they just don't
So, I just finished watching the first 13 episodes of Series 16, and let’s just say I have some thoughts. At first I planned on making one post reviewing all the episodes, but when I realised how much I had to say about just episode 1, I decided to review them one by one, so I’ll probably make a post about the next episode soon.
Before I talk about this specific episode, I think it’s worth mentioning that the first 9 episodes before the reveal of the new fire station all show mountain rescues (+ I think 1 ocean rescue), and I think that’s such a weird choice. Why couldn’t they have revealed the new fire station in the first episode? Is it to build tension? Well, if it is, they most definitely failed, because NO ONE in any episode ever mentions that the new fire station is currently being built, and the whole thing was already shown in the trailer anyway.
Now for my review of the episode. It‘s about everyone in Pontypandy filming a tourism advert. Sarah gets carried away while filming Mandy and Mike in the mountains and gets trapped on a rocky ledge.
This entire premise feels forced. There’s no reason for them to film a tourism advert. Sgt. Ravani states that Newtown has won best place to go on holiday for three years in a row and that they want to win it back. (So that means Pontypandy won previously? I find that really hard to believe considering the frequent emergencies.) They really just made up some random, unspecified reason for the characters to film this. Best place to go on holiday, where? And where is this sudden rivalry with Newtown coming from? Norman calls it rubbish for not selling pickles. (What is it with the current episodes and pickles?) And everyone is disappointed when Sgt. Ravani tells them that Newtown won the last 3 years. (She says "as you all know“ before telling them, so I don’t understand why all look disappointed if they know already.) And why do they care about it? Pontypandy is a small village that’s never emphasised tourism before. You can tell the writers didn’t think twice about this.
I would complain about Sarah being bossy in this episode, but compared to some other episodes, she’s actually okay here. Instead, I’ll talk about the side plot. It’s about Elvis selling Pontypandy firefighter merch for tourists. This would just be another stupid Elvis plot, but the infuriating thing is that the show is making fun of crappy merchandise, which is insanely hypocritical considering the show is owned by MATTEL. I don’t think I need to explain it any more. It’s just dumb.
This is just a nitpick, but I found it hilarious because it proves how little the writers care about continuity. When Penny and Sarah are sitting in Wallaby 2 after the rescue, Penny tells Sarah that she could get shots for her film while she’s up there. Obviously Sarah thinks it’s a great idea because that’s why she climbed up the mountain and got stuck in the first place. But when we get to see the advert in THE NEXT SCENE, there are no shots of the mountains in the video 😭 Come on, even if you like the episode, you have to admit this is too simple to mess up. Also, Bella‘s in the advert with her pizza for some reason. Doesn’t she live in Newtown? Even if she does sell pizza in Pontypandy, the whole point of the advert was to compete with Newtown.
Overall, a pretty bad start. The story was forced and uncreative. How many times have we seen someone trapped on a mountain ledge? I get that a series with so many episodes will have emergencies repeat (that might be a sign to cancel it), but they could’ve at least done something other than „I need to get shots of the mountains, I climb higher because safety isn’t important, oh no I get stuck“.
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