I would say that I'm sorry I haven't updated in forever but it's just getting old, so I won't.
BBC One school-based drama 'Waterloo Road' has returned to our screens people and along with the new series come some new cast members, including the Fitzgerald family which consists of headteacher Vaughn who has serious commitment issues, his partner Allie (the quintessential art teacher), Vaughn's two sons Leo and Justin from his previous marriage with ex-wife Olga who is now in a mental hospital because thanks to Vaughn infidelity with Allie. Justin is a bad boy who just needs a leather jacket - please, and his brother Leo who is a massive sop and hasn't really brought anything to the show in the past few weeks but I'm hoping that will change. Then there is Allie's children, Floyd who has a crazy ginger afro which is just... just hideous. And there's pretty, cute Tiffany who is having a secret romance with her step-brother Justin - juicy.
Now I have been faithful to Waterloo Road since series one which in my opinion was the best series because that's when the whole school drama thing was fresh, well except from Grange Hill. Since then the school drama genre has been thoroughly milked and now the whole show is failing in my opinion, which is almost definitely why it's in the last series. The first thing that is just wrong is the actual location of the school. In the original series the school was in the middle of Rochdale, an underprivileged area of Manchester, but ever since the whole school was demolished by a crazy man with a digger, the school relocated to Scotland taking with it the students from Rochdale whose parent's were supposedly okay with them just leaving home with a bunch of unstable, overworked teachers. So now they've got this sort of weird mix of people from the old school and just random students they've accumulated along the way, oh and it's a boarding school. It's all so confusing.
The philosophy of Waterloo Road is that everyone can achieve no matter their background which is wonderful, I'm all for equal opportunities, but it's also taken a little too far. Take for example the new 'community cafe' run by less than enthusiastic students, it is basically a few chairs in the middle of the corridor serving what I imagine is poor quality tea and biscuits. My question is who's got time to run this thing?! We are expected to believe that a busy school, populated by underachieving students who have a new drama every fucking hour, can sustain this type of commitment - don't make chuckle. It's really only used as a plot filler so that if two people are having an affair want an excuse for some 'alone time', they can go to the cafe and serve the elderly whilst making stupid faces at each other over the table - it's all just ridiculous and funny.Oh and don't even get me started on the 'helpline' which is basically a phone on the receptionist's desk where the community can ring in with problems which the staff somehow have time to resolve. What I'm getting at is this whole community culture they've created is the furthest from a real school environment as you could possibly get. When I was a student everybody couldn't give two shits about whether the school was going to be shut down or if one of the teachers was having a nervous breakdown - we were just there because we had to be and in sixth form I spent the majority of my time clock counting until I could go home. Now I know it's a school drama so they can't just have nothing happen but it just irks me how seriously they take their education - I'm a bad influence, I know
I also have problem with a lot of the characters. Firstly there's Rhiannon Salt, to be honest I can't really remember where she came from and I don't really care, all I know is she's whinny and annoying and her red hair offends me (which is weird because I used to have red hair). She's sort of just always there saying annoying things and bugging people. In this series we've seen her struggle with thinking she's pregnant by the equally annoying Darren Hughes. It has basically given her and excuse to shout 'Darren!' a lot and cry unconvincingly in every single scene. Like apparently all of the students at this school, Rhiannon is always fighting injustices and it's just getting old - if I have to hear her shout 'Sir, you can't do that!' one more time I'm just gonna lose it. Find some depth as a character or get out! There's also Harley um.... shit... what's his name? Oh well, who cares? He's boring and brings nothing to the show at all. His most exciting episode was the first one he appeared in when his Nana had died and he tried to hide it so he and his brother Phoenix wouldn't have to go back and live with their abusive dad. This was potentially a good plot but only lasted 60 minutes he was found out by the headteacher and given a place to stay at the boarding house, so all was happy, the end. Everything seems to just work out in the matter of a day at Waterloo Road. A child could have some horrific home life in the morning and then be tucked up safe and warm at a teacher's house in the afternoon after being found out when they bunked History class. I miss the days of Tom Clarkson, Grantly, Izzy, Chlo, Dante, Bolton Smiley - they were the classics, they had depth and storylines which you would actually bother to care about. Oh and how could I forget Hector, the grimy looking PE teacher who wears these hideously filthy polo shirts and looks like he's been on the lash every night of the week. It disgusts me to be honest.
In summary, the whole show now lacks that grit and sense of reality it once had. In the first series it was a struggling comprehensive with terrible exam results, uninterested students and teachers who just didn't give a fuck and that's what I liked! I'm really not surprised it's finishing and I just hope they leave on a high.
