This Life + 10

I couldn't bare watching this, a complete disaster. Devastated by every aspect of its creation. If you have enjoyed the genius of the first two series. don't bother to ruin its memory with this.

Incredibly good attempt to tie up up the time elapsed since the original series. Anna seems to be the only one not to have moved on, she seems just the same as 1997. Egg is now a success on the writing front but still he has issues with Millie,perhaps the addition to the family is the glue keeping them together. Miles with his shaggy hair looks more carefree these days, but I remembered him as a focused individual, who I am sure would not have got into the trouble he has at present. Warren has moved on professionally but at what cost to his private life? The documentary format works quite well and the constant sight of black and white images in the camera view finder perhaps indicates that all of the group are bearing their soles with gritty honesty. The music(especially) Portishead really does take you back ten years. A searing. marvellous piece of TV drama.

I had never seen "This Life" before, but I took a leap of faith and followed my TV guide. It turned out to be right for once. I immediately bonded with the characters and the show wasted no time in getting to the juicy bits. I felt like I had been with flatmates with these guys since forever, even five minutes into the programme! The mock documentary format was put to good use as we got to know our new (old) characters again. It was being used as an aside comment box, telling us things that would feel unnatural had it been told in the third person. I thought it worked very well. The drama unfolded gradually and we learnt about how each character has developed since we last saw them ten years ago (well, for the first time for me!). There were some surprises and confusions but I ate it all up. I don't want to spoil the plot, especially for the nostalgic fans, so I won't say anything more other than it's all top notch, riveting stuff. I don't know how it compares to the original series, but since I've enjoyed this special so much I'm considering buying the DVDs for them. An entertaining 90 minutes and I would recommend it even for those who have not seen "This Life" before, you'll get sucked in right away. Oh, and before I go, I must gush about the music. I'm a soundtrack freak and I adored this one - some very current selections at the start that gave it an optimistic note, and from what I've heard they put in some classic tracks as an homage to the original series. The funniest thing was that I was thinking how great it would be to have some Portishead on the show, and then Sour Times kicked in(!) Very apt, especially with Beth Gibbons wailing "Cos nobody loves me... it's true." right when Anna was talking. Props to the music team. ;)

I was so disappointed! i just loved this life, but this was terrible. The thing that was so good about the series was that it seemed to be such a well observed picture of a very specific social demographic, it just seemed to ring true because of the detail and the dialogue. Yet the ten-years-on drama introduced a whole sequence of unlikely plot devices just for the sake of it - why did Egg need to have become such a hugely successful writer? why did miles have to have bought a really ugly large hotel? Why would Warren have ventured into cheesy self help websites? these things all just seem to have been picked out of a hat marked 'farcical plot ideas'. surely the ideal thing would been for their lives to be shown to have developed along realistic, mundane trajectories and then the writer could re-visit the canny social observation that we saw before. The plot always used to be driven by character and situation, not by daft, unlikely random events. And i think the location choice of the supposedly impressive country house was just ghastly. and the final line being 'i love you guys!' Jesus! i actually can't think of a comment on that.

Maybe I shouldn't have watched this just after binge-watching the original series. This was 10 years later not 10 minutes. The concept was good. I too met up with old friends when an old school pal died so I can partly resonate. As a stand alone film it was ok. I would probably have given it an 8 or 9 but it's not a touch on the original series. No sex scenes, nudity, cottaging, drug snorting, no gay lovers and the swearing was rather tame. It was good to see old friends and what they have done with their lives but I can see no need for a This Life + 25 (or more!).