BUY IT

General		Extras
Category	Comedy	Main Menu Animation & Audio  Trivia  Outtakes
Rating
Year Released	1997
Running Time	173:45
RSDL/Flipper	Dual Layer	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region	1,2,3,4,5,6	Director	Martin Dennis
Studio Distributor	Warner Vision	Starring	Neil Morrissey  Martin Clunes  Leslie Ash  Caroline Quentin
Case	Transparent Amaray
RPI	$39.95	Music	Alan Lisk

    The episodes that make up this DVD are;

    1. Stag Night (28:41). Dorothy and Gary somehow decide that they are going to get married, and simultaneous stag and hen's nights are organized, which they both regret. Tony takes on a job supplying pools for home birthing, which genuinely impresses Deborah.

    2. Wedding (29:09). The wedding is on at the local registry, but both Gary and Dorothy have doubts.Various stuff-ups lead to the reception (down at the Crown) being held before the actual wedding ceremony. Deborah finally agrees to sleep with Tony...after Gary and Dorothy get married, so Gary and Dorothy's wedding doubts are pure agony for Tony.

    3. Jealousy (28:37). Gary, Dorothy, Deborah and Tony go away for a country weekend. Gary and Dorothy spend the weekend fighting and sulking whilst Deborah and Tony spend the weekend shagging vigorously, much to the disgust of Gary and Dorothy. Another nearby pair of campers sees Tony being extremely possessive of Deborah.

    4. Watching TV (29:00). The sequential storyline of Men Behaving Badly fractures with this episode, as we see no resolution of the difficulties at the end of Episode 3. Tony, Deborah, Gary and Dorothy are watching an Episode of Star Trek on TV, which leads to considerable discussion on the merits of Star Trek and other such deep-and-meaningful topics. Tony is so irritatingly chirpy that the others trick him into doing other things. That's all that happens in this episode. Although still periodically quite funny, this is one of the weakest episodes of Men Behaving Badly that I have seen.

    5. Ten (29:09). Deborah's 10-year-old nephew is coming to visit, and Deborah reluctantly leaves him in the care of Gary and Tony. At first, Gary and Tony have no idea what to do with him, until they discover that he will take orders, after which time they well-and-truly take him under their wing. Tony is desperate to make a good impression on Deborah's mother, but they don't hit it off at all well.

    6. Sofa (29:03). Dorothy decides that Gary's sofa needs to go, so this episode is spent with Gary reminiscing about what he and his sofa have gone through over the years. This episode is notable in that we get to see how Gary and Dorothy met. A sub-plot in this episode is a snake that Tony inadvertantly bought down at the pub whilst very drunk. This is another quite weak episode.

Video

    The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1. It is not 16x9 enhanced.

    The transfer is generally reasonably sharp and clear, although certainly never to the level of film-based material. Episode 3, Jealousy was softer than the other episodes and appeared to have been shot with lesser quality equipment. Outdoor scenes in general tended to have overbright, flared and washed-out whites, but indoor scenes were generally nicely balanced. Episode 1, Stag Night, was a little dark overall. In Episode 2, at around the 3 minute mark, the brightness varies up and down slightly for a short time. Also marring the quality of Episode 2 was the fact that much of it was filmed using a hand-held video camera for effect. Shadow detail was limited in the few scenes that were not brightly lit. No low level noise marred the image at any time.

    Colours were generally nicely balanced and well-saturated, although darker scenes tended towards oversaturation. Nonetheless, tones remained natural throughout the entire transfer. The opening credits of each episode exhibited some minor colour bleeding, but presumably this was inherent in the source material, as these credits have been used for previous series.

    MPEG artefacts were essentially absent other than the most minor of background macro-blocking which was only visible when the image was paused at certain times. At normal viewing speed, MPEG artefacts were completely invisible. Aliasing was a moderate problem for this transfer, with aliasing-prone objects suffering from this artefact periodically. The bricks on the ouside of the Crown in Episode 2 between 12:15 and 12:18 shimmered quite notably, as did some venetian blinds in Episode 5. Cross colouration was an unexpected and unusual artefact during Episode 3, particularly from 24:36 - 24:51 although it subtly affected large portions of this episode. This episode also had a momentary analogue tape tracking error at 27:12.

    This disc is Dual Layered, with episodes presumably split evenly between the layers.
 
 

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The dialogue is always easy to hear, and there are no audio sync problems.

    A low bass hum is present during the outdoor scenes in Episode 2 which appears to be a deliberate sound effect.

    There is only limited music in this series, with music mainly restricted to the opening titles and closing credits. Some additional music appears in Epsiode 6, Sofa, where appropriate.

    There was no activity in the surround channels, and the stereo presence of this soundtrack is limited to the music and audience laughter. The subwoofer did very little.
 
 

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menu

    You are able to select each individual episode from the main menu, which then leads to a chapter submenu for each episode. This is a tad cumbersome, and an option to play all 6 episodes sequentially would have been appreciated.

Trivia/Outtakes

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Michael Demtschyna (read my bio)
8th December 2000