a lot better, loved the time period, the actors were great, gave insight into a unsung group of women who sacrificed and served during the war. I liked that. Overall enjoyed the series, disappointed that it didn't continue and maybe bring back some stories they left unfinished to wrap them up.