Wednesday 20 March 2019

A Comedy On This Day: Only Fools & Horses - Sleeping Dogs Lie (21 March 1985)


 These mid-eighties OFAH episodes seem to have left much less of a lasting impression upon me than what came before and after. I think this one is about as weak as the original series got, pivoting around a reversal of expectations which is a bit too similar to other episodes that had more diverting situations and stronger supporting characters. My chief problem with it is that the initial appearance of Marlene's enormous Great Dane dog (whom the brothers have agreed to mind) set up a pleasurable anticipation of enjoyable canine larks which was then disappointed, but perhaps that's just me!

 It's a bit of a letdown after Strained Relations. Where that episode had the exciting sense of having to be written and produced from scratch almost overnight, here Uncle Albert is very clearly just Grandad's understudy, and it makes me feels a bit sad when I start to imagine how Lennard Pearce might have performed it. Its not really helped by the occasional additional line reminding us that the Uncle is an old sailor, as these never seem to arise naturally in the dialogue.

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