I've inadvertently touched a raw nerve.
If making a sitcom as successful as Good Life is easy, why are there not loads of people doing so?
Who said it was easy? Not me, your honour.
I seriously doubt that writing anything is "easy", whether it ends up successful or not. I'm a writer, I've written god knows how many half hour scripts for TV (animation) and it isn't easy, so I feel I know what I'm talking about.
That being said, and contrary to all advice, people tend to write what they
are rather than what they know. If you're a dark thinker, you'll write gothic horror, if you're a trite middle class thinker, you'll write Terry and June.
The Good Life was (in my opinion) well written, and it did have a twist - a fish-out-of-water premise where none of the characters had actually moved anywhere. They were attempting to achieve an agrarian lifestyle whilst remaining in leafy comfortable Surbiton, near doctors, supermarkets and a regular bus service.
Look, I'll give you that The Good Life had its moments - the time when Barbara deliberately pours gravy all down her new dress in a fit of anger. Briers' timing is superb as he counts the beats before delivering "now that's just silly..."
Ever Decreasing Circles is deeper, that's what I like about it. It's for grown-ups. You do feel that Briers wife in the series could easily fall for the smooth neighbour, who doesn't put the moves on, he just hints, and she is SO frustrated by the Obsessive Compulsive she married. The writer doesn't even give us permission to hate Briers' character - we like and admire and are irritated by him in equal measure, just as all red blooded males were infatuated by his wife and identified with the suave neighbour.
OK, I'll take it back -The Good Life is good. But Ever Decreasing Circles is Great.
