Motherland Xmas Special!

[SpongepantsSquareBob]

So excited for this!! They need to make another series!

Did you mean Stephen Mangan?

😄

I loved it but those of you looking for something cheerful should try the Two Doors Down Christmas special. Also on iplayer.

some funny moments but mostly disappointing

I must be in the minority but I found it quite uplifting. As someone whose Mum is also horrible, Amanda telling hers to fuck off was very empowering. "Not all Mums are Marions" indeed.

Much preferred this episode to the previous Christmas special which I found a bit … nothing.

This one had so many moments I’ll treasure forever. And surely the joke was on an entire nation of viewers all expecting Marion to wake up?

The twist with the Venice trip was just breathtaking and heartbreaking all at once but ultimately uplifting. And the fact of Amanda’s replacement not being visibly younger and thinner - just a lot more chilled. As pp have said - the person Amanda might have been with a kinder mother. Which is kind of excellent with mothering being the point of the show. All the women are the products of their own experience as daughters.

(So I guess if there’s anywhere left to go with developing the story they might bring in Meg’s parents/mother? Though they’d get it horribly wrong.)

I’m tempted to rewatch now, in the light of all your observations!

Anyone else notice Kate Middleton was wearing Meg’s hat today? 🤣

for the pp who found it too close to the bone. I loved it and tbh if it had been another episode with Julia gurning at everyone I would have switched off. It was very funny but the funniest lines were throwaway and easily missed - Philip Schofield, instagramming the Christmas table ‘if I were a dick’, steering FIL away from the hob because of his pacemaker.

For something more straightforwardly heartwarming I highly recommend last night’s Ghosts Christmas special.

I thought it was a bit disjointed and manic a bit all over the place

Loved it. The best shows are those that make you laugh and cry. A lot of comedies have sad episodes - like when Nana died I. The Royale Family Xmas special.

Hated it. And I'm a mega fan. I agree that some light and shade is essential but I felt they underwrote Meg and husband. Julia's husband asking about Stilton while she's sobbing at her mums chair was just so unrealistic. Same with liz and kev being smiley and taking her over the road. Unfortunately I have been in this situation (not directly) and the feeling is shock. There could have been some really simple rewites to the julia scenes I think.
The Amanda scenes were so fantastic in contrast. Really heartfelt and brilliant acting and I loved her telling her mum what for

It was ok. If I’m honest, I’ve always found the Christmas specials a bit awkwardly written and felt like they aren’t on the same level as normal episodes.

I didn’t find it overly sad as felt a bit unrealistic although if it really happened that would be horrific. It would be better if she wasn’t actually dead and got up and half of the family thought she was, half not etc and then it could have been amusing whilst also giving Julia the message she really needed.

That’s what I said!! 🤣🤣🤣

She looked very pleased with it! Glad it went to a good home 🤣

I liked it apart from the Stilton joke at the end. Too much. No one is that much of a dick!

Head over to the relationships board...

I was so disappointed with this Xmas special, the tone was just all wrong with Julia’s Mum dying in the chair and then there were panto style comedy about it all , like the death of a parent is something to get cheap laughs out of, didn’t hit the right note for me at all. And why did Amanda’s ex and new wife have Xmas dinner with her and her Mother? Just too contrived … and the silly storyline about Meg and the hat …. just so disappointing for a Xmas special , felt like it was a last minute decision and it was written in about half an hour

On the contrary, I was musing this morning that this episode explains Marion’s sudden illness in the sports day episode. Or at least completes it. The story didn’t feel cobbled together; she was elderly (though not very) and had been unwell previously.

Sam the shepherd! Liz's farmer boyfriend!!

I’ve heard several TV writers talk about how hard Christmas specials are to write - you have to cater for the casual viewer who has never seen your show (or at least only watches at Christmas) and for the die-hard fans.

I have to say that I find Motherland quite a cringey, painful watch and can only take it in small doses, so I really do not understand the people who tuned in expecting Christmas escapism. Nevertheless I do understand that it might have been an uncomfortable mirror for an awful lot of people.

All that being said I really loved it. Sorry.

Maybe William bought it for her and she just pretended to like it 😂

Agree with this. It wasn't so much the death but the slapstick reaction to it that felt just too much, too insensitive for a Christmas special. Especially as Marion was a fairly sympathetic character, not a stereotype who had always been played for laughs like the in-laws.

I loved it, but perhaps because it didn't have the emotional resonance for me that it did for others and I find christmassy christmas specials unbearable.

Marion reminds me of my mum, right down to being the real emotional rock and being the only character apart from Liz with any real idea of boundaries. Just having her slip away like that sort of emphasises the gap she'll leave for Julia imho. A PP said something about how we are seeing the mums of motherland more as daughters, and I love that.

Paul is a dick but for a lot of the episode he did just hold Julia. He's not completely one-dimensional now.

Yes....why wasn't he in it? I liked him and Liz together.

As far as slapstick and death goes I could relate to it. My mum died at home in the middle of the night when I was in my early twenties and I remember after the doctor left we rang the funeral directors to pick her up. We heard a noise at the door so I went to open it expecting it to be them, only to meet our v early milkwoman! She asked why we were up at 4am so we explained, she got upset, ended up inviting her in for a cuppa. Then the FD’s arrived, so they had one too, and then we had to move our car off the drive and move the milk float away so they could take the stretcher down. By then me and Dad were hungry so made cheese on toast before going to bed at 5am.

It was all very surreal - a bit of normality when your world had just fallen apart.