The Vicar of Dibley-The Specials (2004) (NTSC)

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General		Extras
Category	Comedy	Featurette-Behind The Scenes-Dibley Defrocked Featurette-2005 Comic Relief Sketch Biographies-Cast & Crew-Behind The Scenes Teaser For 1999 Red Nose Day
Rating
Year Of Production	2004
Running Time	101:41 (Case: 125)
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Gareth Carrivick John Howard Davies Dewi Humphreys
Studio Distributor	Roadshow Home Entertainment	Starring	Dawn French Gary Waldhorn Emma Chambers James Fleet John Bluthal Roger Lloyd-Pack Trevor Peacock
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$29.95	Music	Howard Goodall

Video (NTSC)		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	480i (NTSC)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.78:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	None	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	Yes

    The Vicar of Dibley is one of the great English comedy series, along with shows like Black Adder, Mr Bean and Fawlty Towers. Leaving aside Fawlty Towers the others all have something in common besides being English. Richard Curtis was involved with writing all of them. He is definitely one of the greatest comedy writers ever to hail from the British Isles. Besides those mentioned above he also wrote for Not the Nine O'Clock News and Spitting Image and wrote both Bridget Jones films, Love Actually, Notting Hill and Four Weddings & a Funeral.

    The Vicar of Dibley is set in the small village of Dibley in rural England and features the weird and amusing inhabitants of the village. The main character is the village Vicar, Geraldine Grainger (Dawn French) who is 'a babe, with a bob and a magnificent bosum'. In Series 1 she arrived in this small village as their new Vicar much to the consternation of the villagers, as they were expecting a man. However, over the three series she was accepted as the vicar and has become a very popular member of the community, especially with some of the menfolk. The other villagers who appear regularly in this series are

• David Horton (Gary Waldhorn) - The local rich landowner who also runs the town council. He is stuffy, arrogant and a snob.
• Hugo Horton (James Fleet) - David's dim-witted son who is married to Alice.
• Alice Horton nee Tinker (Emma Chambers) - The dim-witted verger of the church who married Hugo in series 2.
• Jim Trott (Trevor Peacock) - A sex obsessed and mad old villager.
• Frank Pickle (John Bluthal) - A gay and very boring old villager.
• Owen Newitt (Roger Lloyd Pack) - A sex obsessed and borderline psychotic farmer.

    After the third series in 2000, there were no new Vicar of Dibley shows until these specials were released, except for a few small skits for charity. This disc contains two  approximately 50 minute specials made in 2004 for airing on the BBC at Christmas and New Year 2004/05 and another shorter charity special in the extras. These shows still have their very funny moments, however, I think the format is getting a little tired and clichéd and the second of these shows is more about how terrible poverty is than anything else. Whilst I understand that this is a serious issue, I feel it's a little overdone in this case, especially when you buy a DVD expecting a comedy show.

    The shows included here are:

1. Merry Christmas 2004 (53:58) - It is Geraldine's 10th anniversary in Dibley and the town decides to have a competition to make up a new Christmas Carol in her honour. A rumour starts that Geraldine is gay which has David up in arms. David gives the house away to Hugo and Alice as a tax dodge with interesting results and Geraldine considers a new job. There is some funny material here and this is the pick of the two specials. Rachel Hunter guests.
2. Happy New Year 2005 (47:43) - Geraldine wants the town to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Live Aid and it's also her 40th birthday which she doesn't want to celebrate. The villagers try to find her a boyfriend by sending her speed dating. As I mentioned above the overdone poverty lecture in this episode reduces its comedic value, although there are certainly funny scenes.

    This disc is definitely worth having for Vicar of Dibley fans, however it is not quite up to the standard of the original series.

Video

    The video quality is good and certainly superior to the video quality of the third series. It is however still in NTSC which is consistent with the previous releases.

    The feature is presented in a 1.78:1 aspect ratio 16x9 enhanced which is most likely the original aspect ratio. It is very disappointing that this DVD is presented in NTSC format considering that it is a television production originating from a PAL country. All three seasons of this show have been formatted in this way and it seems to be an issue with rights. There is also some light grain.

    The picture was reasonably sharp and clear, with no evidence of low level noise. The shadow detail was ordinary. There was a bit of shimmering about, especially on camera pans.

    The colour was quite decent, and certainly much better than the third series, although there was some colour bleeding particularly from reds, which seemed a little oversaturated. There was also bleeding from light colours such as white, some variations in colour from time to time and some chroma noise.

    Other than those mentioned above there were no overt artefacts.

    There are no subtitles.
    

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    The audio quality is fine.

    This DVD contains an English Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo soundtrack encoded at 192 Kb/s.

    Dialogue was clear and easy to understand and there was no problem with audio sync, which is of course critical in a comedy show.

    The music by Howard Goodall does its job but doesn't stand out. The theme song is sung by a real church choir and was originally written for a hymn.

    The surround speakers and subwoofer were not used.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menu

    The menu was simple and still.

Dibley Defrocked (10:56)

    This is presented 4x3 and is a behind-the-scenes featurette on the filming of these specials in front of a live audience. It covers the process the actors went through including rehearsals and also shows make-up and various goofs. Quite entertaining.

2005 Comedy Relief Special (14:08)

    This is an amusing short special where Antiques Roadshow visits Dibley and there are a number of surprises, mostly regarding the authenticity of David's painting collection.

Cast Biographies

    Text bios for Dawn French, Gary Waldhorn, James Fleet, Emma Chambers, John Bluthal, Trevor Peacock, Roger Lloyd-Pack and writers Richard Curtis & Paul Mayhew-Archer.

    This release is identical to the Region 1 release. The Region 2 release includes some extra things as follows:

• It is in PAL (according to reviews it seems to have better video quality too)
• The Comic Relief Celebrity Party special which was included on the Season 3 set here
• The Epilogues - a compilation of all the epilogue jokes from all three series.

    On this basis I would buy the Region 2 product.

    The video quality is good and significantly better than season three although still in NTSC.

    The audio quality is fine.

    The disc has a small selection of quality extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall