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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Spells &amp; Karma" data-source="post: 341012" data-attributes="member: 23">The latter part of Series Four reinforces that less is most definitely more. Padding out the nineteen episode series is an awful lot of filler, most of which seem to be in the second half of the year's run. There is still some good stuff, but it's being diluted by the quantity over quality approach.Last night I watched the episode in which Jo became manager of a bad rock band and Tom did some bad stand up. This was followed by an episode set in "the caribbean" in which Caroline did a flirty dance to the Andrews Sisters' Rum and Coca-Cola and Charlie karaoke'd The Lady Is A Tramp. The overall effect was of watching a terrible talent contest.On top of this, the comedy is getting more way out and bizarre, what with Caroline undergoing a personality change in order to tick off her bucket list of wild things in one episode, then being shot from a cannon in the next (we only heard this, but it was no less silly).It feels the series is foundering with no more decent stories to tell. Almost in recognition of this, Caroline and Charlie's first proper kiss took place in at the end of the  Caribbean episode. However, since most of the episode felt like a sequence of non-sequiturs, there was very little build-up to this and I'd almost checked out by this point.The biggest W-T-F moment came when Charlie rebuffed Caroline mid-kiss because he thought they shouldn't do that unless they're married? This is the man who just a few episodes ago was shagging their tenant because... well, just because, really. I do understand it could be read as a suggestion that he values Caroline more than he does most of the women he regularly dates and kisses without any faux coyness (because his feelings for her are real). But it seemed at best out of character, and at worst rather manipulative of him. The cynical thought even struck me that Caroline's bank balance could be some kind of factor, and I don't think this would have occurred to me if the moment had been organic and unforced.It seems the budget has been cut since the sunny South of France locations the cast visited for real in Series Two. This time round, the Caribbean was an extremely artificial-looking studio set, dressed with plastic greenery and the cast wearing colourful clothes over their pasty white skin. It all felt a bit "why bother".In better news, Katherine Helmond's episode is coming up. All being well I'll watch it this evening.</blockquote>

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