The second part of the Only Fools and Horses Christmas trilogy is often considered to be the weakest of the three, but Modern Men is at least on a par with Heroes and Villains for me. It doesn't quite tie together as neatly or establish such a consistently vibrant tone, but Sullivan is going for something different here, with a fine blend of moods which begins with the same celebratory tone of Heroes and Villains final scenes, introduces a sense of melancholy in its mid-section's focus on financial worries and dissatisfaction, and then crashes into tragedy with the abrupt severity with which it arrives in real life.
Sullivan and director Tony Dow juggle Modern Men's diverse moods impressively, with the opening scenes of celebrations in the flat and at the Nag's Head perfectly chiming with the vicarious atmospheric demands of the Christmas TV viewer. There's a barrowload of great material here, including the Turn Your Hands Over running gag which begins as vaguely amusing and then becomes inspired with the arrival of Trigger. By this point, Sullivan had really got the knack of knowing just when and where to deploy this character and Modern Men, like Heroes and Villains before it, features some terrific Trigger material. There is also one of those women-as-dogs jokes that used to be in practically every episode of the early series of Only Fools and Horses but understandably thinned out considerably in later years. This one, however, is actually very funny in that it turns the laughter back on Del as he tries to navigate his ingrained sexism to pay Raquel a compliment and obliviously makes a fool of himself. It's the sort of cleverly constructed moment that not only retrospectively undermines those earlier instances of sexism but also plays into the episode's central theme of Del's attempts to move with the times with the aid of a self-help book.
The focus on progressive 90s attitudes leads to the strangest element of the episode, in which everyone seems to find the idea of a vasectomy both hilarious and embarrassing. Though it's obviously a very personal thing, I don't recall ever encountering the attitude that a vasectomy is hysterical. Perhaps the idea is that in Del's circle such a thing would likely be seen as emasculating, but the characters we see laughing hardest about it are the comparatively mature Rodney and Raquel. The subplot with Dr. Singh also feels like his character is the victim of a distinct case of othering in the nervous way in which he is spoken about in reference to his religion ("an angry Sikh after our blood"), a weak dream sequence in which he is painted as a vengeful figure, and in the retrograde gags about turbans, with the whole Trotter's Crash Turbans scene threatening to derail the episode. All these things accurately reflect the characters, setting and era but they feel slightly off to modern eyes.
Fortunately, the small amount of time dedicated to Dr. Singh and the Crash Turbans is interrupted by Modern Men's shock ending. Cassandra's miscarriage is one of the biggest narrative gambles Sullivan takes in this trilogy, especially since elements of the aftermath are played for comedy, but it's a tonal balancing act he negotiates skilfully and ultimately the storyline serves as a crucial counterpoint to the subsequent episode's storyline about the Trotters becoming millionaires. Rather than go for the full-on materialistic Back to the Future style ending, Sullivan's original ending for the series highlights how money can't buy everything or solve all your problems. What Cassandra and Rodney go through here is a key example of this, with the money they ultimately come into proving unable to erase the trauma of what they've been through.
Despite its very sad ending, Modern Men isn't a complete downer. The first 50 minutes are replete with excellent comedy bits, including an extended scene in which Rodney accidentally applies for his own job. When the bombshell hits, the laughs don't completely dry up. In the riskiest move of all, Sullivan constructs a comedy routine around Del's inability to hold back his devastation on seeing Cassandra. It sounds very awkward and I'm sure some people would find it bordering on bad taste, but this is Sullivan's astute character comedy at its finest. The joke is a simple one: Del gives Rodney a tough-love pep-talk about being strong for Cassandra and then immediately goes to pieces at the sight of her. But there's an underlying warmth to the whole bit, regarding Del's macho façade, his soft centre and his love for his sister-in-law. David Jason plays it brilliantly, with a display of emotion that walks the delicate line of not being too over-the-top fake but also not so real that the joke gets lost. After a string of previous Christmas specials involving the Trotters' relationships falling apart, it is refreshing and gratifying to see one about how the whole family pulls together to support each other in a time of crisis.
In an addendum that has no bearing on my rating of the episode but which may negatively affect the appreciation of first time viewers, there is a version of Modern Men doing the rounds (I've heard it reported as currently being the version on Amazon Prime and formerly the one on Netflix) in which the drastic cuts made to the ending render it strange and unfunny, when originally it was a huge cathartic laugh and one of my favourite closing scenes of the series. It involves Del, still raw from having seen Cassandra and still wearing surgical scrubs, punching out a drunken yob in the waiting room who is abusing the hospital staff. Mistaking him for a doctor, the yob admits he feels better and thanks him, after which Del turns to the other shocked patients and says "Bet you wish you'd gone private now, don't you?" On the original broadcast, I remember the punch receiving cheers from the audience and that final line getting a big laugh, followed by applause as the credits rolled. Only Fools and Horses is a show that has been subject to many cuts over the years, including for music rights issues and also dated content. I'm not the type to complain about the "Woke brigade" and I think that the sometimes clumsy attempts to address problematic material are necessary in the process of finding a solution to suit everyone (the addition of warnings to certain episodes that then present the material uncut seems to be the best solution we have so far, working especially well for streamed content). But the cuts to Modern Men are baffling. It seems someone has deemed it inappropriate to cheer violence and laugh at its aftermath, and the audience reactions have been removed entirely. This gives the impression that we're supposed to be watching this final scene with a sort of grim reverence, which ironically makes it seem more like the violence is being endorsed rather than played as the actions of flawed characters intended to inspire laughter. Muddying the waters still further, a good 5 seconds or so after the joke and following an awkward silence, a small ripple of laughter has been added before a terrible segue into the theme tune that sounds like a sound error. The climactic applause has been removed. With all the cuts that have been made over the years, it is getting very difficult to keep track of which versions of each Only Fools and Horses episode can be found where. If you've never seen Modern Men before, just be aware that this version is out there in some places and severely damages an excellent final 10 minutes.
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