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<blockquote data-quote="Mel O&amp;#039;Drama" data-source="post: 74296" data-attributes="member: 23">I&#039;ve finished the penultimate series of Happy Ever After. One to go. The second Christmas special got meta when Terry - having a bad day - asked June what was on television. Looking down at her Radio Times she announced &quot;Happy Ever After&quot; which Terry was less than impressed with. It&#039;s one of those &quot;did I hear that correctly?&quot; moments - a little amusing but also quite jarring. But I suppose they can get away with being a little sillier during panto season. The last two episodes of Series Four were both based on misunderstandings and were better for it. The first had Terry fearing they were in a rut and asking June to be more bold, at which June decided to pretend to have an affair with her friend&#039;s husband and set up a situation for Terry to walk into. This somewhat echoed the episode of Series Three where they had a trial separation for similar reasons and dated other people. Both cases are a way of the show eating it&#039;s cake and having it. We get to see some extramarital activity without losing the wholesome charm because it&#039;s not quite real.&nbsp; The Series Four episode made more sense to me than Series Three&#039;s separation which I didn&#039;t really buy as it felt too sudden, too drastic and too contrived. But I did believe that a couple married for twenty five years may want to try to inject a little spice into things and June&#039;s &quot;I&#039;ll show him&quot; mentality made sense. Naturally, June set up the situation not knowing that Terry was bringing his companies&#039; director home with him, and so they walked straight into a farce with Terry and June&#039;s one of Terry and June&#039;s friends hiding behind the curtains sans trousers and another friend (the wife of trouserless man) barging in to accuse June of being a scarlet woman (having jokingly arranged this with June beforehand). The discomfort levels bubbled away nicely and built to boiling point at the episode&#039;s end. It all felt very familiar and I&#039;m not sure if it&#039;s from seeing this episode years ago or from seeing this situation play out umpteen times in other sitcoms (including, perhaps, Terry &amp; June).The final episode of Series Four had Lucy discovering a letter Terry had written for June (using a term of endearment rather than her name) and assuming Terry was having an affair with a neighbour. Yet another case of including the risqué elements of an affair without compromising the main relationship. Terry&#039;s seedy side is helpful as a catalyst - he genuinely is sniffing round the neighbour in question because he&#039;s attracted to her, but it seems he balks at the idea that they could really be having an affair. Again, this scenario was very familiar having recently re-watched the pair&#039;s follow-on series Terry &amp; June. That series had a very similar storyline in the third series where June discovered Terry in a compromising position with an attractive neighbour.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Mel O'Drama, post: 74296, member: 23"] I've finished the penultimate series of [I]Happy Ever After[/I]. One to go. The second Christmas special got meta when Terry - having a bad day - asked June what was on television. Looking down at her Radio Times she announced "Happy Ever After" which Terry was less than impressed with. It's one of those "did I hear that correctly?" moments - a little amusing but also quite jarring. But I suppose they can get away with being a little sillier during panto season. The last two episodes of Series Four were both based on misunderstandings and were better for it. The first had Terry fearing they were in a rut and asking June to be more bold, at which June decided to pretend to have an affair with her friend's husband and set up a situation for Terry to walk into. This somewhat echoed the episode of Series Three where they had a trial separation for similar reasons and dated other people. Both cases are a way of the show eating it's cake and having it. We get to see some extramarital activity without losing the wholesome charm because it's not [I]quite[/I] real. The Series Four episode made more sense to me than Series Three's separation which I didn't really buy as it felt too sudden, too drastic and too contrived. But I did believe that a couple married for twenty five years may want to try to inject a little spice into things and June's "I'll show him" mentality made sense. Naturally, June set up the situation not knowing that Terry was bringing his companies' director home with him, and so they walked straight into a farce with Terry and June's one of Terry and June's friends hiding behind the curtains sans trousers and another friend (the wife of trouserless man) barging in to accuse June of being a scarlet woman (having jokingly arranged this with June beforehand). The discomfort levels bubbled away nicely and built to boiling point at the episode's end. It all felt very familiar and I'm not sure if it's from seeing this episode years ago or from seeing this situation play out umpteen times in other sitcoms (including, perhaps, [I]Terry & June[/I]). The final episode of Series Four had Lucy discovering a letter Terry had written for June (using a term of endearment rather than her name) and assuming Terry was having an affair with a neighbour. Yet another case of including the risqué elements of an affair without compromising the main relationship. Terry's seedy side is helpful as a catalyst - he genuinely [I][U]is[/U][/I] sniffing round the neighbour in question because he's attracted to her, but it seems he balks at the idea that they could really be having an affair. Again, this scenario was very familiar having recently re-watched the pair's follow-on series [I]Terry & June[/I]. That series had a very similar storyline in the third series where June discovered Terry in a compromising position with an attractive neighbour. [/QUOTE]

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Who played JR Ewing?