By the start of the seventh series of Dad's Army, a change had definitely taken place. James Beck was gone, of course, which was a sad loss but something else was missing. There were plenty of other great characters who ought to have provided ample consolation for the loss of Walker, but the magic had somehow dimmed elsewhere and, in truth, had begun to dwindle even in the sixth series when Walker was still there. After three fantastic series consisting of a mammoth 13 or 14 episodes apiece, it's hardly surprising that Croft and Perry were struggling to find new angles from which to come at the material, but certain members of the cast seem to be losing enthusiasm too. Arthur Lowe feels slightly disengaged, possibly because the writing for Mainwaring had become less nuanced and more blandly buffoonish by this stage. John Laurie had started weirdly overplaying Fraser, which is never more blatant than in this episode when one of his once brilliant doom-laden monologues feels like pure pantomime. By contrast, Ian Lavender is really starting to nail the previously vaguely-defined role of Pike by this point, but sadly the improvement of the young cast member is paralleled by a loss of vibrancy from much of the older cast. Everybody's Trucking is still an entertaining enough episode but it gets by on the pre-established affection of the audience for these characters. The plot about Jones's van getting stuck in the mud is scarcely enough to fill the half-hour though and the laughs are few.