THE BRITISH INVASION: As Times Goes By

THE BRITISH INVASION CONTINUES!!! Sheesh, looks like a newspaper heading. Imagine a pair of lovers prior to the Korean War. A young second lieutenant falls for a nurse in 1953 and they are in love but they become separated when the lieutenant was posted to Korea and lose track of each other. This is As Time Goes By.

Stop grinning or you will have no tip.

Second Lieutenant Lionel Hardcastle (Geoffrey Palmer of The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, Fawlty Towers, Whoops Apocalypse, The Last Song, A Fish Called Wanda, Hot Metal, The Savages and North by Northamptonshire) has spent the last 38 years on a plantation in Kenya as a coffee planter decides to write his memoirs when the secretarial agency is owned by a former nurse name of Jean Pargetter (Judi Dench of Hilda Lessways, A Study in Terror, Theatre 625, A Midsummer Night's Dream, A Fine Romance, GoldenEye, Shakespeare in Love, GoldenEye: Rogue Agent, Pride & Prejudice, and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel ). Jean created her agency Type For You after the passing of her husband and raise her daughter Judith (Moira Brooker of The Doctor and the Devils, Made in Heaven, Owd Bob, Out of Sight, As Time Goes By and The Bill) as an assistant for the firm.

Oh do begone, camera 2!

Jean realizes that Lionel is the same Lionel of some many years ago. Naturally both have their pride and are equally stubborn on how broke of their first love. After a few confusing miscommunications and misconceptions that their mutual letters were lost and did not make their way to each other. Lionel's publisher Alistair Deacon (Philip Bretherton of Agatha Christie's Miss Marple: At Bertram's Hotel, Hollyoaks, Casualty, Footballers' Wives, Coronation Street and Young Dracula) a boy genius with more energy and verve than any man should but he is a whiz at the game with far too many contacts and connections come Hell or highwater he will publish Lionel's book and pull out all the stops to get it out there.

Can a romance of so many years ago ever be rekindled? Can two lovers ever reunite?

A few comments on the series now.

The man and woman in the pictures of the beginning of the show are supposed to be Jean and Lionel are actually Judi Dench's daughter and Geoffrey Palmer's son. The role of Jean was originally written for Jean Simmons (Guys and Dolls, The Big Country, Spartacus and Howl's Moving Castle). With the program's original title was "Winter with flowers" but when the cake featured with the title, the cast and crew didn't want any cake until the name of the series was changed and I can't say I blamed them. Given the precarious nature of BBC programming and scheduling the series managed the 10 year stretch and unlike most of American series it did not go over 13 episodes per season. 

Whatever happened to the cat?