Who watched this?
For anyone who doesn’t know, Derry Girls is a Channel Four sitcom about teenagers growing up in ’90s Northern Ireland. There have been three series and the last ever episode was on last night.
While generally funny and scabrous, it always managed to bring a touch of seriousness into the mix, and felt emotionally and politically “true” despite sometimes getting into slapstick territory on the surface. I think most comedy fans would agree it’s been one of the best sitcoms in years.
I thought the final episode last night was terrific, and it was a great idea to tie it into the Good Friday Agreement referendum. It acted as a very nice education piece, as well as keeping the jokes flying throughout. It’s been the right decision to draw the line there (if for nothing else to quit before the cast start getting too old looking): I generally like comedies that are brave enough to end on a high rather than drag things out for years to diminishing returns (Only Fools and Horses being a rare exception for me).
So, it’s a standing ovation from me. With the cap now closed on three perfect series, 19 episodes in total, it joins other classic comedies like Fawlty Towers, Father Ted and The Thick of It that knew when to stop.
I can only agree with everything you have said. It has been a wonderful series & bowed out at the right time.
The anguish from the sweetshop guy as he was casting his vote was really well done. Hats off to Lisa McGee for an incredible series which feels very important given the current climate.
Love the DGs. Will prolly treat myself to a catchup of this at the weekend.
Although every time I see the title I start singing….
Derry Girl, she’s a Derry Girl
OK fine, fer sure fer sure
She’s a Derry girl and there is no cure
I only watched the first season and wasn’t that impressed. In a similar comedic vein, I preferred the Cork-based sitcom The Young Offenders.
Mrs M likes this. I can’t watch it because they’re too much like people I went to school with.
I’ve never watched that, but might give it a go, thanks.
No spoilers!
I’ve chuckled through every series of Derry Girls, but don’t get the worship of it in some parts of the press. A better than average sitcom, but that’s it.
Haven’t seen the final episode yet but I agree – it’s magnificent stuff, and stands up to several re watches becasue there is so much packed into each episode. I have felt there has been a slight falling off this season, which wasn’t helped by Claire having to be written out of some scenes because of filming clashes with Bridgerton, and Sister Michael’s appearances being fewer than normal presumably becuase of the actor’s injured leg. And I would have loved to see more of Uncle Colm, who along with Granda Joe, reminds me of half my uncles, and other distant relations. But I am nitpicking – it has still been unmissable.
I think Comedy Series are one of those things you need to give time to settle in eg Schitts Creek and Parks & Rec both of which I struggled to see why the acclaim. Now I think both were brilliant. It also took us a while to appreciate The Detectorists.. one of the best things on telly for years.
We persevered through the first series of Derry Girls and thought “nah” in a similar vein as to our opinion of Father Ted (I love Ireland and the Irish by the way). We’ll give Derry Girls another go but my hopes are not high.
You don’t like Father Ted?? Who doesn’t like Father Ted? Never have I thought your name suited you more!
Stereotypical Irish Catholics making stereotypical jokes about the Pope? What’s not to like?
The pope is mentioned like three times in three series. So yeah, it’s almost non-stop.
I await with great anticipation the day that the College of Cardinals release the white smoke over the Vatican to signal their selection of Bishop Brennan as the next pontiff.
“……I will break both your ar-ums”
The urge to now populate the blog with copious FT quotes/references must be resisted. Lest it become an ecunemical matter.
Pope Len the first.
Sorry Moose
“Don’t call me Len, you little prick! I’m the Pope!”
….struggling….
The Pope was mentioned 672 times during 3 series. That’s a fact.
Similarly, there are now more people in full-time employment in the UK since the Norman Invasion, 40 NHS hospitals have just been built and Norwich City will beat Spurs on Sunday therefore avoiding relegation. All facts
Lord Tebbit’s tenure as Employment Secretary is much misunderstood.
As I expect this post will be.
As the answers get thinner, our friend in the Oc becomes Lodestone. Which appeals. Sort of like a scheming archbishop in Rome. Anyone seen The Young Pope and/or The New Pope? Triffic telly.
It’s Thursday, it’s seven o’clock, It’s Top of the Popes
It was once said by a man who couldn’t quit
Pope man please can I have another hit
I’ll try again after bailing out of the only episode I ever tried because it’s hard to appreciate comic timing when you need to have the subtitles on.
I just caught up with the finale there on All 4 and it was magnificent – this series has been great all through with a fine ensemble cast – I can’t single anyone out.
DG was a wonderful ensemble comedy, with so many great characters. The random Orla, Sister Micheal, uncle Colm, Michelle, the granddad…. All believable, all people I have known.
The finale was perfect.
I’d like to see the occasional special, if the ideas remain. TBH, I can imagine Orla becoming a focussed medic, Erin a journalist, Michelle a mum too young, etc.
