George and Mildred-Complete Series 1 (1976)

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General		Extras
Category	Comedy	Main Menu Audio & Animation Gallery-Photo-10 Biographies-Cast
Rating
Year Of Production	1976
Running Time	245:49 (Case: 250)
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Peter Frazer-Jones
Studio Distributor	Madman Entertainment	Starring	Yootha Joyce Brian Murphy Norman Eshley Sheila Fearn Nicholas Owen
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$29.95	Music	Johnny Hawksworth

    George and Mildred (G&M) is another in the line of popular British comedy series from the 1970s that includes Bless This House and Love Thy Neighbour. G&M is a spin-off from another popular series, Man About the House. George and Mildred Roper were the landlords for Robin Tripp (the man about the house) and the two girls, and were popular characters in their own right, so when Man About the House stopped production the Ropers were given their own show.

    If you have not met them before, let me introduce you. George (Brian Murphy) is a late middle-aged working class man. Well, I use the term 'working' fairly lightly, as he spends much of his time in the first few episodes trying to avoid getting a job. He likes drinking brown ale, watching TV, and criticising anyone better off than he is. His long-suffering wife Mildred (Yootha Joyce) is an outgoing person who resents the limited amount of affection she receives from George. She would also like to climb the social ladder a bit more, so she can look her rich and snobbish sister Ethel in the eye.

    The premise for G&M is that the local council need the land that the Roper's house is on, so they have been forced to sell. With Mildred's prompting they are looking at a house in a middle-class neighbourhood, which just happens to be next door to estate agent Jeffrey Fourmile (Norman Eshley). He is rather stuck-up, so is straight away a target for George. Jeffrey has a rather nice wife, Ann (Sheila Fearn), and a six year old son, Tristram (a rather cute Nicholas Bond). The first series revolves mainly around the friction between George and Jeffrey and the frustrations Mildred has with George. Secondary plot elements revolve around Ann trying to curb Jeffrey's more snobbish moments and Tristram growing up.

    This show has the advantage of moving on smoothly from its parent, so that it avoids some of the 'running-in' that new shows usually have. The actors are used to working together, and as a result the series hits its stride from the first episode. While it is limited in its scope, the episodes will keep you chuckling. At the time it was very popular, and spawned a big-screen outing. Its run was cut short by the untimely death of Yootha Joyce in 1980.

    I watched this show in its first run and always found George to be a right royal pain in the butt. Well, he still is. What I had missed back then is that he has a little bit of human kindness (only a little), which pops up unexpectedly so that we can see what Mildred saw in him when they first got married. This adds a little heart to the character which makes watching him more bearable the second time around. A perfect example is in Episode 4 where Mildred has been baby-sitting Tristram and is rather sad about not having any children. George is rather nervous, as having children would involve S-E-X, or even worse, "artificial insinuation", so it looks like Mildred will miss out. At the end of the episode though, George surprises us all and buys Mildred a very cute puppy (Truffles), so she won't be so lonely. Of course, he then spends many of the subsequent episodes mistreating the dog or complaining to Mildred that she shows more attention to Truffles than she does to him.

    PS: For trivia buffs, the dog Truffles is played by Pussy Galore. Another dog in the series is played by James Bond.

Episode Listing:

Episode 1 - Moving On (25:04)
The Ropers buy their new house in Peacock Crescent. George's seedy pal Jerry helps them move (he is played by popular British actor Roy Kinnear - you may recognise the face). George claims it is "a bit posh for us".

Episode 2 - The Bad Penny (22:40)
Jeffrey watches gloomily as the Ropers move in, convinced that the neighbourhood is going downhill fast. George manages to lock himself out of the house while he is having a bath and runs around in a bathrobe, confirming Jeffrey's fears.

Episode 3 - ...And Women Must Weep (25:21)
George is out reluctantly job hunting. There is a vacancy at Jeffrey's real estate agency, but Mildred ends up getting the job. George ends up at home being a house-husband.

Episode 4 - Baby Talk (24:45)
Mildred is baby sitting for Ann and Jeffrey and decides she wants a baby. It seems adoption is the only option, but will George make a suitable father in the eyes of the adoption agency?

Episode 5 - Your Money Or Your Life (25:00)
The Ropers are attending a funeral. George states that they are "tragic occasions - weddings and funerals". Mildred decides that George should be insured. Next door, Tristram is nervous about his school report.

