Rock & Chips: The Frog and the Pussycat (2011)

Concluding the Only Fools & Horses prequel trilogy that began with the good 90 minute original and continued with the so-so Five Gold Rings, the latest installment, The Frog and the Pussycat is once again a special too far. When Del and Rodney got millions for their fob watch John Sullivan should have put his pen down and left well alone. Sadly his recent death means that The Frog... will now be the last word on the Only Fools story, and it's not a fitting testament to what went before. 

There were flashes of charm and humour, particularly from Mel Smith's policeman character, and the casting of young Del Boy and mother Joan (James Buckley and Kellie Bright) was spot on, it's just a shame there was no real storyline to do either justice. Del got engaged, again, and tried to do some social climbing only to be leapt on by his fiancé's mother. Joan continued her affair with Freddie 'the frog' Robdal, played by Nicholas Lyndhurst, and planned to run off with him once Del was settled down. Unfortunately Del's randy potential in-law put paid to their plan, and then the programme ended. With no real resolution. 

One of the problems with Rock & Chips has been that it has tried to explain too much. The mystique of Del and Rodney's mum in Only Fools, always quoted from her death bed, was dispelled when she was given a face, a voice and a life. The decision to have Rodney exposed as Del's half brother in the last Only Fools special didn't feel right, and extending that across Rock & Chips continued this uneasy plot device, somehow sullying the relationship built up with the character of Rodney over the years. Watching the three Rock & Chips episodes has been an odd experience, apart from the intriguing, better balanced first feature length special, they felt unnecessary and continued a joke well past the point of caring.