I didn't see positive reviews. I saw: Awwww! That was sweet. Much different from: Lord, that was fab!

I think an "outsider" perspective is helpful. If you expect them to look down on it, then you should also expect fans to pour praise over stuff that perhaps doesn't deserve it that much (not The Road in particular, more like a general assessment).

This TV Movie was not the pilot episode of Lost, nor was it the television event of the year. It was a small-budget, intimiste dramatisation charting the humble and sometimes hackneyed beginnings of a soap opera that became a British phenomenon. In its first year, it had 24 million viewers -- not bad for a country which counted around 45 million in terms of total population at the time. It had a nice line in self-deprecation, but I don't think it aimed to reinvent the wheel. It wasn't pretending to be High Drama, or Deep and Meaningful, but I personally enjoyed it because it was a relaxing piece of television with, as Carl said, a lot of heart. Sometimes that's what you need after a long day at work!

BBC4 may have a comparatively small viewership but it has some really interesting cultural programmes and documentaries. I like that this station is subsidised in order to show stuff that other networks shun because they are not reality tv-related or advertiser-friendly. The fact that it has no ads is in of itself a plus.

Something else which the show did, and which was addressed in the movie, was to acknowledge people from the North of England. They had not been given a lot of respect -- I think their images were limited to "angry young man" films (and even that might have come after Corrie -- Ken Barlow was one of the first "angry young men") and comedy characters. I remember reading about how people like Elsie were movie stars to those in North England. And Pat Phoenix took this very seriously. She saw herself as a role model, and to many, she was.

One of American TV’s flaws is its need for characters to develop, to learn more about themselves, to grow. In Coronation Street, there has always seemed to be a simple truth: people don’t change that much. Once a battleaxe, always a battleaxe.

I wouldn't say this is true. Plenty of American TV has had characters who don't change.

Corrie characters did change over the years, and if they didn't change, they would address their lack of change and what failures they were (as Elsie did later in life).

I thought this was a very well made program. Not just as a cute nod to the past, but in terms of casting, wardrobe, hair, and writing. It wasn't perfect and there were a few moments which were a bit too saccharine but in general it was fantastic. Not just as nostalgia but as a document.

Was that review a combo Corrie/True Blood review? But yeah, that's an oddly sweeping statement to make, especially when it was the Brits who really started having sitcoms where storylines and characters developed over many episodes, before the Americans...

Sylph, why don't you check it out for youself and see what you think?