A Little Learning
I miss ‘The Good Life’ with guns motif of series 2 because series 3 is so bad. Jenny is still looking for Greg. Meanwhile Greg is riding around with Agnes (who is played by a new actress). They meet and mock an old woman. They meet some wideboys, a snotty kid and a bevy of horrible child actors.
Greg and his candyfloss hair decides to stick his nose in and gets beat up by stage school brats. Everyone is an idiot and the acting is horrendous. Greg is then chased by roaring kids who have been making themselves sick with contaminated rye.
Jenny just strolls into the old woman’s house and makes herself at home. It is hard to care about the horrible snotty kids, Greg or Jenny. The ending is ridiculous and what was with the elephant? This was horrendous.
Best Lines:
“If you kill him, you stay. If he escapes, you’re out.”
“I began to look on Glasgow as the good old days.”
“Nobody smokes anything – leaves, plants, them funny mushrooms.”
~
Law of the Jungle
Jenny is chased by a dog pack. Charles and Hubert show up and find her. Then they run into Agnes. They decide to go to a farm they know of but it’s abandoned and over-run by two rats. Charles orders Hubert to light a fire.
Jenny is rude and aggressive and then the foursome runs into Blod’s gang. Blod drove the family off their farm and forcibly recruited them into his gang of marauders. Blod (Brian Blessed) walks around showing off his biceps and shouting all his dialogue. He lives by hunting, looting and poaching. Charles is enraged that Blod rejects his self-sufficiency ethos.
Charles is not so enraged that Blod likes to terrorise and sexually exploit his female camp followers. Blod and the men hunt, the women clean and cook. Charles unwisely picks a fight with Blod so Blod tosses Charles and co to the dogs to teach them a lesson.
Blod shouts down anyone who disagrees with him and then arranges for more unpleasant things to happen to Charles. Brod is dealt with by the most unlikely person. Jenny is as ever, thankless. This was mediocre.
Best Lines:
“How long would a farm last these days against the dogs? It’s gone mad out there.”
“No-one's ever going to read again, are they?”
“Darling little lambs a-frisking in the fields.”
“There are millions more rats then people now. Even the dogs outnumber us.”
“Scared I’ll come after you with a big stick?”
~
Mad Dog
A dog pack attacks Charles. Considering that in the previous ep he had a foot caught in a trap and in series 2 he was mauled by rats, it is amazing he isn’t dead. Charles meets Richard Fenton who warns him there is rabies in the area. Then more dogs attack and Fenton succumbs to rabies.
Fenton foams at the mouth in delirium. Charles goes for help and Fenton chases them until he is shot. However the men Charles asked for help suspect he is a carrier and decide to shoot him. So Charles runs away too easily and they chase him.
He’s shot, poked with a stick by an imbecile, chased some more by men with meanness in their eyes while dogs run around aimlessly. The best protection from rabies apparently besides a gun is a brimming bucket. Charles’ life is saved in ridiculous fashion and he looks battered to hell. How do we know he isn’t a rabies carrier? This was okay.
Best Lines:
“We’re medieval now.”
“We live in the ruins of our created world and I’m a nihilist?”
“Well if it’s all so hopeless, why don’t you just kill yourself?”
“Because I want to see what happens.”
“I have the last Times ever printed.”
~
Bridgehead
The idiot woman and her two gormless feckless sons who escaped Blod in ‘Law of the Jungle’ are back at their farm. Agnes, Jenny, Hubert and the rest of Blod’s lot are shacking up with her. Agnes somehow knows how to use a spinning wheel and Jenny is as ever whining about Greg.
Some people have got a steam train going. There are no weeds in the tracks and getting coal is not a problem for them. Hubert cares for sick cows and is never thanked. Charles stumbles in and announces that Greg is wandering the land as an industrial evangelist.
Charles doesn’t seem too concerned about Pet. Jenny doesn’t care about her son. There is no mention of Ruth, Alan, Sally, Melanie, Mina or anyone else. The fate of Whitecross isn’t mentioned. Jenny fishes and hauls out a rat. Agnes is berated for not hooking up with one of the gormless feckless sons. Charles eats off the same knife he used to dig shotgun pellets out of himself back in ‘Mad Dog’, ew.
Charles and Jenny get into a boat (where did they get it?) and meet up with Bill Sheridan who knows homeopathic medicine. Everyone is stunned when a car drives by. Charles and Bill arrange for a market day. Charles still holds on to his dream of federating the settlements. This was boring.
~
Reunion
Charles, Jenny and Hubert are still riding around looking for Greg. A man named Walter is hurt and they find a vet who can care for him. Jenny finally mentions her son Paul but shows no real emotion. Then she learns that the vet Janet Millon is John’s mother. Remember John? The irritating brat child.
Jenny decides to reunite John and Janet. Abby hasn’t been mentioned in series 3 and we’ll never know if she ever found her son Peter. Jenny finally halts her search for Greg and heads home to her son alongside Janet and co.
Paul is now a toddler and John still can’t act. He has a stilted reunion with his mother. Jack’s recovered from his dog mauling in ‘Manhunt’ rather well. Charles decides to move Jack, Pet, Jenny, Paul, Hubert and himself to Janet’s place to form a new settlement.
John demands his pony. This was dull. Charles (Dennis Lill) is likeable despite all his berating of Jenny for being upset about Greg abandoning her and obviously preferring Agnes.