Last To Leave The Party

Sydney Morning Herald

Monday October 25, 1999

PARTY OF FIVE

On Ten, Tuesdays at 7.30pm.

PARTY of Five was never everyone's idea of entertainment, but until this last series it was mine. Watching Claudia cope (or not cope) with her lack of parenting, enduring Charlie's negative rut and dodging Bailey's wild swing from "out of control" to "total control" was, for me, satisfying, enriching television. Great scripts put POF above occasional cheesiness and committed it to story-lines that were not afraid to rock the ratings boat.

But then drama, not characters, became the organising principle. In the fourth series Charlie broke up with the pregnant Daphne, hired a lawyer to get her back, had to choose between her life or the baby's (oh please!), was dumped again and then taken to court by one brother for another brother's custody.

Also featured was the violent assault of Bailey and Sarah, Sarah's reconciliation with the assailant (before he stole their gun and ran riot), the death of Sarah's birth mother and the divorce of her adopted parents, the bashing and kidnapping of Julia, her experiment with lesbianism and divorce from Griffin, Owen's disappearance and disability ...

And if that wasn't enough there was Claudia's cliched school antics and sudden breast development. Worst of all, however, was the lack of emotional processing in the fourth series, except in the most shallow, bucketloads-of-insight way (believe me, it wasn't always so).

For the series finale, someone seems to have told the writers "enough already". Julia goes introspective, Charlie commits to Kirsten (whose clothes no longer fit) and Bailey tries to make his life work (and fit Claudia into it). But it's too little too late, and the script leaves fans with the feeling that the writers are going through the motions. In the final moments, when POF regains its magic for a second or two, I'm left feeling nostalgic, not because the series has ended, but for its stifled characters.

Sylvia Huntingdon,

Lawson.

You can preview an episode of a television show for The Guide. send us your name, address, daytime phone number and choice of program. We will send a preview tape to one guest previewer each week.