Read the review and yep after watching 5 episodes of season 2, they couldn't come up with anything more illuminating than 'oo isn't it camp!!' Yes well done, in retrospect, the 1980s come across as a little bit camp. No one has ever said that before. Genius! And if you look at the other reviews on the old BBC cult site, that's exactly what they said about Blake's 7, 80s Dr Who, in fact every other programme made before 1995.
I've just watched both seasons and I agree that season 2 works a lot better as television, although the ending and the fact that the last book was never adapted for tv is quite frustrating- I actually thought I was missing an episode, the ending was so abrupt! I think the adaptation would have been more successful if the trilogy had been spread across two series and a lot of the first book, which doesn't work well as a tv adaptation as it is quite slow-moving, had been cut out entirely or compressed into fewer episodes.
Michael Grade wouldn't have been able to axe it then. Did he not understand that the BBC isn't his own personal channel designed for his ideal viewing, and that just because he finds scifi dull, guess what!?!? Other people don't! Just because he hated Dr Who, in fact quite a lot of other people had the opposite opinion, hence it is now one of the most popular programmes on the BBC at the moment. HAH!
My only other complaint about the TV series is the terrible girl 'characters'- the term 'characters' is a bit of a stretch as they're basically the product of some teenage boy's masturbation fantasy- particularly the girl family in the first series and Pat Butcher's two girls in the second on their way to the games. All they needed was their boobs to fall out a few times and a few winks to camera from the boys and you'd be in a Carry On film. Or maybe they could have added some scenes of Will chasing the blonde one around in her underwear and it would have been Benny Hill.
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