Series One:
Bleak black humour at it's brilliant best, the first season of Flowers is absolutely wonderful. It is a very dark comedy that will not be appreciated by everyone, it's the type that the British do very well, but if this is what you're into it'd be difficult to find something better.
Firstly, casting is simply brilliant. Barratt is simply fantastic in his role as the struggling father, you feel for him constantly and his attempts to spare his family his pain. Coleman, as always, is perfect as the starkly contrasting wife, and the twins each fit into the disfunctional family excellently. Each main character has their own arc and develop well in the space of a few short episodes. The growth is often, if not always, in a dark light, but the laughs throughout are plenty.
Sharpe clearly wrote himself the most lovable character as Shun, the Japanese illustrator who'd do anything for the Flower family. A brilliant source for jokes, or light relief from heavy subjects, it's impossible not to like him. However, when it comes to his own demons, these are by far the most powerfully emotional, simply brilliant.
The additional character of 'George' seemed unnecessary, it's an outlandish personality yes but just so dislikeable. He and ' Abigail' didn't truly bring anything to the show, they interlinked with a couple of the arcs but really nothing important. However this would be my only critism, the visuals, dialogue, and everything else were perfect.
Series One: 9/10
Series Two:
Where did it all go wrong? The second series is just infinitely worse as it loses any sense of humour, or emotion, or relatability. Focus switches heavily to 'Amy', who was a great character in the first series. This time around, it's just too heavy and dives so far into lunacy that it loses any sense of comedy. The Baumgaetner arc is dull and pointlessly surreal, and wastes so much time that it's almost as if the other characters' developments no longer matter, which is a shame because 'Donald' gets given another dimension.
Acting wise there can still be no complaints, but the weird sense of relation you may have gained with each character is lost here. Laughs come up every so often, but not much. Even 'Shun' is taken away, as he turns to drink. I imagine this could have been a really great story if the surrounding context was better in any way, the same could be said for 'Maurice'. The series does ditch the previously pointless characters, but they are replaced to a lesser extent.
In all fairness the final two episodes are better, particularly the last, which is beautiful. But this is only because it's more of a prequel/flashback, and the emotion and innocence of Shun is explored.
However, it's disappointing that Flowers turned out so differently in the second season, no element of comedy was there. The ending is lovely in a way, but I'm not sure it makes up for the rest.
Series Two: 6/10
