Quote: Griff @ March 23 2011, 2:23 PM GMTDo you think so?
Yes. I can still watch and enjoy The Good Life. I really can't with The Young Ones. It feels like it's straining to be shocking and anarchic and "look-at-me-I'm-mad!" and just feels tired and a bit embarrassing. Like an old once proud tramp.
Quote: chipolata @ March 23 2011, 2:57 PM GMTYes. I can still watch and enjoy The Good Life. I really can't with The Young Ones. It feels like it's straining to be shocking and anarchic and "look-at-me-I'm-mad!" and just feels tired and a bit embarrassing. Like an old once proud tramp.
I agree with you there but I also felt that about The Young Ones first time round; despite liking Rik Mayall and Ade Edmondson from their Comic Strip Presents work.
I liked The Good Life first time around and still do, but there is a certain whiny preachy-ness about Tom in particular that I find twee and just a bit too sanctimoniously worthy at times - and he makes me want to boot him up the arse sometimes as well.
Quote: Blenkinsop @ March 23 2011, 5:46 PM GMTI agree with you there but I also felt that about The Young Ones first time round; despite liking Rik Mayall and Ade Edmondson from their Comic Strip Presents work. I liked The Good Life first time around and still do, but there is a certain whiny preachy-ness about Tom in particular that I find twee and just a bit too sanctimoniously worthy at times - and he makes me want to boot him up the arse sometimes as well.
I agree. The Good Life isn't perfect by any means.
Quote: Griff @ March 23 2011, 6:00 PM GMTI find when I watch it now the best comedy comes from Margo and Jerry rather than Tom and Barbara.
Definitely. Forget pig-manure, Tom and Barbara could power their house by smugness alone.
Quote: Griff @ March 23 2011, 6:00 PM GMTI find when I watch it now the best comedy comes from Margo and Jerry rather than Tom and Barbara.
Quote: chipolata @ March 23 2011, 6:07 PM GMTDefinitely. Forget pig-manure, Tom and Barbara could power their house by smugness alone.
Exactly to both these comments. Me and Mrs B say the same thing every time we watch. The Goods are quite irritating and the Leadbetters are, despite Margo's snobbishness and right-wing leanings, much more likeable characters.
Also think that Penelope Keith's and Paul Eddington's performances were so so so much better than those of Richard Briers and Felicity Kendal.
Did people not think that at the time it was on?
Or has that only become apparent with time?
Quote: zooo @ March 23 2011, 7:11 PM GMTDid people not think that at the time it was on?
Or has that only become apparent with time?
For me it's something I only picked up on second time around. I was a bit unworldly wise back when they went out.
I honestly don't know what the contemporary critics made of it apart from it being generally very well-loved. But from my own memory it seemed like the Goods were held up by the popular media as paragons of virtue.
However that may well be wrong.
Quote: ToddB @ March 23 2011, 1:11 PM GMTI recall "Vyvyan" from "The Young Ones" smashing a TV while "The Good Life" played and bemoans comedies of the innocuous, slightly eccentric, loveable middle-class variety.
He didn't smash the telly at that point, but literally smashed through and pulled down the opening titles of The Good Life.
Quote: Griff @ March 23 2011, 8:13 PM GMTAs a youngster you naturally identify with the Richard Briers character, the big kid rebelling against all the stuffy 'adults' around him. Not that Briers wasn't a fantastic comic actor, of course he was. But watching it now the Tom character is a bit insufferable.
Yep, Margot and Jerry much more fun 35 years later.
Quote: youngian @ March 22 2011, 2:58 PM BSTThe first comedy drama I remember really enjoying was A Very Peculiar Practice which I would like to see again to judge whether it was as good as I remember it. Shame it hasn't been repeated and would be of great interest now as there was a serious back story debate about university commercialisation which is still raging today.
See Amazon product listing
[p=http://www.play.com/DVD/DVD/4-/17754877/A-Very-Peculiar-Practice-The-Complete-Series/Product.html]
[h=751595]
Quote: Matthew Stott @ March 22 2011, 4:36 PM BSTThat show about Bin Men from a while back. It might even have been called Bin Men.
That great steaming pile of turd with Craig Cash and possibly Steve Coogan? That was awful.
Quote: ToddB @ March 23 2011, 3:27 PM BSTThe premise is original
Actually, it's not.
Quote: Aaron @ March 28 2011, 3:57 PM BST
See Amazon product listing
[p=http://www.play.com/DVD/DVD/4-/17754877/A-Very-Peculiar-Practice-The-Complete-Series/Product.html]
[h=751595]
Hurray! One of the best ever telly things. Ever.
Yes, brilliant, Graham Crowden's finest moment.
Yeah I did like it, I loved its quietness, it wasn't pushy or showy in its comedy, its humour mostly came out of satirising health practices and such like. I remember some very good storylines. The commercially inclined, businesslike doctor was a great character, never had time for his patients even the pretty young female students!
I think if it were made today, it may have been ruder, the potential was there for it definitely. Although it did deal with contraceptives and pregnancies and all that if I remember rightly, but not in a graphic way. Alas. As for brilliant, I'd say it was far too quiet and subtle to called that, but it was very good.
Fools and Reggie Perrin (first time round).
Quote: cyg net @ March 29 2011, 2:43 PM BSTFools and Reggie Perrin (first time round).
The original 'Reggie Perrin' was certainly something 'other' than your usual sitcom (mainly due to its narrative, not sure that there's ever been another sitcom based on a novel?) but I'd still label it as a 'sitcom' rather than anything else. I think...
Quote: Alfred J Kipper @ March 29 2011, 12:47 PM BSTAs for brilliant, I'd say it was far too quiet and subtle to called that, but it was very good.
It was brilliant precisely because it wasn't brash and obvious.