All aboard for another term at Waterloo Road ...

Last night saw the return to our screens of the prime-time 'Grange Hill', Waterloo Road .... though for a series which has rather cleverly turned itself into a returning series more or less in line with the actual school terms, this one seems to have started rather late! A good episode, starting up a variety of different story arcs for the series  - but whilst Grantley is predictably up to his usual money-making tricks, I can't help but doubt the feasibility of some of the routes these characters have taken ... 

©BBC 2012

After the cliff-hanger of the last series as Linda took her obsession over head-teacher, Michael, to a whole new level, the fall out was this week resolved with a surprisingly effective who-dunnit, relying on it taking at least half the episode for us to remember that it was in fact Linda, herself, who had been behind-the-wheel. Spare a thought for the long-suffering Mr. Chalk, once again finding himself innocently stuck in the middle ...


This term's running theme appears to be the introduction of gang culture to the school - quite where this has escalated from since the members appear to be long-term pupils is once again unexplained ...  although, could this be the start of the mysterious plot that will lead to the school packing up and heading north for Scotland? Quite how this is going to plan out, given that we're led to believe the new series will maintain both current staff and pupils, I'm intrigued to find out! 


Elsewhere, we learn that Lauren has taken up modeling, a storyline strikingly familiar (will Janeece provide some friendly advice?!) However, whilst Janeece's misadventure was only a matter of time, for Lauren this strikes me as slightly more of out of the blue ... Meanwhile poor Tom is once again in for a rough ride as son, Josh, has discovered drugs - again, slightly out of character! After more than his fair share of trouble, lets hope Finn won't desert his best mate for new girlfriend, Trudi ... tune in next week to find out, if only to try and keep up with the playground gossip!