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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Spells &amp; Karma" data-source="post: 114770" data-attributes="member: 23">Knowing very little about LOTSW, is quite refreshing. I can't remember specific episodes or scenes that I will no doubt have watched during childhood. At the time I found it rather underwhelming and viewed is as nothing more than a time-filler (not that even that is necessarily a bad thing in itself. It serves a function, after all).This means I'm approaching it with no preconceptions about which years, characters and stories are the best. With my viewing experience over the last weeks being overwhelmingly positive I'm only looking forward to discovering more, even though I know very little about what I'm looking forward to other than a couple of cast additions (there are, it has to be said, a couple I'm not particularly looking forward to during the last year or two, but I'm trying to keep an open mind).For what this relative layman's point of view is worth at this point, I've found myself chuckling more and more with each passing series, perhaps plateauing out post-Series Four. But I'm only midway though Series Five, so perfectly prepared to change my view on that. It's possible this has to do with writing or casting, but it's equally possible that I'm settling into the rhythm of the series and able to relax and enjoy it more. Perhaps it's a combination of all of the above. Post-Blamire, the tone seems to have shifted a little, but the first two series were pure gold in terms of establishing character and for being brave enough to allow the inhabitants to simply be, without shoehorning them into situations. There is a little more shoehorning going on each year with the characters thrust into a situation that builds, usually involving a scenario or stunt that makes each episode individually memorable as "the one where "x" does "y"". But it's all done in a perfectly charming way that comes from character, so that even the three leads hijacking a runaway steam engine fits into the fabric of the world Roy Clarke has created and even enhances it (the steam engine episode proved one of the funniest). I'm a little concerned that things may get bigger as the series progresses, but not too concerned. I feel Clarke will keep bringing things back to exhanges between and observations from the characters, which is the series' strength.These titbits can be fascinating, but the problem with them is that once attention is drawn to apparent schisms within a cast it can be quite difficult not to look for signs of them based on the characters' interactions onscreen, and even to take sides an apportion blame. Since the humour here comes from the characters' opposing personalities I dare say a lot could be read into their body language.It must be difficult to work alongside someone with whom you genuinely struggle to get along, but I do wonder if there are many times when these things get blown out of proportion. Working closely and intensely with the same couple of people day in day out for years - decades in some of these cases - it's understandable there would be differences of opinion (creative or personal) or simply times when one would get a bit weary of the company of someone. These are colleagues after all, people who work ten, twelve hours a day or more together by circumstance rather than choice.To have friction with a colleague happening under the watchful eye of the media must be a nightmare: For an occasional sharp exhale of breath to be picked up on and discussed. And to be in fora where one is encouraged to discuss difficulties for the entertainment of people who may actually find the reality quite humdrum.Not that I'm saying there's no truth to the rumour. But the important thing is that what happens onscreen is magic - whether it's because of difficulties, in spite of them or because there aren't actually any.</blockquote>

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