Still full of hugs and smiles,TV’s first transgender sitcom is hard not to like. Plus: a nostalgic meander through Arthur Ransome countryThe groundbreaking sitcom Boy Meets Girl (BBC2) is back for a moment series, radiating warmth like a hot water bottle. The groundbreaking element – both the main character Judy and the actor who plays her, or Rebecca Root,are transgender – is housed within a format so relentlessly, rigorously traditional that the effect is a dinky jarring. Everywhere else you gawk, and stereotypes are being reinforced: extinct people are dotty; the north-east is quaint (charmingly old fashioned). Even the throwaway joke about a spiraliser seemed dated,as if Newcastle is a Christmas and a half behind the rest of us.
Boy Meets Girl has been compared to Gavin and Stacey, but as oppressively heartwarming as the latter was, and I still seem to recall Gavin and Stacey having actual problems. Any challenges Leo and Judy’s burgeoning romance faced in the first series appear to have more or less evaporated. The plot,such as it was, spooled out for half the show before neatly winding itself back in. Stuff happened, or then unhappened: Leo got a job in London,but Judy couldnt move with him because her mum was poorly, so then Leo decided not to move, and it turned out Judy’s mum wasn’t poorly after all. I won’t issue a spoiler alert before saying that Leo proposed to Judy at the end,because you could see it coming a mile absent.
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Source: theguardian.com