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<blockquote data-quote="Mel O&amp;#039;Drama" data-source="post: 425263" data-attributes="member: 23">Sadly, Mrs H. came across as shrewish and controlling for much of her final episode. The fact that she&#039;s getting involved in others&#039; business even to the point of butting in on a personal meeting between husband and wife isn&#039;t going to cast her in a flattering light. This could be blamed on the performance or the writing, but it&#039;s ultimately the truth of the situation. The only way to have Mrs H. at Shelley&#039;s flat is for her to arrive uninvited and play gooseberry. The only logical way around this would have been for Fran to want the meeting to take place in the neutrality of Mrs H&#039;s place, but perhaps there were practical considerations, such as rebuilding the set for one episode.Fortunately Mrs H. redeemed herself in the final moments where she softened and it was apparent she cared about Shelley&#039;s wellbeing.The Fifth and Sixth series did lose some of the charm of the earlier ones. The relationship with the warden was watchable, but not exactly peak Shelley. Still, there were some nice scenarios, and sometimes the more aimless ones suited the character better. An example of this is when Shelley bumped into his old short-lived colleague Malcolm and the two wandered round putting the world to rights with their navel gazing (a guest-appearance from Fulton Mackay as a homeless man was the icing on the cake here). There appears to be some dispute about the episodes original transmission dates/order. IMDb and Wikipedia suggest the series opened with Dry Dreams, in which Shelley is reunited with Fran, and closed with Brief Encounter where he falls for the niece of his frenemy the warden. Network, and comments on the IMDb page dispute this and put Dry Dreams at the very end of the original run. This latter order is the one I chose to follow (easy enough since that&#039;s the DVD episode order), and it was far more gratifying since Brief Encounter wasn&#039;t the strongest of episodes (and I didn&#039;t think the girl playing opposite him was a particularly good actress). Dry Dreams included not only Fran but the return of Shelley&#039;s mother, which gave great sparring all round. Besides, it&#039;s a terrific episode title. Out of deference to the number of years between this final episode and The Return Of Shelley, I&#039;m aiming to take a break and come back for the revival series in a few weeks&#039; time.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Mel O'Drama, post: 425263, member: 23"] Sadly, Mrs H. came across as shrewish and controlling for much of her final episode. The fact that she's getting involved in others' business even to the point of butting in on a personal meeting between husband and wife isn't going to cast her in a flattering light. This could be blamed on the performance or the writing, but it's ultimately the truth of the situation. The only way to have Mrs H. at Shelley's flat is for her to arrive uninvited and play gooseberry. The only logical way around this would have been for Fran to want the meeting to take place in the neutrality of Mrs H's place, but perhaps there were practical considerations, such as rebuilding the set for one episode. Fortunately Mrs H. redeemed herself in the final moments where she softened and it was apparent she cared about Shelley's wellbeing. The Fifth and Sixth series did lose some of the charm of the earlier ones. The relationship with the warden was watchable, but not exactly peak [I]Shelley[/I]. Still, there were some nice scenarios, and sometimes the more aimless ones suited the character better. An example of this is when Shelley bumped into his old short-lived colleague Malcolm and the two wandered round putting the world to rights with their navel gazing (a guest-appearance from Fulton Mackay as a homeless man was the icing on the cake here). There appears to be some dispute about the episodes original transmission dates/order. IMDb and Wikipedia suggest the series opened with[I] Dry Dreams,[/I] in which Shelley is reunited with Fran, and closed with [I]Brief Encounter [/I]where he falls for the niece of his frenemy the warden. Network, and comments on the IMDb page dispute this and put [I]Dry Dreams [/I]at the very end of the original run. This latter order is the one I chose to follow (easy enough since that's the DVD episode order), and it was far more gratifying since [I]Brief Encounter [/I]wasn't the strongest of episodes (and I didn't think the girl playing opposite him was a particularly good actress). [I]Dry Dreams [/I]included not only Fran but the return of Shelley's mother, which gave great sparring all round. Besides, it's a terrific episode title. Out of deference to the number of years between this final episode and [I]The Return Of Shelley,[/I] I'm aiming to take a break and come back for the revival series in a few weeks' time. [/QUOTE]

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Who played JR Ewing?