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 YOUR THOUGHTS ON THE FINAL SERIES Series 31 continues every Monday on BBC1, with a repeat on the CBBC Channel the following Saturday. Let us know what you think of it and here are your thoughts so far: Ryan Wilson thinks the last two episodes have improved: "With the apparent continuing downtime to the GH Blackboard, I thought I would send my thoughts to the "Can U Help" pages. After a rather hit and miss effort earlier in the series, I think the the two past episodes,(6 and 7), have been the best of the series so far. However, when you are having to beat opposition such as Food Fight and Boarderman quite how big a compliment I am paying the series, I don't know. Indeed, tonight's episode was one of the few that didn't appear to think that it was a sitcom of some sort and dealt with some semblance of an issue, in the form of bullying. Some of the episodes are comparable to the first series in terms of content, however for whatever reason, (acting, scripts, direction, characterisation, possibly just nostalgia), they just feel as if they are falling short. I know the since the death knell has been sounded on the series, any talk of how the show could improve is ultimately pointless, however whenever the Year Tens have been the centre of the episode, the episode has tended to be better. To carry on the school theme, if were to give a mark, it would probably be a C. PS: Have you thought of an updates page for the site. The front page might tell you when the site was last updated, however, as a visitor to the site I often find it difficult to work out "what" has been updated." Great suggestion Ryan and we'll look into it. With this being the final series there may well be some free space on the home page soon!  Geoff Phillips thinks
CBBC are playing it safe: "Hope you
are well and enjoying this final series. I thought the best mates
episode (02 June) was the closest to what the old series was like,
but there's still an uncomfortable element that I can't work out -
a kind of wooden safeness to the script as though every word has been
carefully considered. The series feels like a Children In Need special,
sort of played up to the camera." Hi Geoff - CBBC
firmly denies that it is sanitising its output in any way and in e-mails
to GH Online, CBBC controller Anne Gilchrist says CBBC remains committed
to risk-taking with shows like Summerhill. However, in a year which
has seen the BBC dogged by various scandals including the Ofcom fine
that was handed to Blue Peter for phone-in deception, it would be
understandable that the BBC is perhaps not wanting to draw more attention
to itself. But we still have the rest of Series 31 to go - what will
it bring?Michael adds to the Boarderman backlash: "Hi Simon, it is good to see Grange Hill Online back in action again! Anyway on to Series 31, well it's not what I expected or imagined - far from it. Boarderman was just too over the top to be true - as if this really could happen in a school in real-life, though in saying this - these days nothing would surprise me. Boarderman was just way too over the top for words. Though it was funny how McDonnell had the banner thrown round him on stage! I think the best episode so far as been the Double Cross Country one, the character of Chloe is very similar to Anna Aright in many aspects I think, with Andrea being in the situations Dill often found herself in with Anna! I even thought the Election episode was OK, barring the dream/bubble/thinking elements!! Not sure yet really what to make of last weeks with Dawn Miller returning as a football player/Jamie Liver type cookery star. I found it of interest why the name "Miller" was given to Dawn, given Martin has just left and Ben was one of Grange Hill's best footballers." While Malcolm Neale was appalled by the episode Food Fight: "I am wondering how much lower it can possibly sink. I am still trying to work out what last Monday's episode was supposed to be about."  Alison's
aliasDan C asks: "Who plays Alison in the new Grange Hill?" Hi Dan - Alison is played by actress Georgia May Foote (left), who has been part of the show since 2005. Georgia has also appeared in Conviction, Sorted and Life On Mars. Denny's surname revealed? Matt has been looking at Grange Hill's entry on Wikipedia with great interest: "Hi Simon, I was just looking at Wikipedia's Grange Hill entry and I saw it has been updated. I saw in the headteachers section that Mr Starling is listed as "Mr E. Starling" and Mr McNab is listed as "Mr Alistair H. McNab". I don't know who the author of the Wikipedia article is, but I never knew of the characters' first names before and I didn't know they officially had first names. "Although Denny's last name was never revealed on screen, I have a copy of a newspaper website's interview with Lisa Hammond and at the beginning of the article, Denny's name is given as "Denny Roberts". I wonder if other pupils whose last names were never mentioned on screen, also "officially" had last names. Mr Keating is another staff member whose first name was never mentioned - I'm not sure if he officially had a first name. Also, Mr Bronson's sister's name was never mentioned on screen, although Michael Sheard said it was Edith, didn't he?" Thanks for the information Matt! Mr Starling's first initial could be seen on the Grange Hill school sign, which was visible in the opening minutes of the very first episode. Mr McNab's name was seen on a name plate in the final episode of Series 20 (1997), when Tom was taking photos for his infamous school streak. Now I wonder who could have made those updates to Wikipedia, I'd say he was a very enthusiatic Grange Hill fan...(!) |
