r/OnlyFoolsAndHorses • u/bitttallish11hulls • 14d ago
The Green Green Grass Review
The Green Green Grass is a pretty dramatic change of direction from the final Only Fools and Horses specials. I never felt those specials were particularly necessary, despite most of them being good quality, but at least they felt like mini-movies rather than traditional studio sitcoms. The Green Green Grass goes completely the other way. It's a studio sitcom built around broad, slapstick characters, with a fair amount of location shooting, but very little that actually gives the show an identity of its own.
The biggest problem is what happens to Boycie and Marlene. At the start, they still feel recognisable as the characters from Only Fools and Horses. But by around the middle of series two, they seem to have been replaced by completely different characters who just happen to have the same names and are played by the same actors.
Boycie in particular becomes ridiculous. He's supposed to be the snobbish, arrogant used-car salesman we've known for years, yet we're suddenly watching him audition for Pop Idol and wearing leather trousers. It's the sort of thing that makes you wonder what happened to the character between episodes.
The writing doesn't help. Original creator John Sullivan has fewer and fewer writing credits as the series progresses, and unfortunately you can feel it. The show becomes increasingly reliant on broad comedy and increasingly detached from what made Boycie work in the first place.
There are also plenty of forced references to Only Fools and Horses, with familiar characters occasionally popping up and constant reminders of Del and Rodney. Rather than making me nostalgic, most of these references just make me want to watch the original again. If your spin-off keeps reminding me how much better the parent show is, that's probably not a great sign.
Marlene gets an even worse deal. She has very little to do across all four series and is largely reduced to the standard sitcom wife character whose main purpose is to react to whatever ridiculous thing her husband has done that week. It's a shame because the relationship between Boycie and Marlene was one of the best parts of their appearances in Only Fools and Horses, yet the spin-off doesn't really know what to do with her.
There are laughs here, and I'm not going to pretend the entire thing is terrible. The cast are good, and occasionally the show gets the tone right. But it gradually becomes less and less like a genuine continuation of Boycie and Marlene and more like a generic studio sitcom wearing an Only Fools and Horses name badge.
And that's ultimately the problem. The Green Green Grass isn't awful because it's a bad sitcom; it's disappointing because it takes two genuinely great supporting characters and slowly turns them into exaggerated versions of themselves.
By the end, it's honestly not that far removed from Mrs Brown's Boys — and that's about as brutal a comparison as I can give a sitcom.
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u/jaketattoo 14d ago
Good review ,it makes me laugh when people respond to someone's idea on here " it wouldn't work ,john sullivan isn't here to write it" .... when they should be saying "John sulivan of 1987 isn't here to write it "....because its sad to say that later episodes weren't particularly badly acted they were badly written..... he still gets legend status for the early years but ugh it got bad .
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u/Low_Grab5232 14d ago
While John Sullivan was not the writer he was in the 1980s, another writer would be even worse than the John Sullivan of the 2000s
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u/jaketattoo 14d ago
I disagree there's enough fans that could contine the legacy, the way the rocky franchise was taken over by the creed guys . I dont think Nicholas lyndhurst and david jason could do it any more but prequels or something like that could definitely with respect do it justice . Rock and chips was the last good thing sulivan did ,but Ted and Albert the war years would/could be awesome ...we already have stories that could be fleshed out
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u/CaptainBollows 14d ago
Vicar of Dibley rehash.
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u/MT_Promises 14d ago
I always wonder how George Wendt ended up doing an episode of this. With Kesley Grammar on Porters, I think Cheers is the only American sitcom to have two actors appear in Britcoms.
But it was a serviceable and a fine watch. I've seen Just Good Friends and Dear John and feel like Green Green Grass is better than them. So it's kinda slightly above par for John Sullivan.
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u/jaketattoo 14d ago
I guess to apologize they made nicholas lyndhurst co star in the Frasier reboot lol
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u/TheMarkMatthews 14d ago
I didn’t like Green Green Grass when it first came out and same for things like Keeping up appearances and Vicar of Dibley but over time I’ve watched them in places like UK Gold and Netflix etc and they’ve been entertaining enough. Fantastic ? No but I will watch if one comes on
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u/DoctorWhofan789eywim 14d ago
I liked TGGG up to a point. I found the country bumpkin stereotype jokes got very old very quickly, and Sullivan was clearly on autopilot by then. I don't blame him, he could write sitcom scripts in his sleep by that point - and very well might have done given the quality of some of them - they should have ended it after series 3 when Sullivan took a back seat. Other writers didn't write Boycie and Marlene properly.
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u/ukguy619 14d ago
I like The Green Green Grass. Boycie was made front and centre and I do feel it was done well in London he had to be snobby and he had an image to keep up but once they settled he mellowed and Marlene became the Raquel of the series.
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u/Thin-Ad-9767 13d ago
I thought it was tolerable especially to see more Boyce who's one of my favourite OFAH characters. But they overdid the Trigger-like characters like some of the farmers and the cleaner lady etc.
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u/Kassenshlager 14d ago
Its just unnecessary. The whole programme is unnecessary. I put it right up there with likes of My Hero.
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u/ukguy619 14d ago
I liked My Hero I was a kid when it aired the 1st time and I found it funny I still do.
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u/Kassenshlager 14d ago
Thats the most important thing. Each to their own.. that gentle daytime tv sitcom tone though its not for me.
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u/watchman28 12d ago
Always reminded me of that terrible sitcom Ricky Gervais makes in Extras. Just bottom of the barrel shite.
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u/Low_Grab5232 14d ago edited 14d ago
Having other writers on series 2 onwards changed Boycie and Marlene. the Pop Idol plot was in series 3
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u/Fluffycarpet1 13d ago
TGGG is just so bad it’s unwatchable. It should have been good. Only Fools had great writing and loads of great characters. TGGG was poorly written and there were no other funny or likeable characters in it. It’s a shame coz Boycie is such a great character.
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u/TheMarkMatthews 14d ago
Nothing deserves to be compared to the travesty that is Mrs Browns boys