The final episode of
the fourth series, and the programme feels a bit routine in this episode. A
military series will always be preoccupied with power and status, and the way
that this one is plotted reminds me of the 'status games' scenes that we were
made to improvise in youth theatres almost thirty years ago.
C Flight have completed their nursing exams and Corporal Marsh has been found to have cheated and has his stripes removed, meaning that Richardson is now technically his superior. The 'erks' have fun ordering him around (most amusingly the do-gooder Lilley commanding him, "Come on! Move, move, you blinker!"). Naturally, this ascendancy is short lived as all five airmen are then posted abroad and the 'erks' attempt to flatter Marsh into swapping his posting with Leckie so that the four friends can stay together...
Esmonde and Larbey were good enough writers that this never becomes tedious, but it certainly isn't surprising... Until the end, when there's a peculiar scene (shot on OB) of Corporal Marsh contemplating suicide by throwing himself off a bridge. That is unexpected, though it does seem rather unprecedented and out of character. But the moment is so rushed and quickly resolved that it doesn't leave much of an impression.
C Flight have completed their nursing exams and Corporal Marsh has been found to have cheated and has his stripes removed, meaning that Richardson is now technically his superior. The 'erks' have fun ordering him around (most amusingly the do-gooder Lilley commanding him, "Come on! Move, move, you blinker!"). Naturally, this ascendancy is short lived as all five airmen are then posted abroad and the 'erks' attempt to flatter Marsh into swapping his posting with Leckie so that the four friends can stay together...
Esmonde and Larbey were good enough writers that this never becomes tedious, but it certainly isn't surprising... Until the end, when there's a peculiar scene (shot on OB) of Corporal Marsh contemplating suicide by throwing himself off a bridge. That is unexpected, though it does seem rather unprecedented and out of character. But the moment is so rushed and quickly resolved that it doesn't leave much of an impression.
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