There was a little line near the end when Erin said something about maybe “writing all this down some day”, so the suggestion was definitely there that she was going to be a writer in future of some kind. But to be honest, I think I would rather leave it there than return for any specials. Always a hit or miss approach I think.
My take on that line was that it suggested that Erin was a version of the young Lisa McGee…it was a wonderful scene anyway.
….good enough for me and Lisa McGee
(sorry)
A sort of feminine Morn Eyrish version of John Boy Walton if you will
A sort of feminine Morn Eyrish version of John Boy Walton if you will
Have you noticed how John Boy (well, the actor) appears in every American TV series these days?
Have you noticed how John Boy (well, the actor) appears in every American TV series these days?
Aee you sure you’re not just watching a lot of repeats?
I’ve seen him in The Americans and Ozark and even though he’s hardly changed it took me a while to recognise him both times…
Future specials might be problematic. Currently the five “schoolkids” have, in reality, a combined age of 148 with young Clare clocking in at 35 and the others all in their late twenties.
I was surprised to read that Sex Education’s Ncuti Gatwa is 29. Mind you, I think the cast of both Grease and Please Sir! were mostly in their late 60s when they played high school students.
That helps to assuage any guilty thoughts.
Before I’d put me specs back on I saw “sausage my guilty thoughts” there which is marginally worse.
I kept seeing clips on social media, so we binged the first two series before the third started. Frankly, I found I’d seen most of the best bits in those clips, but we really enjoyed it. It was the little details that were hilarious, like Sister Michael pitching up in the De Lorean wearing those tilting sunglasses, as well as the running jokes like Orla’s eating and Jenny’s plays. The finale was a really well thought out piece – terrific TV. My main problem was understanding all the dialogue!
Loved the show but a bit underwhelmed by the one-hour extended finale.
OK, based on recommendations here I dived in with subtitles (and it did take a good few episodes until I tuned in enough not to here them). I’ve binged the first two series and seen the first half of the third.
I love the Girls, boy included, and Sister George, but could live without the other adults. And it really, really dips in quality in the third series. The finishing line is in sight so I’ll watch to the end but everything looks a bit tired and effortful in the more recent episodes I have seen.
I loved the series overall, though I agree there was a slight dip in quality in series 3, not helped by having to shoot around Claire and Sister Michael’s various issues, but I really enjoyed the finale, which felt like a suitably apposite way to sign off… though I can’t help wondering if the “Reunion” episode might be a “backdoor pilot” for a Derry Girls ’77 series…
As a side point, including the special finale, the whole of Derry Girls, one of the most lauded sitcoms of recent years, consists of just 19 episodes; that’s not even one season of a US sitcom… I do get that we have single-writers over here, rather than massive writing teams like in the US, and yes, quality thresholds are debatable, but surely there’s some middle ground we could adopt in the UK get our best series into higher episode counts…?
Mrs Brown’s Boys must be up to about 10.000 episodes by now. It’s on every fkin night…
I was amazed to read that a new series in the works will be the first for several years. I could swear it’s on telly more often than Gregggg Wallace. My persistent channel hopping to avoid it certainly suggests so.
I have never seen more than brief snatches of it when channel hopping.
Given its stereotypical “auld oirish” characters, truly baffled by how popular it is here in Ireland.
Hugh Leonard was doing much funnier stuff than this in Me Mammy and Tales from the Lazy Acre in the 60s and 70s
Why?
Surely 12 perfectly formed and universally excellent episodes of something like Fawlty Towers or the Office is enough.
Credit to Cleese/Booth and Gervais/Mervhant for sticking to their guns and keeping the quality consistently high.
Like the man says, always leave them wanting more
Well, yeah, I geddit, but I can’t help feeling there must be some middle-ground between (say) The Office UK (14 episodes) and The Office USA (201 episodes)… and bearing in mind the US version was one of the most-watched things on Netflix, you could argue that even 201 episodes left some people wanting more…
Nah. I like it as it is. Any comedy (or drama for that matter) that feels the need to expand into “seasons” with “teams of writers” just starts to show the strain, no matter how good it is.
There are rare exceptions: Only Fools and Horses, as I mentioned above, I would argue sustained its quality over time. And even that was a closely controlled sequence of short series and one-off specials under one writer.
I think we British are proud of our small, curated, perfectly formed sitcoms.
You can get a direct comparison by looking at the Office compared to the US Office, or even The Thick of It compared to Veep. I quite like the US Office and Veep, but I know which ones I prefer and which I have rewatched more.
Well I’ve just caught up with the final Good Friday Agreement episode and I have to say I thought it was magnificent. Funny, good hearted, warm and quietly political. I absolutely filled up at the end – and I also felt more angry than ever at this selfish shallow destructive shambles of a prime minister and government we are saddled with at the moment.