sorry about Charlie. We weren't thinking just about Christopher Hancock, who played Charlie so well, it was that we liked the character and it seemed a waste. But I was too late, I couldn't change their minds. In the past, I have talked things through and I was listened to". Charlie's funeral episode, written by Linda Dearsley, was aired on 11 July 1991, and was dominated by Dot's reaction to Charlie's death and her trip to identify his body. It is selected by writer Colin Brake as one of 1991's episodes of the year. Jim Dot's second significant romance was built upon by scriptwriters in 2000 on the behest of producer John Yorke. Dot was paired romantically with pensioner Jim Branning, played by John Bardon and a slow courtship was featured, with Dot often shown to be outraged by Jim's advances, resulting in numerous rejections. Dot finally succumbed and accepted his marriage proposal in an episode that aired in December 2001; the scenes were filmed inside one of the carriages of the London Eye on the South Bank of the River Thames. Their wedding aired on 14 February 2002, Valentine's Day. The Guardian critic, Nancy Banks-Smith, described the wedding as "uniquely uneventful [...] For Dot and Jim 'In sickness and health... till death do us part' seemed to carry more resonance than for most." Bardon has revealed that both he and Brown were sceptical about their characters marrying. In an interview with American fan-based newspaper, Walford Gazette, he commented, "No way did the pair of us want to get married because we thought if we got married, we'd sit indoors and watch the telly every night. As it happened, we've had some nice things to do. And we are married, and it's worked out all right." Brown has reiterated that she feared Dot would become boring if she married Jim, but that producers persuaded her that the marriage might be a good thing. On-screen, Dot had just suffered the death of her grandson Ashley (in which Nick had played a part), and Brown felt that a traumatic event like that would have changed her character. In her opinion, the only way Dot would have got over Ashley's death "would be to have someone else to care for and when it happened there was nobody [but] with marrying Jim she gets a family – that's what persuaded me. That house will