I had been looking forward to This Life +10 since they first announced a reunion, and it was great to see the old characters back again, but was by no means amazing.
The characters and their fates over the past 10 years were believable - it made sense that the reversal of roles in Milly and Egg's relationship (he was now the high flier and she the stay-at-home mum) had caused problems, Anna was powerful and single, but had thankfully given up the booze. Warren had taken his years of therapy and become a life-coach, while Miles had also given up the law and made millions in business, with a trophy Asian wife to match. The bringing back together of the group produced old tensions - did Miles even like Warren? How much were Anna and Milly judging each other? The addition of Claire, who was filming the whole weekend for a program on Egg's book, was grating - you didn't particularly warm to her and she seemed to get in the way. However this was the point, it was a comment on the obsession with reality TV (which had developed in the intervening 10 years of course) and was a way of getting the characters to talk directly to camera about their feelings, in the same way that the therapist did in the original series.
It didn't fall foul to sweet sentimentality - the characters didn't claim to have kept in touch massively over the 10 years, with Anna and Milly having particularly fallen out. And the ending was the same, there was no staying together for Anna and Miles despite them finally both admitting their love for each other - these were two characters that couldn't ever live together and make a relationship work, and after one night together Miles left to go travelling, leaving Anna to have a baby with Warren. All the endings were neatly died up - Milly and Egg were back on track after he gave up his writing career, Anna was getting the chance at motherhood and with it, helping Warren get over his grief at losing Ferdy, and Miles was off to get some perspective in Timbuktu. It was nice that everything was left in a tidy way - unlike the massive cliffhanger of the original series where we were always left wondering 'what happened?!' The whole thing seemed a bit rushed and pointless, but it was certainly great to see the original characters and re-live the original series. My advice? Buy the DVD's and see just how great the original was. If you liked this, you'll LOVE 'This Life'.
8/10
The characters and their fates over the past 10 years were believable - it made sense that the reversal of roles in Milly and Egg's relationship (he was now the high flier and she the stay-at-home mum) had caused problems, Anna was powerful and single, but had thankfully given up the booze. Warren had taken his years of therapy and become a life-coach, while Miles had also given up the law and made millions in business, with a trophy Asian wife to match. The bringing back together of the group produced old tensions - did Miles even like Warren? How much were Anna and Milly judging each other? The addition of Claire, who was filming the whole weekend for a program on Egg's book, was grating - you didn't particularly warm to her and she seemed to get in the way. However this was the point, it was a comment on the obsession with reality TV (which had developed in the intervening 10 years of course) and was a way of getting the characters to talk directly to camera about their feelings, in the same way that the therapist did in the original series.
It didn't fall foul to sweet sentimentality - the characters didn't claim to have kept in touch massively over the 10 years, with Anna and Milly having particularly fallen out. And the ending was the same, there was no staying together for Anna and Miles despite them finally both admitting their love for each other - these were two characters that couldn't ever live together and make a relationship work, and after one night together Miles left to go travelling, leaving Anna to have a baby with Warren. All the endings were neatly died up - Milly and Egg were back on track after he gave up his writing career, Anna was getting the chance at motherhood and with it, helping Warren get over his grief at losing Ferdy, and Miles was off to get some perspective in Timbuktu. It was nice that everything was left in a tidy way - unlike the massive cliffhanger of the original series where we were always left wondering 'what happened?!' The whole thing seemed a bit rushed and pointless, but it was certainly great to see the original characters and re-live the original series. My advice? Buy the DVD's and see just how great the original was. If you liked this, you'll LOVE 'This Life'.
8/10