Special

Each episode is approximately 15 minutes long...and, with the lacklustre direction...it comes across more as a web series than a fully fleshed-out sitcom.

Special needed [much] more development [and discussion] before the cameras started to roll...instead of it being a rather 'light' sitcom, it could have been a shell-shocking tragi-com. The mother's storyline is pure tragedy...always devoted, now spurned...and, with all the crises of mid-life banging on her door, she is screaming out to be heard, to be helped!

There's Ryan's newest friend - Kim - glamorous, single, drowning-in-debt and broke. There is so much more to her story to tell, alas, curtailed by the short runtime...definitely, an area ripe for future development.

Then...there's Ryan. He, like everyone else, has his faults. He, unlike most people, has Cerebral Palsy...now, in the same year, BBC3 produced a sitcom along similar lines - Jerk - Tim, also with CP, is angrier, confrontational and exploits his disability to his benefit. It's controversial and uncomfortable to watch...but, my God, does he make his point, loud & clear. Ryan is - perhaps - just a little bit too affable...although he does shoot himself in the foot when he goes on a blind-deaf-date! Definitely the most controversial point in the whole series.

Special needs more anger, frustration and controversy...and less caricatures, that boss-lady needs to go...or, re-written beyond recognition...as well as a few others!

If there is to be a subsequent series [or two]...sit down, discuss, write...then, sit down, discuss and re-write, then re-write again. And when the script is in the bag, find a director who will take it to the next level...the potential is there...it just needs more time, more money...more grit.

It's over to you Netflix!

Trailer...