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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mel O&#039;Drama" data-source="post: 386826" data-attributes="member: 23">Next in the Garnett Saga  is perhaps the most low-profile series of them all.With Alf's regular disparagement of the BBC, he would no doubt approve of the move to commercial television for  ATV's 1981 sequel seriesTill Death....<img src="https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fm.media-amazon.com%2Fimages%2FM%2FMV5BYjUwMWI4MDEtOGE4NS00OGQ3LTlhMzEtM2I5MzJkYzUwZTA2XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMjkxODI3MTY%40._V1_FMjpg_UX1000_.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=7a564f7604812914474b38517ae80019c7fba88518d3b927ee4b4026c6e8f7f4&ipo=images" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="width: 480px" />It's incredible to think of how resilient the original concept is proving, and how many times it's been revived. Even by 1981 there had been a Comedy Playhouse pilot; the original hit series; two big screen outings; the Seventies TV series revival and ATV's one-off stand-up comedy show. And that's not including stage shows.Watching Till Death... back to back with The Thoughts Of Chairman Alf is a little jarring because, while they have the character of Alf in common (right down to the ranting monologues), the execution is the polar opposite.In Chairman Alf, the studio audience was a significant part of the experience. The character acknowledged and interacted with his studio audience, who essentially become avatars of the audience viewing at home. We share their laughter and are equally buoyed by the warm energy they emit. Till Death.... dispenses with the audience altogether. The biggest surprise of this series is that there is no laugh track at all. For this reason it feels like a different animal not only from Chairman Alf, but also - crucially - from its predecessor, Till Death Us Do Part.The lack of laugh track does make for a different experience. Psychologically, hearing laughter can make something feel a little funnier, and I suppose I'm quite a lazy viewer in that regard because I think I'm laughing less than I was with the previous series, but equally I suppose it might just be that I'm now thinking about it because I've noticed the absence. There are, of course, advantages to having no laughter. Firstly, there are no annoying distractions (like that person you occasionally get in the audience who affects a loud, annoying laugh in order to be heard above everyone else). It makes the dialogue stand out a little more. And, for better or worse, tonally it feels a bit more grown up and serious. Cinematic, almost: I haven't yet watched the big screen version, but I can't imagine that having a laugh track, either.There are bold choices, too, with the writing and continuity. Anyone watching this "cold", without some kind of blurb to explain the change in premise is likely to be confused. There's almost nothing in the first episode to explain why Alf, Else and Min are wandering through Eastbourne, nor what has happened since we left them with Else in Australia and asking for a divorce. None of this is addressed, leaving more questions than answers."Baby" Michael appears with Rita in the second episode, and he is actually the most bewildering factor in terms of continuity. This series was transmitted just eight and a half years after his birth, but he's now a punk of 16 or so, meaning he is almost twice the age he should be. We last saw him as a baby somewhere around 1973 or 74, and he could be heard crying in a latter episode of the original series when he still sounded very much like a baby or toddler. We can possibly assume that in on-screen time there is a much bigger gap between the end of the last series and the start of this one. All the same, stretching it from five and a half years to some thirteen or fourteen is simply asking too much. I've had to conclude that Michael is a victim of SORAS, ageing quicker than those around him as TV kids are wont to do in order for writers and actors to have an easier life.The anomaly that is Michael aside, I applaud the choice to catch the audience up organically.Eagle-eyed viewers will spot that Min is sporting a black armband in Episode One, leaving us to assume that the reason Bert isn't present is because he's recently died (something finally confirmed in the third episode). In the first episode empirical evidence suggests our triad is on holiday. We see no sign of a home and they all go to a hotel. In the second episode we see the interior of their home, but no real context. Again, it's the third episode which confirms they now live together having sold up and pooled resources (Alf is outraged that Min only pays a third of utilities when she owns half the house and doesn't have to share a bed).I'm assuming back in 1981 there would have been publicity around the new series, and some kind of summary of the new premise in the TV Times and other television listings. Perhaps there were even promos explaining things ahead of time. I believe the first I heard of Till Death.... was a while back when I saw it on the Network site (RIP). Even then, I half thought it was a repackaged "best of" version of the original series and didn't pull the trigger until late last year when I started researching the series a little more.While I'm enjoying this sojourn in Eastbourne, I'm curious to know if other questions will be answered along the way: most notably Else's return from Australia which hasn't been addressed at all so far. Likewise, it will be interesting to see how this fits into the bigger picture when Alf returns to the BBC. Is this necessary, in terms of continuity, or can it be skipped. Perhaps it's not even canonical. Time will tell.Also, a note: The DVD cover uses a standard, three dot ellipsis at the end of the title and no quotation marks, but the opening credits use a four dot ellipsis and quotation marks. I'm too lazy to do the quotation marks each time, but I will make an effort to add that extra dot whenever I remember.</blockquote>

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