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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Spells &amp; Karma" data-source="post: 151490" data-attributes="member: 23">Around 48 hours after it began, The Wackers has ended its run. It's painfully soon. Just as I've got into the rhythms. Fortunately, the series was firing from its first episode so they were seven really good episodes.IMDb tells me...This seems rather criminal. What was it that made it "unpopular" (which could simply mean low ratings but could also suggest people actively disliking the series through letters to the TV Times or wherever). It's certainly a little grittier than your average sitcom. Which is no bad thing. Were people put off by the fairly mild sex references, the lavatorial humour, the occasional b-word or the characters communicating in raised voices? Was it a little ahead of its time?The cast has been great. Ken Jones has a nice presence: part Leonard Rossiter, part Roy Kinnear, with a bit of Basil Fawlty thrown in for good measure. Sheila Fay has also been a joy. I'm sure I previously commented on her performance in One Summer and she's done it again here. Mary is a really interesting character, being different things to different people and so presenting differently depending who is around (most apparent when a clergyman visited). She's shrill and shewish but also one of the most sensible characters on the show.It's hard to describe, but there can be an oddness in seeing a real-life couple playing a couple on-screen. I think they actually have their work cut out because they not only have to convince as (in this case) a married couple, but they also have to be a different married couple to the one they are usually. And I suppose it can get into some kind of self-consciously meta territory where the audience is so busy looking for suggestions of the real-life couple that suspension of belief doesn't happen to the correct degree and they end up being less convincing as a couple than strangers would be. But any scene between these two will get past that as they've got it exactly right. They're so convincing as a long-married couple I could actually believe they only first met at rehearsals for Episode One.There's been a novelty factor to watching a very young Alison Steadman and Keith Chegwin. But Steadman in particular is so different to any other role I've seen her in it's easy to (mostly) forget that she's acting. And she is very good in this.Bill Dean has had quite a bit to do here, which is a good thing. By series' end he was dropping into the family living room, so it's safe to say he was seen as a core cast member. Likewise, the change of dynamic with Billy's mum and Mary's dad moving in together showed a degree of thought about future dynamics in the series.As with the film version of The Lovers, the series ended with a visit to the city's football Mecca. Anfield in this case.At risk of repeating myself, I'm just shaking my head that this only ran for a matter of weeks. I'm so glad it's available on home media as it deserves to be seen. I've thoroughly enjoyed it.</blockquote>

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