The Good Life-Complete Series 3 (1976) (NTSC)

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General		Extras
Category	Comedy	Main Menu Introduction Main Menu Audio & Animation
Rating
Year Of Production	1976
Running Time	205:50 (Case: 203)
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. This is the third series I have reviewed and I thought it was not quite as good as the first two. 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. They seem to have made Tom's character a bit less considerate and sensitive towards Barbara in this series.

    The episodes included here are:

1. The Early Birds (29:57) - It's spring and Tom & Barbara get up early to plant thereby waking up the Leadbetters. Tom suggests they start going to bed when the sun goes down but it doesn't go well.
2. The Happy Event (28:39) - Their pig is about to give birth and Barbara gets a horse given to her but Tom won't let her keep it.
3. A Tug of the Forelock (28:09) - Jerry & Margo's cleaner and gardener go on holidays and Tom & Barbara offer to replace them for some extra cash. Margo doesn't like their attitude. One of the three top quality episodes in this series.
4. I Talk to the Trees (29:32) - Tom & Barbara meet an old man at their allotment who talks to his plants and thinks it helps them. Tom decides to stage an experiment to prove or disprove the notion. Very average episode.
5. The Wind-Break War  (29:54) - As part of a plan to stage music in her backyard, Margo has a wind-break erected which will block sun to Tom & Barbara's fruit trees. A major argument ensues. The second high quality episode in this series.
6. Who's Fleas are These? (29:53) - When the stove showers Tom & Barbara in soot they need to bath at the Leadbetters. Upon returning home they find they have fleas.
7. The Last Posh Frock  (29:46) - Barbara is feeling quite unfeminine and when she puts on her last nice (for the 70s) dress, it tears. Tom doesn't seem to understand why she's upset. Best episode of the series.

    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.

    Lots of laughs and it's certainly recommended for fans of British 1970s sitcoms.

Video

    The video quality is 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. I felt the video on this series was even a little bit worse than the previous two.

    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 some minor low level noise. The shadow detail was pretty average. 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. Things are generally quite dull and somewhat washed out.

    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 an intro, 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
• Split over two discs 
• Production Notes
• Filmographies

    The Region 2 version of this disc misses out on;

• One of the episodes - The Wind-Break War 

    As Region 2 seems to miss an episode, I would probably go for the local release despite the awful NTSC video, but you need to choose which is more important to you. 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