For several years through the 1990s, One Foot in the Grave fielded a Christmas special. Often, but not always, on Christmas Day, not even always about Christmas, but still in a quiet sort of way it was an annual fixture just as much as the far more feted Only Fools.
My memory, which granted may be at fault, seems to think that often, but not always, they flirted with the idea, or at least teased it enough in the hype beforehand, that the latest special might be the last ever episode, that they might even kill Victor off. They never did of course – not at Christmas anyway.
Ironically perhaps, given that its leads are two… older characters, both Richard Wilson and Annette Crosbie are still with us (whereas it’s with real sadness that I look at the regular cast of The Vicar of Dibley and see that only three of them are left now) so in theory at least they could come back and do some more…
…If it weren’t for the fact that, again ironically (I’m beginning to think that if Alanis Morisette had just held on a few more years, she could have got a fifth verse out of this) they DID, ultimately, though not at Christmas, kill Victor off.
There’s a case to be made that One Foot was/is the last great BBC sitcom, and in a way that I can’t quite explain (unless “it’s because you’re getting old, Curnow” is any sort of explanation) it really takes me aback to realise it started over 30 years ago, and ended over 20. I… Well…
I don’t believe it.
Andrew Curnow's Ramblings 