The great highlight for me was that Boyle totally respected British humour and spirit of irreverence. I most often expect to be bored like hell at the pomposity and grandiloquence of shows like that which almost systematically take themselves way, way too seriously (not that the Brits can't do that when they want to, that Brit concept artist certainly managed to turn the opening show in Vancouver into a utter pompous bore that managed to obliterate one of the nation's two main cultures completely), occasionally to be impressed by technical feats - but I certainly don't expect to laugh.

Only the Brits have the guts to put during an Olympic ceremony their head of state in a silly stunt with a fake parachute jump (and stupid dogs - how do they breed them to be so ugly?) - and the while respecting royal protocol to the letter, or to put an excerpt of the Sex Pistols' version of GSTQ right at the start of the show, or to throw Mr. Bean in the middle of what anywhere else would have been a tedious homage to local cinema dripping of patriotism (just imagine what this would have turned into in the US), or even to put a group in Sgt Pepper uniforms in the middle of an historical number.

The show has its more tedious (generally just too stretched) moments, but overall it was quite above average in watchability as far as Olympic opening ceremonies go, with a good mix of impressive visuals like the forging of the rings and sheer madness.

It was perhaps only missing a few dancing mad cows and Vicky Pollard, actually.

It's probably worth rewatching too, sometimes there was so much going on at once I most likely missed a few jokes.