Chloe has a boyfriend, her parents have worries!

The headmaster is distracted and drunk on power with his new CCTV and Mark feels like he is losing his little girl.

Well, I’m in serious danger of warming to this gentle comedy on the trials and tribulations of parents at the school gates. With the past two episodes being erratic at best, this episode actually raised its game and I actually found myself laughing once or twice – perhaps the series is really hitting its stride?

Mark and Helen were a little surprised at finding that their nine year old daughter Chloe was dating. Helen was quite nonplussed, recalling that her first boyfriend at that age bought her fudge and read magazines to her but Mark was terrified that he is losing his little girl before he is really ready and the pair were determined to find out more about the situation. As expected, it was all very innocent with the children unaware as to what dating is but the parents were fretting over how grown up their kids are, especially when it turned out that Chloe’s boyfriend Sam (son of the ever over-friendly Mia) has been painting graffiti around the school declaring his love. Mark was keen to nip the problem in the bud, to split the pair up, but Helen warned that this would be a big mistake as making Sam forbidden would only make Chloe all the more determined to date the bad boy. Mark caused further problems by implying that Sam was cheating on Chloe and breaking them up but after clearing up the situation and accompanying their children on their date, Helen, Mark and Mia got on brilliantly. Chloe and Sam however decided that their relationship was not to be and Mark was dismayed to find that Chloe had decided to date Zach next, son of Sarah and Aiden. Meanwhile, the school headmaster was attempting to find the graffiti artist who was defacing the school only to be thwarted by Miss Hunter with her lectures on dictators, revolution and clever camera tricks.

All in all there were some very funny aspects to this episode, again mainly concerning the adult’s overreactions to the innocent activities of their children. There were a couple of little scenes where the fact that kids do tend to repeat things adults have said with no social filter is highlighted and this was actually very amusing. While not exactly laugh out loud hilarious, this episode had enough charm to carry it through to a gently humorous conclusion, with the parents as usual being the main focus of the jokes while the children laugh at the absurdity of the adults behaviour. All the while the adults are spouting jokes and alluding to things that their kids won’t understand and this is part of the laughter – for example, when discussing relationships Aiden’s jaded views were actually very apt to the adults whereas the children saw their dating as something fun and sweet. There is still plenty of room for improvement in this school comedy but this week I actually thought that the actors did a great job with the material they were given. Hopefully the series will be even better next week.