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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mel O&#039;Drama" data-source="post: 420167" data-attributes="member: 23">The later series of Hancock's Half Hour continued to be enjoyable. Not all of it is gold, but it's been a nice way to while away a little time of an evening.Now, though, I'm halfway through the final short series. This retooled version, simply titled Hancock is one I was anticipating with mixed feelings. I knew that Sid would be gone and the format necessarily changed. But I also knew that the final series had some of the most oft-mentioned Hancock episodes.Despite this, the changes are - in my eyes - to the detriment of the series. By his own choice, the series is now riding entirely on Tony's shoulders, and he appears to be buckling under the weight. Without the added support, his shortcomings are exposed and it's suddenly evident he is not actually that engaging.The Bedsitter was practically a twenty five minute monologue and I found myself glazing over, which is a huge shame as I'm usually a fan of such lengthy, wordy, minimalist scenes.The Bowmans was, I suppose, a kind of precursor to Acorn Antiques: a satirical pastiche of a contemporary serial. In this case it's The Archers. One gets the idea, of course, but I suspect it has lost much of its currency over the years due to its specificity. The fictional series within a fictional series is no doubt progressive for its time, and the idea of a poor actor who tries to sabotage his own character's on-screen demise is quite timeless. But it suffers from something that's been a running vein throughout each episode in this final series: Hancock himself is actually rather irritating.Much of it rides on Hancock The Character being hapless and messing up when trying to carry out a straightforward action. But it was so overdone I quickly found it repetitive and tiresome. This has been most evident in The Radio Ham. Compounding the frustration, Hancock The Actor seems overeager for the audience to like him. A good deal of time was spent looking at them and appearing to drink in the affection they were giving. Sadly, this in-house kind of connection has the opposite effect on the viewer at home.It's almost needy, which is understandable given Hancock's personal struggles, and  the fact that the series at this point hinges more than ever on one's enjoyment of his screen persona (and probably to a good extent on Hancock himself) . Truthfully, I'm not feeling this as much as I could. Those little moments with Sid where Tony would break character after one of them fluffed a line were indeed very endearing to watch. But with his fourth wall breaking involving the audience I felt less involved because I could only see one end of it. I started to feel that he was so busy getting his ego stoked that he dropped the ball with the actual performance. In other words, he was riding on his reputation while no longer giving a performance to warrant it.I've read that Hancock started using teleprompters due to his car accident immediately after The Bowmans. If The Radio Ham was filmed after The Bowmans that would explain a lot of the fourth wall breaking. Given the way his eyes were moving round, it's safe to assume this was done using the teleprompters. Probably the kindest thing I can say is that I'm glad only a few episodes were filmed this way.In my mind, The Blood Donor is THE Hancock episode. It's the only one I was really aware of ahead of time, and I've long wanted to watch it. Reading that it's considered by some to be one of his poorest performances, I'm trying to keep expectations low.</blockquote>

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