Waterloo Road could do with being flushed…
Waterloo Road returned to BBC1 last night and I’m not sure it was worth them bothering to reconvene a new term. I rather wish they’d taken an inset day or two.
This long running drama, set in a fictional Rochdale school, is now in its fourth series and unless I’m just missing something, I don’t get why. In fact, I must be missing something because in March of last year, viewing audiences reached six million so there has to be an appeal that escaped me last night.
It’s got a great cast, I’ll give it that. Neil Morrissey – who has long featured in a starring role in my private alone moments – Eva Pope, Denise Welch… it should have been really good, but, well, it wasn’t.
Last night’s new series premiere focused on not only Rachel’s trembling-but-determined return as head teacher following the fire of last series, but also the introduction of chav family from hell, the Kelly’s.
One of my pet peeves with soaps and dramas are the ridiculous names they give their characters and sure enough, one of the Kelly children was called Sambuca… oh purleeze. Maybe she had a cousin called Jack Daniels or a dad called Glen Fiddich.
Anyway, said hellish family also contained Earl, a gun toting psychopathic teenager with a grudge against his own shadow who threatened two boys with his gun then farmed it off on his younger brother Denzil when the school was evacuated and surrounded by police.
Rachel – a woman with a lot to prove and a chip on her shoulder that required a piece of battered fish to make it swallowable – rushed into the school when a gunshot rang out. A teenager who’d previously cut his hand came running out covered in blood and everyone assumed he’d been shot, but he hadn’t… all of which I saw coming a mile off.
The teenager who’d cut his hand startled young Denzil and the gun went off accidentally, harming no-one, but he did kill a ceiling tile.
The ‘what’s going to happen next’ factor was woefully predictable and the grizzled, seasoned teachers a tad too grizzled and seasoned to be taken seriously.
I simply couldn’t buy into it at all; the plotline featuring the new family, the inner city deprivation, the chavtastic kids… it was clichéd and tedious, ditto the heroic teacher.
Waterloo Road is not for me I’m afraid but I’d love to know what it is that made six million of you tune in last year! Let me know.
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I agree with many of the comments you made about Waterloo Road. I am myself a secondary school teacher and I do confess to watching it as a form of light entertainment but I always hope that viewers who are not in the education industry do not watch and think that it is a realistic portrayal of what life in urban secondary schools is like!
The things that get my goat the most are the fact that the teachers never seem to be actually doing any teaching – they always seem to be either sat behind their desk marking while the kids work, or leaning over some poor kid and having a go at them. You never see the teacher actively supporting the kids with their work or working the room! This is so unrealistic of what really goes on in the classroom.
The other thing that makes me laugh is that the teachers always seem to have time to go for a drink (or three) in the local pub at the end of the school day. Last night’s episode was the first day back at term so was therefore a school night, and we are shown teachers getting legless on double spirits in the pub, having slurred conversations. Personally, I would never risk getting drunk on a school night as having a clear head every morning is very important. Also, I never get time to go out during the week because I have so much school related work to do when I get home on a night. You never seem to see these teachers doing any work at home (but I guess that would be quite boring)!
However, the series does have its merits. I think the portrayals of the students and the different lives they lead is very good and often very sensitively handled. It is for this reason I like to watch it. The young actors who play the pupils often outshine the adult actors and they should be commended for the way they deal with what are often very difficult and grown-up issues. The way this is then interwoven with daily school life is very well done, and makes me think more about why some of the pupils in my own school may behave in the ways that they do – it can sometimes be difficult to step back and think ‘what is happening in their lives to make them behave like this?’ Waterloo Road can serve as a good reminder to stop and think before applying sanctions which may only serve to make the problem worse, not better.
Everyone i know watchs it … just because you dont like watching it, others do…
Personally i think waterloo kicks ass
wth?? There just your opinions, why was you watching it then ??? :@
I think the “Sambuca” name was supposed to be a wee tongue in cheek thing about chavs calling their babies after wine and such, trying to be “classy” e.g. chardonnay etc. Shame you didn’t get it.
if oyu dont like it dont watch it…………idiot and stop complaing no one wants to here wat you have to say…….
Waterloo Road is shite, and it IS unrealistic. The first series was very good but then it just went downhill. This series is ridiuculous, why would a random chavvy family be able to just arrive in a town and then be put up in that lovely house next to Davina and Tom’s? Why aren’t they in emergancy accomidation? Or even a council house? And why is that when Rose Kelly’s kids got taken off her did Sambucca get put up with her music teacher? That would -never- happen in real life, and they especially wouldn’t put a teenage girl with a man living alone, even if he is gay. Plus, they seemed to find a home for her very quickly considering the fostering process takes months =/
And btw, you have to research something in order to criticise it otherwise you’d have nothing to back up your points; so everyone who’s saying “like omg why do you watch it if you don’t like it?”, shut up, you need to know your enemy.
NO ONE CARES WHAT YOU THINK ITS A SHOW THAT ALL US WATCH AND BECAUSE YOUR TO UPTIGHT TO ENJOY IT DOSENT MEAN EVERYONE SHOULD HATE IT.
Your mum….to be honest =/
At least the people who have criticised the programme have substantial reasons to back up their opinions. I find it quite bemusing that nobody who have told these people to ’shut up’ can actually give any reasons to say why Waterloo Road is so brilliant in their eyes. Any takers? I’d be more inclined to consider your opinions if you could back it up with some evidence… Jess is absolutely right in this respect. As it was, my first comment was a very balanced view where I considered the good things about the programme as well as the bad.