One of them was Are You Being Served? Conscious I'd never watched more than a few minutes of it, I decided to give it a go. (Nearly all these old sitcoms are on YouTube, to some extent or other.) It was every bit as bad as I imagined. You could see the jokes coming-- not just a mile away, but from the distant horizon.
While I was at it, I thought I'd try another classic British sitcom, one that I hadn't included on the list because I've probably seen about five minutes of it all told. That's Open All Hours. I always just assumed it would be awful.
Initially, my prejudice was confirmed, especially with the drawn-out gags involving the shopkeeper's stutter-- which I don't find "offensive", just tedious. But the more I watched, the more I warmed to it. On the basis of one episode, I've concluded that Open All Hours was pretty good, and I'm going to watch more of it. I should have known, really. Ronnie Barker was rarely in anything bad. In fact, I can't think of an example, unless it's Going Straight, the follow-up to Porridge. And that was mediocre rather than outright bad.
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