Graham Linehan and Arthur Mathews’ masterwork. The first two series are consistently strong, but Dermot Morgan’s tidy death overshadowed the fact that a lot of the third series seemed very under-written. It still pisses over Big Train, though. Penultimate drafts now available in excellently unplebby scriptbook.
1.
Dermot Morgan died on 1/3/98, and the imminent first episode of the third series was moved back a week (to 13/3/98) as a mark of respect. However, one little-known fact concerns the final episode (‘Going To America’, 1/5/98): the episode originally ended with Ted about to commit suicide by jumping off a window-ledge. This scene mirrored the opening scenes of the episode where he had successfully talked a manic-depressive priest (Tommy Tiernan) down from the same ledge and successfully raised his spirits. This ending was deemed insensitive following Morgan’s death and an alternative was hastily pasted in: following Ted’s decision not to go to America after all (and Father Dougal’s cries of ‘We’ll stay in Craggy Island forever and ever and ever...’), the scene mixes through into a montage of old clips accompanied by the theme music. When the music ends, the Hat Trick logo appears and the episode comes to an abrupt, credit-less, end. It under-runs by a minute.
This was one of the most tasteless and manipulative endings ever attempted on a comedy show. For a start, the episode makes no sense and has very little in the way of structure; we last see the depressive priest on a bus, plummeting into depression again when he hears a Radiohead song, and we do not know what happens to him afterwards. Secondly, the decision was presumably made to avoid upsetting Morgan’s family, but with scant disregard for the episode as a piece of art in itself. And thirdly, Linehan and Mathews were clearly trying to create a ‘moving’ swansong in the spirit of the equally embarrassing, over-rated and offensive last scene in Blackadder Goes Forth, a tone of solemnity which was completely self-serving. Surely the most appropriate tribute to the excellent Morgan would be to screen his final work as it was originally envisaged?
[NOTE:
The complete Father Ted scripts were published by Boxtree in October 1999. The versions presented are the penultimate drafts, and all differing dialogue is acknowledged by the authors in footnotes. The original ending to the final show is included; Linehan claims that the decision to use the 'montage' ending was an artistic one, but…y'know, Hippies…]
2.
Further gormlessness concerns the release of Father Ted on video. It started well, with the first series (six shows) being released on two, three-episode volumes (‘The Opening Chapters’ and ‘The Closing Chapters’). The second series consisted of ten shows, and the first six episodes came out on two further three-episode tapes (‘The Second Sermon: Chapter 1’ and ‘The Second Sermon: Chapter 2’). But then things got wanky. Instead of releasing the remaining four episodes on a ‘Chapter 3’ tape, Hat Trick released ‘The Very Best Of Father Ted’. This five-episode tape featured two previously-released episodes from Series 1 (‘Competition Time’) and Series 2 (‘Song For Europe’), plus three hitherto-unavailable shows: the seventh episode from Series 2 (‘Cigarettes and Alcohol and Rollerblading’) and two episodes from Series 3 (‘Speed 3’ and ‘The Mainland’). This now leaves three second-series shows still unaccounted for, plus the weaker episodes from the third series. Not to mention the 55-minute Christmas Special which has to be fitted in somewhere. Christ, why can’t they just leave things alone?
[NOTE:
The remaining four episodes of Series 2 plus the Christmas Special have since been released on a single video. So…fair play to them.]