Waterloo Road Series Five - Autumn Term   Starring (voice): Tom Chambers, Eva Pope, Denise Welch, Angela Griffin, Janson Done and Philip Martin Brown Acorn Media UK RRP: £24.99 AV9803 Certificate: 12 Available 14 June 2010

Waterloo Road is a series set in a Rochdale school detailing the lives and loves of both teachers and pupils. Series Five: Autumn Term (2009) has been released as a three disc DVD set containing the first ten episodes of the show's fifth series. The show is presented with an aspect ratio of 16:9 and a stereo audio track; all the discs have English subtitles.

The new term will come as a bit of a shock for long running fans. Not only have a number of characters been written out, but it’s as if they never existed, as none of the other teachers or pupils mention them. Add to this the last series ended with the school being trashed with a mechanical digger, an event which is also never mentioned and we get the feeling that the show’s creators wanted a makeover for the show.

With the start of season five Waterloo Road has been merged with the staff and pupils of John Foster School, a rather posh establishment, this leads to confrontation for both staff and teachers, not helped by the fact that Rachel appears to have lost her preeminent role as Head Teacher to Max, the new executive head who looks down on her pupils as trouble makers, preferring not to spare the rod, in the hopes of spoiling the child.

The divisions are further highlighted when two girl gangs start to form around new girl Lindsay James (Jenna-Louise Coleman) and Waterloo Road regulars, which leads to accusations of rape, manipulation and outright violence. Lindsay also has her own problems as her mother has been arrested for her father’s murder, but it’s obvious from her reaction that she knows far more than she is telling. Elsewhere chaos seems to reign, with Danielle and Aleesha turning up at school still drunk from the night before which gives Paul and Bolton the brilliant idea of flogging ethanol to the kids, the problem is that ethanol isn’t alcohol and it’s poisonous.

Things are not going well with the teachers either. The head of home economics loses her money and loses her cool, trashing the classroom during an inspection. There are new pairings between the teachers and discoveries of unexpected fatherhood.

Waterloo Road shows just how dangerous these shows can be; watch them long enough and you actually start to care what happens to the characters, then you’re hooked. To be fair to the show its writing remains slick, with the comedy and drama balanced on a particularly fine knife edge. The acting is convincing and this term some of the weaker members of the younger cast are noticeable by their absence. Through the medium of the show the storylines explore themes of alcohol use amongst the young, bullying and the moral choices made by the staff.

This set does come with a small number of extras, including some outtakes (5 min, 52 sec) with the actors fluffing their lines and telling some very ribald jokes, which for once are actually funny, though not for the easily offended. There are a number of deleted scenes (6 min, 56 sec) and six interviews with the cast and crew.

If you like the show then I’m preaching to the converted, but if you haven’t yet caught up with the antics at Waterloo Road, I can recommend you take in a few of the shows, just be careful, once you start watching you may not stop.

7

Charles Packer