Yes. Steve and Fiona are long gone. Yes, Veronica and Kev are banged up abroad. Yes, Sheila's gone off with a guy called Jesus and Sue and Marty have gone off into the sunset to make catalogue ordering, tourrettes suffering babies! BUT.... think about what we still have and what we have been left behind with! This is shameless moving forward, i certainly would rather see it move on than stop completely! We've got Ian and his little gay shenanigans, Debbie's growing up, thats bound to be interesting as she spent most of series 3 looking after everyone but herself. Lip and Mandy, and now Jamie and Karen are together! And the maguires, how can u even say they arent the icing on the cake ppl have got to stop mourning the old characters we are on series 4 now. things are bound to change and move on. And we've still got frank, i reckon once franks gone its game over.
There is no sorrow like the memory of love and the knowledge that it is gone forever; even in dreams , i never saw again his face, and though i longed for it, i came at last to see that it was just as well, lest i live all the rest of my life in dreams - Morgaine Le Fay
So agreeing with you, the new characters are great, and personally I'm loving having Monica and Shrek as permenant characters.
************************************ Love isn't brains, children, it's blood... blood screaming inside you to work its will. I may be love's bitch, but at least I'm man enough to admit it.
Originally posted by Lucie: Yes. Steve and Fiona are long gone. Yes, Veronica and Kev are banged up abroad. Yes, Sheila's gone off with a guy called Jesus and Sue and Marty have gone off into the sunset to make catalogue ordering, tourrettes suffering babies! BUT.... think about what we still have and what we have been left behind with! This is shameless moving forward, i certainly would rather see it move on than stop completely! We've got Ian and his little gay shenanigans, Debbie's growing up, thats bound to be interesting as she spent most of series 3 looking after everyone but herself. Lip and Mandy, and now Jamie and Karen are together! And the maguires, how can u even say they arent the icing on the cake ppl have got to stop mourning the old characters we are on series 4 now. things are bound to change and move on. And we've still got frank, i reckon once franks gone its game over.
I agree with OP its still brilliant just because a few good characters have gone makes no different to me i still love it, it still makes me laugh and cry its genius
İm ņót uńfάϊthfűļ, ĵuşť fĺϊrtαţϊοũş ♥ Forum singer & drunk
LONG LIVE SHAMELESS. WHY THE **** IS THERE EVEN NEED FOR THESE SUPPORT POSTS AND DEBATES. SHUT UP, AND IF YOU DISAGREE STOP WATCHING. IT MIGHT ASWELL KEEP GOING, BECAUSE IN MY OPINION ITS BRILL.
The fourth series of Shameless is a complete let down. The Maguires are awful and the loss of so many great characters are ensuring that Shameless is dying a slow and painful death. However the fact that most on here seem to think it's still as good doesn't surprise me as most of you are quite young and wouldn't know a decent programme if it slapped you in the face.
Originally posted by milpool: The fourth series of Shameless is a complete let down. The Maguires are awful and the loss of so many great characters are ensuring that Shameless is dying a slow and painful death. However the fact that most on here seem to think it's still as good doesn't surprise me as most of you are quite young and wouldn't know a decent programme if it slapped you in the face.
Hmmm Millpool..... I'm not young and I think I know a good programme when I see one. The way I see it yes shameless has ost a few major characters but they have made the McGuires bigger and watch this space as Debbie starts to take centre stage this series. The scripts are still well written not to mention hilarious in parts so until the writing becomes same ol' same ol' leave shameless as it is. And there is a simple answer to your problem Millpool - if you think it's tripe don't watch it and don't visit the thread!
Originally posted by milpool: The fourth series of Shameless is a complete let down. The Maguires are awful and the loss of so many great characters are ensuring that Shameless is dying a slow and painful death. However the fact that most on here seem to think it's still as good doesn't surprise me as most of you are quite young and wouldn't know a decent programme if it slapped you in the face.
soooooo dont watch it then... surley you have something better too do than write negative comments about a show that you dont even like by the look of it, from what u av said! ^^ so y watse youre time!! i love and many people on the forum love shameless and we come on here to share out positive thoughts on it and if u r gunna b critical against it go away!!!
I agree with Lucies first post, i think its still great still has me crying with laughter. I mean Frank having 2 woman after him. I have all the series on DVD and this fourth one is just as good. They are all different. As for the McGuires i think there great.
