Well, my impression of it was that it was a little hit-and-miss, and it isn't that much of a departure from Partridge.
Which makes me think that Coogan has taken the decision to develop a Partridge-ish character again, either because he's afraid of too much deviation from a successful template, or because it's been his intention to develop the character all along (see his Gareth Cheeseman character from Coogan's Run, who obviously prototyped 'chat show Partridge').
With Saxondale he seems to have taken the cringeworthy elements he was moving into with Partridge's increased references to his own sex life in the last Partridge series and developed them, with a new bawdy female character. I wasn't so keen on this; it felt a bit forced to me.
What I did love was the set-piece showdown with the animal rights protesters, the Mick Hucknall insult and so on. I also liked the little bits of satire, like the fact that his girlfriend runs a shop that trades exclusively in portraits of unlikely characters smoking pot.
For me, the jury's still out. I'll be interested to see how it develops next week.