Episode 6 - Where My Caravan Has Rested (24:50)
Mildred's sister Ethel (Avril Elgar) is visiting. Mildred decides they need a new car and George comes home with a ratty old caravan instead. The Peacock Avenue neighbour's committee are not too happy.

Episode 7 - The Little Dog Laughed (24:50)
Truffles is being spoilt, and George is feeling left out. Next door, Tristram wants a pet, so Jeffrey buys him a mechanical dog (sometimes Jeffrey can seem as thoughtless as George).

Episode 8 - Best Foot Forward (23:10)
Tristram is about to celebrate his 7th birthday. With Jeffrey's help, George breaks a leg, and spends the rest of the episode threatening to sue him. This one is very funny - start here if you want to see the best of what this show has to offer.

Episode 9 - My Husband Next Door (24:32)
Mildred wants to redecorate the house. The Fourmiles are off to Scotland for a holiday. They leave their key with Mildred so she can water the house plants - which turns out to be a bad idea when George is around.

Episode 10 - Family Planning (25:37)
Ethel is visiting again. She has come to deliver Mildred's mother (who has mild dementia) for a visit. George is rather reluctant.

Video

    This is an average transfer overall. The scenes shot in the studio are fairly crisp with good colour, but all of the outdoor scenes are aged and damaged - it appears that they were shot on quite different stock. Each of the episodes is presented with the 'Part One' and 'Part Two' ad caps common in British TV shows of the time.

    The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1 full frame, and given the age and its TV origins is naturally not 16x9 enhanced.

    As mentioned, the indoor scenes are quite sharp, and show very good shadow detail with little low level noise. By contrast, the outdoor scenes are uniformly fuzzy with poor shadow detail.

    The colour during the indoor scenes is quite good, given the age of the material and its source. Flesh tones appear natural, and there is a nice bright look to the overall presentation. Once again, scenes shot on location outdoors are drab and look a lot older than studio shots. I'm not sure if it looked like this in its original showing, but the contrast between the quality of the indoor and outdoor shots is quite jarring at times.

    There are a lot of artefacts to be found in the outdoor shots. Once again, they are not as noticeable during indoor scenes. There is some pixelization outdoors which is not present indoors. Some minor aliasing can be found in some episodes (see Jeffrey's collar at 3:21 in Episode 1 or Ann's dress at 18:04 in Episode 5). Film artefacts are even more frequent and include both negative and positive artefacts, the latter being more common. Horizontal interference lines show up occasionally and look like videotape damage (see 4:02 in Episode 3). The outdoor scenes, in addition to the murky picture and poor colour, show frequent positive artefacts. Occasional scratches also show up, as do odd spots of incorrect colour. In spite of all of this damage, large portions of the episodes are quite acceptable and in any case the picture is still better than it would be on VHS.

    There are no subtitles.

    There is a layer change at 115:42 (19:52 into the 5th episode) which is quite disruptive. This is rather strange as you would have imagined that they would more logically have changed layers in-between the 5th and 6th episodes.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    The audio on the DVD is just as average as the picture.

    There is only one audio track, an English Dolby Digital 2.0 (mono) track.

    The dialogue is quite clear, and the audio sync is fine.

    The music is limited to the theme tune by Johnny Hawksworth, which is quite lively (I hate to admit it, but I found myself humming along during the opening and closing credits). The series was filmed in front of an appreciative studio audience who add a lot of atmosphere.

    There is no surround presence, and the sound is at times a little vague in its placement. Switching to Dolby ProLogic mode only made this phenomenon worse. The subwoofer is not used.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    Well, there are a few extras, not good ones, but at least they are here.

Menu

    The menu includes video segments from the show. The scene selection menus offer 4 segments from each episode as well as the end credits.

Photo Gallery

    A selection of 10, mostly badly coloured, shots. I'm not sure why there couldn't have been more, of better quality.

Bios

    2-5 pages of fairly basic information on each of the 5 principals.

    This DVD does not appear to be available in Region 1, so the Region 4 is the way to go.

    I quite enjoyed watching this series, more than I thought I would based on my memories from previous viewings. Some of the humour is quite clever (and some of it is very broad and basic), so all tastes seem to have been accounted for.

    The video quality is average (poor at times, but quite good at others).

    The audio does its job.

    The extras are poor, but to balance this the disc includes a generous serving of 10 episodes, amounting to over 4 hours of laughter.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall