Well, despite what has been written I thought this was a smashing little series, or three. It is a bit 'soapy' but I don't like soaps yet I like this. It does lean on sentimentality, but in my opinion not too much. More than anything it's a character study, where few characters are either all good or all bad. Mark Benton provides the comic relief and it's something he expertise's in. It does stand as a drama though, the trials and tribulations of a set of decent women in an harrowing time. I've just watched it daily on bbc, and have felt cheer for the characters at a personal time where I need something to believe in. The acting is excellent, the story lines strong. It can be disappointing when characters or actors drop out between series'. But I presume that's a testament in itself. As with all wartime dramas (as opposed to war dramas) it shows the best of British resolve. All I know is, when good things happen to the main characters I feel glad, and when bad things happen I feel sad. And if a drama manages that, it's more than halfway home.

I knew we were in trouble when we borrowed the DVD from the library and saw that it had won awards for best daytime drama with the keyword there being 'daytime'. It's a soap opera. Nothing more and nothing less and should be treated as such by anyone prepared to sit through this material.Why would an actors as talented as Nathaniel Parker or Sophie Ward want to demean themselves by appearing in this dreadful series? One can only wonder.The acting is decent but they are all left trying to do their best with an awful script. The characters are stereotypes; the plot twists fully predictable and we've seen it all over and over again many times in the past. No attempt has been made by the writers to come up with anything original. In short, it's rubbish and nonsense.The soap opera conclusion we had quickly reached was only reinforced by the closing line from one of the lead characters in episode 1 being "what shall we do now?" ... making one presumably keen to find out by watching the next episode tomorrow? Well sorry, I just didn't care by then.Incidentally, the plot of black American soldiers being barred from British pubs etc at the insistence of the American military so that white American soldiers didn't have to mix with them was covered (I'm tempted to say copied exactly!) in an earlier episode of Foyle's War and which did it far more justice.My wife and I watched the first episode of series 1 and felt that was far more than enough as the 45 minutes felt more like a tedious hour and a half that could have been better spent doing something else. I'd suggest others save themselves the wasted time and watch something like Foyle's War if you are looking for a quality British wartime drama.Perhaps the most mysterious of all is why the producers made two further series of this. I'd hate to think the British public so undiscerning in its tastes that they actual enjoyed this production!

This series has some fine actors and those familiar with the BBC will recognize them by face if not by name: Mark Benton, Nathaniel Parker, Danny Webb, and Sophie Ward. Unfortunately they are cast in a series that lacks imagination. Set in WWII, the series follows several land girls, city women who volunteered to work on farms as the men were off in the war, and their clichéd lives. Will the status grubbing one be able to push out the current Lady of the manor and snag her husband; will the incredibly naive one get through her petition to integrate the American troops and deal with her one night leg over and inevitable pregnancy by a roguish American soldier; will the plain married one survive the loss of her handsome flier husband? It is hard to care about any of these characters and contrived hardships. I suggest you spend your time with the vastly superior Call the Midwife.

This program has very fine actors doing their best with woefully inferior scripts. Every character is a stereotype of others we have seen before. Time and time again they behave stupidly in order to advance the plot and intensify the false sense of drama. Sorry, but it just rings hollow and false. There are precious few honest steps taken through the course of "Land Girls." Instead, the audience is manipulated, often with the use of modern PC sensibilities. I have forced myself to watch all fifteen episodes, and it has not been an easy chore. The scripts of Dominique Moloney, Dale Overton, Paul Matthew Thompson, Jude Tindall, Joy Wilkinson, and even series creator Roland Moore fall flat, dumbed down to the shallowest of viewers.And then, in the midst of all this mediocrity, there comes a single brilliant episode that shows what might have been. Rob Kinsman has written a terrific script for "The Enemy Within," which is episode 3 of series 3. Here the dialogue crackles with intelligence. Suddenly, we are confronted with real people, not television templates. After watching "The Enemy Within," I thought perhaps "Land Girls" had finally found its stride. But, alas, it was not meant to be. Back to the same old predictability we go, and our patience is tested by stupid characters behaving stupidly. Clearly, this production should have hired Rob Kinsman from the start and stayed with him for the entire run. Then they might have really had something to be proud of. As it is, all too often the result is embarrassingly bad.