Well, I'm not sure it's a step forward. Black horn sections are full of Ooooomph! (just listen to any James Brown or Sam Cooke track); white horn sections just seem to be making a faint buzzing sound. They might as well have been playing kazoos. I'm correct even though I'm generalising wildly.

I wish they'd stop calling Jermaine 'The Gentle Giant'. Every time I look at him, I think 'Of Mice And Men'.  Don't they realise that the bigger these killer man-children are, the harder they are to bring down? Does the name 'Leatherface' mean nothing to them?

I have never seen a whiter Horn Section. Was it 2-for-1 Day at Albinos-R-Us?

Additionally, kudos to Lou Gossett Jr. Sure, he may have packed on a few pounds but, hell, that never hurt James Earl Jones, and only Gossett could get away with a line like:

"Worthless Idiots!"

Oh, and can any mad gun nut tell me the name and make of that sweet little four-barrelled automatic that Carlton is waving about in the pre-credit sequence? I'd love to shoot somebody with something as dinky as that.

What the hell has happened to this show? It used to be a fun, jolly romp that, in its third season, had begun to show gentle signs of decline but, for the last couple of episodes, it has suddenly jumped back into blazing life like a dead frog attached to a car battery.

The kid had to say what th bearded toad told him to say or else it would be another beating, you know that.