Watched fifteen minutes of this last night. It is shit. Like, as has been mentioned, a crappy kids sit-com with added, constant sex 'gags'.
It is baaaaad. To think they cancelled Pulling to fill BBC3 up with more stuff like this. It beggars belief.
 

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Tragically I was an only twin.
 

Quote: Matthew Stott @ October 7 2008, 12:41 PM BST

Watched fifteen minutes of this last night. It is shit. Like, as has been mentioned, a crappy kids sit-com with added, constant sex 'gags'.
It is baaaaad. To think they cancelled Pulling to fill BBC3 up with more stuff like this. It beggars belief.

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Have they cancelled Pulling? That's a big mistake. I thought I'd hate that show, from the way it was promoted and the trailers, actually watched it once and was quite hooked. They'd try to push it as some gross-out ladette comedy, when really it was just a good character comedy.

I think, apart from not having much of a developed sense of humour, the writer of CoA is too young. Sometimes a writer needs a little distance from their subject. With time, hindsight and reflection a writer can realise the characters much better. Even if it's just a few years. When you're wrapped up in that stage of your life, you just don't see the whole picture, whereas some time after you have much better perspective.
 

Well they've not so much cancelled it as announced that another new series will not be commissioned. AFAIK, work hadn't begun on a third.
 

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Aaron
BSG Forums & DVDs Editor
Half man, half Internet, half TV.
(Loyal follower of The Magical Aura of Laura.)

 

Does seem a shame to kill off a genuinely well written show like Pulling. God knows, BBC3 isn't exactly awash with them.
 

Actually quite enjoyed this week's episode. I just get a strange feeling from it. Like it's got a humourous shell, with nothing inside.

That makes no sense outside of my head.


Anyway. Point being, much better than episode 1, some realism, and some freaking sweet innuendo. Looking forward to episode 3 a little more than I was with 2.
 

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Aaron
BSG Forums & DVDs Editor
Half man, half Internet, half TV.
(Loyal follower of The Magical Aura of Laura.)

 

Quote: Aaron @ October 7 2008, 2:12 PM BST

Well they've not so much cancelled it as announced that another new series will not be commissioned. AFAIK, work hadn't begun on a third.

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That's another way of saying "cancelled" in my book. Here's a quote from Gareth McLean:

Quote:

In deeply dispiriting but strangely not surprising news, BBC3 has axed Pulling, a decision that will persuade no one that Danny 'Phoo Action' Cohen isn't a moron. I suppose that without Pulling around, Coming Of Age won't look quite as atrocious but is that really reason enough to axe one of the finest comedies on TV? I suppose if there ever was a third series of Gavin and Stacey, Cohen would pass on that too because 'every recommission means one less space for a new project'.

You're right though, there could still be life for Pulling yet... BBC2 have just got a new controller who could allow the show to move over.

Anyway, back to the depressing situation that is Coming Of Age:
 

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Mark
BSG Editor
 

I dunno. I tend to think of a cancellation involving the halt of something which has already begun. But it can be defined either way.
 

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Aaron
BSG Forums & DVDs Editor
Half man, half Internet, half TV.
(Loyal follower of The Magical Aura of Laura.)

 

Quote: Aaron @ October 8 2008, 1:17 AM BST

I dunno. I tend to think of a cancellation involving the halt of something which has already begun. But it can be defined either way.

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Since I'm Alan Partridge I've always deemed failure to get recomissioned as failure. That said, perhaps the Pulling team didn't pitch a third series.
 

Quote: chipolata @ October 8 2008, 3:05 PM BST

Since I'm Alan Partridge I've always deemed failure to get recomissioned as failure. That said, perhaps the Pulling team didn't pitch a third series.

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They definitely want to do a full third season - but they're only only allowed a final special because Danny Cohen won't give them any more than an hour.

