‘THE ELEPHANTS’ CHILD’
Please feel free to comment on my review.
Here we are on the seventh and final season of ‘The Brittas Empire’. I must admit, all the episodes of ‘The Brittas Empire’ have been enjoyable in their various measures. But I do find Series 6 and 7 to be backward-thinking in terms of the writing, especially when some character arcs don’t make sense. 😐
In the episode, Gordon Brittas passes by a gigantic pile of elephant dung outside the front entrance to Whitbury New Town Leisure Centre. He even steps in the dung once walking into the leisure centre. And I’ve been thinking about a fantasy comedy saga involving piles of elephant dung in it! 😀
This pile of elephant dung happens to have been collected by Colin who lost an engagement ring to his intended fiancée. It does leave a mess when Colin doesn’t remove the elephant dung as per Brittas’ instructions. The story ends with Gordon and Helen falling into the dung during a bunji-jump.
Yeah, talking about that! Brittas has arranged for a bunji-jump event at the leisure centre. He’s involved in the event as well as his wife Helen, Linda, and reluctant ‘volunteers’ Tim and Gavin. Tim tries to back out of this bunji-jump, pretending he’s sick and subjects himself to hot and cold temperatures.
He also wants to avoid telling his lover Gavin that he’s terrified of doing the bunji-jump, as he wants to show how tough he is. Unbeknownst to Tim, Gavin actually has agoraphobia – which involves being afraid of heights, I believe. I’m surprised Tim didn’t know about it from Gavin in getting to know him.
Helen also tries to stage a fur coat’s theft as an insurance scam. I don’t understand why she’s doing it really, but she gets helped by Julie who’s heavily pregnant. Yeah! Julie’s heavily pregnant by this point. I thought she would’ve gone on maternity leave by this stage. In fact, why hasn’t she here? 😐
Doesn’t Brittas provide maternity leave for his staff? I thought that was the case when Julie was absent in ‘Surviving Christmas’. Also, Julie seems willing to do the bunji-jump whilst she’s pregnant. The…the thought occurs to me that the writing for this particular episode is very backward-thinking.
Julie has her baby in Colin’s boiler room. She’s helped with Colin, Helen, Brittas and Carole supporting her. Carole’s been on an assertive course, which has made her rude lately. Thankfully, she’s herself again by the end. Stephen Churchett as Councillor Drugget appears in this episode too.
‘The Elephants’ Child’ rating – 8/10
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Hi Tim,
I guess Julie’s absence in ‘Surviving Christmas’ (which I watched recently) can be explained by the fact that she shouldn’t be doing a survival course whilst pregnant. That being said, the writers could have given an official explanation. As this for episode, I thought it was alright when I saw it last year. It does seem weird that Julie opted to do the bungee-jump whilst pregnant, but then this is Julie we’re talking about. Besides, I believe she gave birth before the bungee-jump took place.
P.s. what did you think of ‘The Blazing Meteor’? I’m going to write some more of my second ‘Brittas Empire’ story over the next month.
Xavier
Hi Xavier,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on ‘The Elephants’ Child’. Yeah, it does seem weird that Julie was absent in ‘Surviving Christmas’ where she could’ve been on maternity leave and yet when we see her in ‘The Elephants’ Child’, she’s still pregnant. She could have been told not to go on the survival course in ‘Surviving Christmas’ because of her pregnancy, but it doesn’t match to her willingness to do the bungee-jump in ‘The Elephants’ Child’ where she’s still pregnant.
In behind-the-scenes terms, maybe Judy Flynn who plays Julie was actually pregnant in real-life during the making of Series 6 and the writers played with that for a while before they actually got onto the labour scenes in ‘The Elephants’ Child’. Maybe the production team didn’t know they were going to get a Series 7 and maybe Judy Flynn was on maternity leave when the ‘Surviving Christmas’ special was made. And then when they did do Series 7, they decided to get Julie into labour and get her to have her baby in the first episode. I can’t find any behind-the-scenes information to confirm that, but that’s what I think is going on.
I enjoyed ‘The Blazing Meteor’ very much. Thank you for sharing the story. Looking forward to more of your ‘Brittas Empire’ stories when you share them.
Best wishes,
Tim 🙂