This is Clarke all over, though. He has good ideas but flogs them to death. The first few series of Last of the Summer Wine were beautifully and cleverly written, and the verbal interplay between the main characters was superb. But, having run out of ideas, it descended into slapstick with Compo being made to get up to more and more ridiculous escapades. Same with Keeping Up Appearances, though thankfully that didn't last for nearly as long. Open All Hours was almost perfect, and should have been left to posterity and Dave.