Cohen had a good career at C4 (The Inbetweeners, Fonejacker and Skins were amongst his commissions) but he's really titted things up since he's come to BBC Three... Lily Allen and Friends, The Wall, Coming Of Age: they're not exactly Pulling, Nighty Night, Little Britain, Gavin and Stacey or The Mighty Boosh are they?
 

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Mark
BSG Editor
 

Quote: Mark @ October 8 2008, 6:50 PM BST

They definitely want to do a full third season - but they're only only allowed a final special because Danny Cohen won't give them any more than an hour.

Cohen had a good career at C4 (The Inbetweeners, Fonejacker and Skins were amongst his commissions) but he's really titted things up since he's come to BBC Three... Lily Allen and Friends, The Wall, Coming Of Age: they're not exactly Pulling, Nighty Night, Little Britain, Gavin and Stacey or The Mighty Boosh are they?

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Only The Inbetweeners is any good out of that list.
 

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A bit too good.
 

Quote: Mark @ October 8 2008, 6:50 PM BST

Cohen had a good career at C4 (The Inbetweeners, Fonejacker and Skins were amongst his commissions) but he's really titted things up since he's come to BBC Three... Lily Allen and Friends, The Wall, Coming Of Age: they're not exactly Pulling, Nighty Night, Little Britain, Gavin and Stacey or The Mighty Boosh are they?

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From what you've listed, that's an obvious attempt at a demographic change, isn't it? It's trying to appeal to a younger market now (early/mid-teens to early twenties than 18-35 that was aimed for before. Pulling is *so* not for that market, and more appealing to your mid-twenties up, in my opinion.

It's like Cohen's been told to aim lower, age-wise.

Dan
 

I feel (as part of my community service) I really have to come to the defence of 'Coming Of Age'. For example, the title. How many of you could have come up with this gag, scum? ('Coming' has a double-meaning, you see? Not so clever are you now, eh?)

This is a scatological masterpiece along Pinteresque or Ortonian lines. It neither judges nor dismays the inconsequence of modernity. Indeed, the 2nd episode 'Dick and Fanny', to some extent expresses in a way (that no series of 'X Factor' ever will, for those rationalists) the frustration, the ennui and the existentialist despair, that trying to create a predictable sexual innendo plot will always involve in this "credit-crunch" Zeitgeist.

Ergo, a young man (who is looking scared-by-camera and unconvincing), fears that he might be gay (and the ridicule which that gayness typically provokes in the neo-Marxist Brown-ite "noughties"). So what does he do? Where is his outlet? Why, gloriously, in the word, the name "Lilly". He hilariously makes a "gag" about really finding that "Lilly Savage" incredibly attractive.

You see?

The young man (mixing Rousseau with Freud with - dare I say it? - gay abandon!), has unintentionally mistakenly said "Lilly Savage" when he meant to say (or did he?) "Lily Allen".

He has shown his sexuality in a way we can all understand - straight OR gay, black OR white, mother OR father, liberal OR Nazi.

We acquire a better conceit of ourselves. We know the truth. Poofs don't know they're poofs. Homosexuals need it explaining it to themselves by girls. Gays are whimsical losers. The universe is resolved to not expanding quite as fast until it has come to terms with this.

Of course, some say 'Coming Of Age' isn't as deeply thought-out as this, however...
 

Hahahaha.
 

I gave this a second chance (well there was nothing else on) and my opinion hasn't changed. It was just endless, silly inneundos and different ways of describing sexual acts. There's no depth or any other sort of gag (apart from some bad slapstick).

Of course you could say this show isn't aimed at me, but I still have the same sense of humour as I had when I was 16 (in fact I was more harsh and critical then). Who is this aimed at? It must be watched/aimed at the 12-15 age group who believe this show was great because it's 'naughty'.
 

I think that this week's episode was more or less the pilot. I do seem to recall all the green stuff. Either way, some rather good gags, and generally on the same standard as last week. I chuckled along a bit, and it kept my attention. Enjoyable.
 

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Aaron
BSG Forums & DVDs Editor
Half man, half Internet, half TV.
(Loyal follower of The Magical Aura of Laura.)