BBC1 - One Foot In The Grave

Not one disappointing episode until the very end. It is a shame. How did you expect the ten yearlong comedy to end? With the dismal send off it was given, or with a bang? I certainly expected the latter. The whole episode was out of the Meldrew character.

The last ever episode called "Things Just Aren't Simple Anymore", opens with Margaret Meldrew opening the letters and then telephoning the solicitors to say that her husband was dead and a case against him sticking a syringe into the bottom of a man's bum (of which these are HIS solicitors) to drop the case.

The episode goes back in time to the events leading up to Victor's death, and occasionally goes back to focus on how Margaret is presently coping with her new found friend (that I can not remember the name of. So I shall call her 'her' or 'she').

The events occur:

Victor is forced into going to a reunion with old friends after recieving an invitation, but once getting there he finds that nobody can turn up. He has a meal there, listens to the very awful cabaret on his own. He finishes his meal, and eventually gets in a cab outside the pub as one of his friends pulls up and walks in. Of course, Victor doesn't see him, and leaves the scene. The next time we see him hes at the train station and calling Margaret to say when to pick him up. While waiting outside for her to pick him up, a car comes at high speed and knocks him over, leaving him for dead on the pavement. A few seconds later Margaret pulls up and runs to the rescue. He is dead though.

While all this goes on, there is another story, the development of Margaret’s new friendship, and how she is coping without Victor. It turns out that Margaret is organising activities such as tidying up the streets with a rubbish collection (probably just to keep her occupied). This is how she met her new friend. Her husband died a week after Victor did.

Over lunch they discuss their losses, and they end up back at Margaret’s friend's new house. She has a headache. So Margaret offers to get her a drink and some tablets. While looking in the draws for the paracetamol (she has already made the drink) she comes across a photo album. It has her deceased husband photograph's and memories of the two of them in it. Then Margaret comes across many cut-outs of Victor's story in there. Putting two and two together, the camera zooms in on the drink and the paracetamol packet. Then you are taken to 'her' as she rubs her temples ot try and tame her headache. Margaret stares at her, and 'she' puts two and two together and explains.

What happened:

She had received a phone call from the hospital, saying that her husband may die that very evening. Getting in her car, stressed and anxious, aswell as exhausted, she nods off for a few minutes at the wheel, waking up too late to steer out of the way of Victor, knocking him over, she continues to drive on, stopping at the nearest corner, but seeing that Margaret had already arrived, she got back in the car and went to the hospital.

Margaret puts two dissolvable pills into her drink and then hands it to her. She drinks. The next scene is of Margaret closing the door to the house, getting in the car, pausing for thought, and then leaving.

This leaves you with two possible endings, she A) gave her an overdose B) did not. Well, and even then we don't know exactly what happens to Margaret.

This last episode really was a let down. It wasn't funny and not in the style the other ten years have been. Completely out of character.

I expected Victor to be rushed into hospital and the job botched up by the surgeons with him complaining and saying his most famous lines before death. Thats about the right style. I was not impressed and it was a great let down. A terrible end to such a fantastic ten years.

Though the rest of the ten years never failed to make me laugh, it is not worth buying the video with the last episode on it.