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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Spells &amp; Karma" data-source="post: 172946" data-attributes="member: 23">After a week and a half of enjoyment, Mixed Blessings drew to a close last night. There were a few tweaks for the third series. There was a little more ebb and flow in the families appearing, and some episodes in which one side of the family didn't appear at all. But absence makes the heart grow fonder so all's well there. Other than an episode involving a court appearance, Winston's role in particular seemed to diminish and the bubble burst completely with his final appearance midway through the last series. In his initial series three appearances I thought they'd recast. He looks very different with the dreads. I've only today realised that he's Carmen Munroe's son in real life as well as onscreen. One of the last episodes did the obligatory "trapped" episode with both families snowed in at the flat. There's an inherent cosiness to this setup: whether it's the Grace Brothers staff forced to camp out at the shop; Jessica Fletcher stuck in a diner with dead bodies and an unknown murderer; or the Ewings held at gunpoint during a hurricane (it works in print as well... long before any of the aforementioned events, Agatha Christie trapped her characters on an island). The Mixed Blessings episode not only used some of the cliches... it had fun with them. Cue Thomas's fake histrionics. The final episode had a nice sense of event by marking a significant milestone for everyone with the arrival of Thomas and Susan's baby. The concerns over race, which have mostly been moved to the periphery of the series, were more prominent here - particularly the new grandfathers' anxieties over what skin tone the baby is going to have ("Could we see a colour chart?", quipped Aunt Dorothy at one point). It was gently done, and gave the episode both a sense of coming full circle and a suggestion that the family squabbles will continue. Which proved very satisfying. The three series went by far too quickly and was very easily to digest. I could probably happily have watched another few series without becoming tired of it, but I'd take quality over quantity any day. The series was fluffy but, despite my reservations at the beginning, it was quality fluff with a likeable cast, a little bit of pioneering and some good, gentle laughs. I left it smiling.</blockquote>

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