The Good Life-Complete Series 2 (1976) (NTSC)

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General		Extras
Category	Comedy	Main Menu Introduction Main Menu Audio & Animation
Rating
Year Of Production	1976
Running Time	202:59
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	None Given
Studio Distributor	Roadshow Home Entertainment	Starring	Richard Briers Felicity Kendal Penelope Keith Paul Eddington
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$29.95	Music	Burt Rhodes Bill Harris Ian McKendrick

    The Good Life stands the test of time as a classic English sit-com which began life in 1975 on the BBC. Despite including some obviously dated ideas, fashions and hairstyles, the show is still funny. I enjoyed this second season just as much as the first which I reviewed previously. It originally ran for four seasons and was shown in the US as Good Neighbours.

    The series follows the lives of Tom Good (Richard Briers) and his wife Barbara (Felicity Kendal) who have decided to turn their backs on their normal day to day lives and become self-sufficient by starting a farm in their own backyard in the suburbs of London. Tom is a bit of a smart ass in a lovable sort of way and Barbara encourages his eccentricities. Their neighbours and best friends, Jerry & Margo Leadbetter (Paul Eddington & Penelope Keith), think they are crazy but indulge them and help them out as they can. Jerry is a successful marketing executive and Margo is his snobby wife. There is a nice running joke through this series about Margo appearing in a local production of The Sound of Music as Maria.

    The episodes included here are:

1. Just My Bill (28:45) - Tom is trying to sell their excess harvest and after having difficulty decides to go into retailing.
2. The Guru of Surbiton (28:42) - Tom & Barbara have two very earnest Uni students staying with them during the holidays to help around the place. They seem to think Tom is some sort of guru.
3. Mr Fix-it (28:36) - Tom wants to use their long evenings at home more constructively. A journalist contacts them through Jerry and Margo to do a story on them. Margo tries to horn in on the story and Jerry comes up with a way to exploit it.
4. The Day Peace Broke Out (29:20) - Someone has been stealing vegetables from their front garden and Tom goes a bit gun crazy. He ends up in court.
5. Mutiny (28:25) - Jerry's boss asks him to accommodate and entertain a visiting businessman on the weekend but Margo refuses as she is appearing in The Sound of Music. Jerry gets sacked.
6. Home Sweet Home (28:48) - New people move in next door and Margot approves. A farmer who visits offers Tom & Barbara some advice on how to improve what they are doing, including that they move to a bigger farm in the country. They seriously consider it.
7. Going to Pot? (30:23) - Tom & Barbara decide to go to evening classes and Margo goes to pottery with Barbara.

    To my mind the star here is Felicity Kendall who is very funny and very droll as the cheeky Barbara. Richard Briers was considered to be the star in terms of billing. Penelope Keith's outfits are particularly lurid in this series.

    Lots of fun and recommended for fans of British 1970s sitcoms.

Video

    The video quality is fairly poor. Unfortunately, it is in NTSC, which is odd considering it comes from a PAL country. This probably adds to the significant colour artefacts to be seen. Ensure you television can reproduce NTSC before purchasing this disc.

    The feature is presented in a 1.33:1 aspect ratio non 16x9 enhanced which is the original aspect ratio.

    The picture was reasonably clear and sharp throughout, as good as you could expect from 30 year old television. There was no evidence of low level noise. The shadow detail was reasonable, about what you would expect. There was grain throughout and some mild macro-blocking.

    The colour was quite ordinary showing lots of bleeding, chroma noise everywhere (especially in brighter colours such as red), flaring and comet trails in vivid greens and reds and bits of cross colourisation. Faces were quite blotchy.

    In the non-colour artefacts there were some hairs, some minor tape tracking issues and evidence of excessive noise reduction. There was also some mild aliasing on car grilles and the like, plus some jagged edges. If all of that wasn't enough there was also some edge enhancement.

    There are no subtitles.

    The layer change must be between episodes.
    

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    The audio quality is fine with no major issues to report.

    This DVD contains a English Dolby Digital 2.0 mono soundtrack encoded at 192 Kb/s.

    Dialogue was clear and easy to understand and there was no problem with audio sync.

    The music 'specially composed' by Burt Rhodes is fine, neither spectacular nor annoying. It would have been quite a big thing for a BBC show to have had specially composed music at the time.

    The surround speakers and subwoofer were not used.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    None.

Menu

    The menu included animation and music.

    This series is available in Region 2 under this title & Region 1 as Good Neighbours. The Region 4 version of this disc misses out on;

• A PAL transfer
• An interview with writer Bob Larbey
• Production Notes
• Filmographies

    The Region 2 version of this disc misses out on;

• Nothing 

    The Region 2 version is the pick here. In Region 1 this series is only available as part of a set with Series 1 & 3.

    The video quality is poor.

    The audio quality is fine.

    The disc has no extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall