I haven't read the column yet, but Home Time is one of the very few programmes I make a point of watching. I think it delivers funny lines in recognisable situations, and there aren't many other sitcoms I can say that about. I'll watch Peep Show if it happens to be on and I'm looking in the right direction at the time, but I'll go out of my way to catch up with Home Time.

I was underwhelmed. I did Sky+ it. Saw half an episode - didn't warm to it - saw Barry M's article and thought I'd give it another go.

Only to find that it had been deleted from the Sky+ Planner - and that it had been replaced by series links of "Ben 10", "Ben 10 Alien Force" and about half a million episodes of "Transformes Animated".

So I'm watching those now

It's a one-joke show, with one-dimensional characters. I had hoped for better.

And being nostalgic for the Nineties hasn't yet hit me. I'm still getting over the Eighties.

I haven't read the column yet because my copy has not arrived yet.

but DO find it at least as depressing as it is funny. Boy, have they picked the most lachrymose Britpop songs ever to use! (Though sometimes in a good way http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/content/modernish-tearjerkers )

We usually have 'How Not To Live Your Life' waiting in the iplayer wings as a pick-me-up afterwards.

Barry states in his piece that:

"...this is surely the first sitcom in history to play out to the toe-tapping sounds of Radionhead's No Surprises."

I'm afraid not, sir. An episode of The Royle Family once memorably played out to this very track.

I had a go but had the same problem - the mid 90's is too close for me to get really nostalgic about. Perhaps that's something to do with this ever growing habit in wider society and media of increasingly compressing nostalgia. The period of retrospection gets ever shorter as time passes. We've already had a couple of 70's revivals, and now another 80's revival is in full swing. While this happens, 90's nostalgia starts to kick in. How long before we actuallly start to have the early-noughties revival? And if we did, what the hell would be in it (apart from 9/11 footage)? Culture is eating itself.

Meanwhile, because there's so much cannibalisation of the past, there's not much to mark out modern culture so we're endlessly recycling ourselves. There is new stuff there, but it's snowed under by the weight of everything else that it's so easily smothered.

This could just be me of course; perhaps things are so fragmented now that there are no major trends in dominant cultures and everything is just one enormous po-mo mashup. Isn't that a depressing thought?

As for the show. I've tried. It has moments but I can't really engage with the characters and don't much care about them. Compare it to something like The Grimleys (esp first series) where, behind the nostalgia, there was a bit of bite and people you actually cared about. Maybe that's because of Jed Mercurio's writing and turns by the likes of Nigel Planer and Noddy Holder, who was sublime.

Mrs. T and I gave it two episodes and didn't laugh once, and officially declared it Not For Us and deleted episode 3 from the Toppy unwatched. I found the characters too one dimensional and also stupidly extreme as a cover up for a lack of decent writing.

After the first episiode I posted a blog here because I thought the show would appeal to the Word demographic - http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/content/funny-sitcom-alert . The lack of response at the time suggested I was wrong and comments here seem to confirm it.
De gustibus non est disputandum, as I often say should be the site motto.

I saw the first episode and thought it looked promising. However that promise was unfullfilled and two episodes was the lot. The writing is not strong enough which is a shame because the actors are top class. Regret and comedy go well together but it has to be well written. Stronger editor required?

find it an absolute joy. We live in Leicester though so it's probably an aspirational thing. The gang mentality of the four women is spot on, the potrayl of the young go getters at the Cov Cladding company is horribly accurate and the mother (with Irish accent) is very funny. Full marks to the lead, how she can carry that doe eyed pout for the whole show is beyond me.

Haven't seen the piece in this month's magazine as my copy hasn't bloody well turned up yet.

I’m 23 and I’ll admit that Brit-rock only reached me via an older sibling and the soundtrack of This Life. Still, Home time is stirring some genuine fondness in me for the 90s. I guess it’s the first decade I’m old enough to get nostalgic over. As a result, I love this show!

I think my loyalty will depend on what exactly she was doing for 12year. My guess is a crap admin job for New Labour where her hopes and dreams slowly eroded.

I watched it with my daughter. Neither of us got it. She's nearly 15 and I'm nearly 50. Both of us fall either side of the target demographic. I guess the "popular" comedies are the ones that cross the age boundaries.

I love this show, as do my Class of '97 contemporaries. Certainly it brings back fond memories of pining after dreamboats and the inherent glamour of drinking at war memorials.

(Though Scottish viewers have to watch it via iPlayer as this Monday we were treated to new sitcom Happy Hollidays instead:

"Caravan site owner Colin Holliday is thrown into a panic when he receives news of an unwelcome spot inspection from long-standing rival Mike Bryan." )