STILL bloody banging on about Green Wing, even though it's finished, GOOD GOD LET IT GO, MAN!

UPDATE: Production designer JPG has some great GW wedding-related photos over at his blog.

Anonymous said:

was it a conscious decision to have it themed around death? reviewers etc. have often said it's almost as though the gw writers have a ticklist of taboos to put on screen, so maybe death was the last one? how it affects people/ why people might choose it/ why people kill each other/themselves?

I need to stress I'm only talking from my own point of view here, but still:

The short version of why the GW special was about death (or at least why Mac had to die), is because... they're doctors, and they deal with death every day, which is why the big deal with writing GW was that you got to look at all the trivial stupid things that in the long run turn out to be important. All those little moments that would never make it into a more serious drama, but which are nonetheless can be just as profound. The brief, not-really-about-anything conversation you have with someone before you realize you've fallen in love with them, or they're hit by a bus. Or both.

Which is why I never agreed that you could have set the show on a cruise ship, or a supermarket or something, and have it work just as well, as you lose the sense that all the characters probably are dealing with life and death, and all the big emotions that are dealt in a very direct way in something like ER. In GW, you could tell from the fact that all the main characters had white coats, all that stuff was probably going on in the background, that just wasn't what we were choosing to look at.

But for a final episode (which sitcoms rarely have, because they're always trying another series), the characters suddenly had to deal with death directly, rather than it just being a part of the working day. It's important too, to think there's a good chance that the characters that survived would hopefully take something from the whole experience. I like to think that Boyce actually got something from his weird relationship with Statham (he'd probably buckle down to his studies after being shouted at, and maybe even find himself becoming just a bit pedantic every time he passed a garden centre), and that after Mac dies, Martin actually grows up a bit, and passes his exams (or decides not to be a doctor after all, which might be best). Guy has already become a slightly nicer person after falling in love with Caroline, and this process might even last ten minutes beyond the credits.

But that's just my thoughts on it, the other writers might have completely different points of view. It was fantastic being able to see something like Green Wing through to its conclusion though, and flawed and slightly-too-long though it sometimes was, I'm enormously proud to have been a part of it, and immensely touched by the community of fans that built around it, you crazy mofo's.

And despite me constantly being rude about the actors on here, they genuinely were lovely to work with, although I'll deny saying that HOWEVER MUCH YOU HURT ME.