Scooby-57 Review of The Rotters' Club

The Rotters' Club (2005)

Whetted appetite but did not quench thirst

[7/10 · 22 February 2005]

Rather like its own character Cicely Boyd, played by Alice Eve, the Rotters' Club series was a tease. It created some good period detail (though not as perfect as its creators seem to think) and some interesting characters, but then hurried them through to a semi-conclusion after just three episodes. How much better this series would have been had it taken the - at least - five or six episodes required. The drama's expense was in getting the cast together and so the extra time would not have cost much more, plus this is was a BBC production and usually taxpayers' money is no object to them, right? Had it taken the time to explore Ben & Cicely's relationship rather than showing it starting but then fast forwarding to her ending it, which as a result of the unseemly haste made no sense whatsoever, then we would have had a potentially classic screen romance and a thought provoking study on the nature of infatuation. Other main characters were similarly badly treated. The missing sister went from being a lead player to disappearing without any good explanation. The nerdy lad went from having the brainy girl to losing her as fast as the journalist lad went from never being able to have her because of family problems to being her boyfriend in the final scenes. The whole story was supposed to be about relationships and instead only little fragments were shown. As is SO often the case, the female characters were particularly badly underused (and not just saying that because the gorgeous future huge star Alice Eve was not on screen anywhere near enough!). So you see, the above jottings tell of how the Rotters' Club made one feel, a really good drama that set an enticing scene for some serious explorations of those magic / miserable years aged 15 to 18, but which then failed to give itself anywhere enough time to do so, leading to even people who really wanted to enjoy it, like me, submitting a bit of a moan as a review!