Totally, milpool i respect your opinion, as i do everyone's but don't criticize peoples judgements on their age for god sake, i'm an adult with a little boy, mortgage, partner ect... and we are STILL loving Shameless, the thing is if they didn't introduce new characters then it would just go stagnent wouldn't it? they can only work with the same characters for so long before viewers get bored!
At the end of the day, with any long standing tv series, there isnt always the same characters which started there at the end. I mean, Pj and Duncan left byker grove years ago and it's only just ending this year!
There is no sorrow like the memory of love and the knowledge that it is gone forever; even in dreams , i never saw again his face, and though i longed for it, i came at last to see that it was just as well, lest i live all the rest of my life in dreams - Morgaine Le Fay
Originally posted by milpool: The fourth series of Shameless is a complete let down. The Maguires are awful and the loss of so many great characters are ensuring that Shameless is dying a slow and painful death. However the fact that most on here seem to think it's still as good doesn't surprise me as most of you are quite young and wouldn't know a decent programme if it slapped you in the face.
People as old as you are just to used to "quality" programmes lasting around two series at most, so when one actually attempts to keep going beyond that its completely alien to you and you freak out and burst into tears then proceed to spew complete extremeist nonsense about it 'dying a slow painful death'. Get a grip
Quit living in the past love, the MOST IMPORTANT characters are still here.
does it really matter how old ppl are in here? i reckon we are all old enough to be watching it in the first place
There is no sorrow like the memory of love and the knowledge that it is gone forever; even in dreams , i never saw again his face, and though i longed for it, i came at last to see that it was just as well, lest i live all the rest of my life in dreams - Morgaine Le Fay
Well you are sort of right and also a bit wrong. I loved the first 3 series. They were the absolute best thing on TV and the creators and cast should be really pround of what they achived with them.
Series 4 isn't the series from hell or 'the end' or whatever people on here are calling it.
BUT... People like me, who have watched, loved, possibly evangelised, about every epoisode from the very start - well, we have been insulted by the programme makers. The casual culling of 5 characters by the end of epidode 2 of the series - I say casual in the sense that you could almost hear the 'tick' next each missing character after the lame excuse had been trotted out as to why they weren't around.
Ultimately it's a personal thing,some people still love shameless and will carry on watching, and good for you cos it's still one of the best things on TV. But me? it's not the same anymore, without Kev & V and Sheila etc. It just doesn't have that 'pull' that makes me want to sit down and watch it every week. I'll Probably catch it ocassionaly but it won't be my Tuesday night religion any more.
Like any drama that goes on for several series', they need to bring in new / replace old characters to stop a show going stale... if they didn't we would just have a more lavish soap, in effect... and there's enough soaps as it is!
Understand your point. The stars leaving is out of the writers control though, and it did seem like they were being 'ticked off', slightly disrupted the flow. However, for me those episodes did work, the plots and so on made sense and retained humour, and shelia's exit was sublime, had me gripped. Now they have left though, it has refound its stability, and the maguires and gallaghers are working well.
There would, in my opinion, never be any logic in scrapping the show, because there is so much more to have out of it. I think the younger actors are excellent, as we can see over the past series, and their performances exceptional. Tuesday nights are still a religion for me because these stars keep me gripped. Unless the any of the Gallaghers leave there is no need to halt making such an exceptionally unique show. Just think of the endless potential of 16episodes, an even larger estate and more characters. Of course it wouldn't be the same, but as with this series, it would continue to grow.
I also think its worth mentioning that the more times i watch episodes from series 4, they are actually better when you consider all the character changes etc etc that are happening.
There would, in my opinion, never be any logic in scrapping the show, because there is so much more to have out of it. I think the younger actors are excellent, as we can see over the past series, and their performances exceptional. Tuesday nights are still a religion for me because these stars keep me gripped. Unless the any of the Gallaghers leave there is no need to halt making such an exceptionally unique show.
I totally agree with the above comment, but I do feel that they deserve better quality scripts.
The 4th series started well, but since Sheila left, the storylines and scripts are deteriorating. The Maguires are now ridiculous pantomime villains and wouldn't be out of place in Little Britain.
That's not to say there aren't some decent moments - last night's E4 showing was probably the best of the post-Sheila episodes so far - the Carl/Norma storyline was quite touching, but again overall it was let down by another increasingly over-the-top Maguire storyline, and the just really poor 'love-triangle' thing going on between Stan and the other two coppers.
Okay, so it may still be better than most things on tv, but go back and watch a series 1 or 2 episode and, hand-on-heart, say it's not on the slide.
Paul Abbott is supposed to be writing one script this season, most likely the last one. I just hope he can get it back on track.
