Rev.

I'm not up on British religion -- I'm not up on any religion once it left behind the teaching of tolerance, peace and love and took up the search for power through politics -- so if I say something offensive to someone who follows the Church of England, just let me say up front that I apologize. That said, I must say I adore this vicar. He's often unsure, terribly vulnerable and flawed, but he means well by his congregation, his friends, his wife. He just has trouble sometimes keeping his human-ness in check. And that is why I loved this show. I also loved the last episode with its poignancy and doubt. The Rev. remained true to his character, as much as he always tried to be what he thought he was supposed to be, he was in the end just a human being.

I am catching up with the this show on the Drama TV channel, as I missed it when it was originally broadcast, it's supposedly BAFTA nominated though I really can't imagine what self respecting individual would wish to recommend this.

It's choc full of cartoon characters thrown together into some form of social tombola, the main character the 'Rev' of the title is Reverend Adam Smallbone, is the ineffectual vicar in a London parish so overly keen, and eager to please absolutely everyone, that he actually manages to please virtually no one.

This includes his long suffering spouse Alex, who it would appear wants to start a family rather than be a vicars wife, is constantly frustrated by the seemingly perpetual demands of his vacation.

The Archdeacon Robert seems to me that he considers the church as a business endeavour, as he spends his entire time acting as a form of middle manager, nipping around in his subsidised motor being paid, to chivvy the Rev into "meeting church defined arbitrary 'Targets'"

A character Adoha Onyeka is someone that I really can't understand how she fits in around the church, I expect I haven't watched enough episodes to realise if she volunteers her time there, what really surprises me is her attitude towards the Rev.

The character Colin Lambert is an archetypal layabout, who appears to use the Revs church as a virtual doss house, who loves to scrounge on the Revs generosity, at every available opportunity.

I finally gave this show a go, for the last episode in the series, and it's left me completely bewildered as to what all the fuss has been about. I had tried it once previously only to find the credit sequence so annoying that I switched it off.

But, having read rave reviews in the press (Guardian, Telegraph, Standard), with columnists dubbing it 'brilliant', feting it as a masterpiece and praising the performances, I steeled myself to try again.

I really wish I hadn't bothered.

I found Tom Hollander entirely unprepossessing in a vaguely irritating way. His relationship with wife Olivia Colman had no ring of truth – their absurd polite arm's-length behaviour made it seem like they didn't know each other at all but had just been deposited on the same set together that day. She was phonily perky like someone instructed to alter her tone to 'jolly' and 'upbeat' as if talking to a child in need of special encouragement.

They are supported by a cast of characters who all have faces that you want to slap.

Is it meant to be a comedy? There was no humour in it, not a single funny line, bar the chap professing himself to be very good at humility.

I have never had much sympathy for self-indulgent people who lie in bed moping all day after a setback, as the lead did in this episode. After all, he has a wife, child and people who appear to respect him despite the fact that he comes across as a bit dim and self-centred.

Thank goodness this wasn't some gem that had passed me by but rather a travesty of a comedy/drama/whatever (I couldn't really tell), purporting to be intellectual and appealing for some reason to the moneyed upper-middle classes.

It's not terribly exciting, and there are seldom any real plots, and very little actually happens, but it's a very nice story of an English vicar trying to do his best to please everyone around him. Tom Hollander is a great character actor but he struggles to be the lead in this -- the rest of the cast is so good it doesn't really matter. All in all, Rev. Is a nice place to land when you want a respite from the intense serious drama occupying most of the space on tv today.

"Joking is undignified; that is why it is so good for your soul." G.K. Chesterton. This show is good for the soul. Minister's on TV are always portrayed as hell-breathing sledge hammers, naive, bumbling, pleasant wimps or something more sinister. (In Australia no one even bothers to include them as characters as God seems to be an irrelevancy in "the colonies".) But this show is nuanced, perceptive, vaguely shocking and laugh-out-loud funny. I really like the way Adam prays in his head. I pray like that too. It feels a bit like Adrian Plass, affectionately irreverent. Maybe I am being a "Nigel", but if I was a minister, I would very much like to be like this one. An unsentimental show about a peculiarly profound vocation.