Derry Girls - Lisa McGee
Season One
This small town sit-com focus on the small-town things that take up the lives of these girls and their families. It was a very rough start, with a lot of the jokes just missing the mark.
The characters were all hot and cold as well. But both the story and the characters grew on me.
It really felt that they were feeling their way a little bit at the start of the season.
The characters were a bit inconsistent, but this was all sorted out by the end of the season. One of the girls’ male cousins is sent to the girls’ school because they’re afraid the boys will kill him because he’s English.
He doesn’t really get a look in apart from being the but of jokes, which is sad because they could have done a lot more with this character.
All of their parents are just as mental as they are. So totally bizarre. One of my favourites is the main girl’s dad, Gerry, Tommy Tiernan (Wolfwalkers & Hardy Bucks). He is a timid fella, but you quickly realise that he might be one of the few with their head screwed on.
The issue is that everyone around him is so much more headstrong than him. To drive this home, Gerry’s wife’s dad lives with them, and the father-in-law is always saying how hopeless Gerry is.
It also doesn’t matter if Gerry agrees with what they are saying. They will still act as if they aren’t.
I’m going to give the second season a go. They need to define the characters better for this to have legs beyond that.
