The Vicar of Dibley-A Holy Wholly Happy Ending (2006) (NTSC)

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General		Extras
Category	Comedy	Featurette-Behind The Scenes-The Vicar of Dibley Story Biographies-Cast & Crew-
Rating
Year Of Production	2006
Running Time	108:47
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	No

    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 bosom'. 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 became 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.

    Following on from the previous set of specials in 2004 where I think the quality dipped a little, this disc contains what will probably be the final episodes of the show. Included here are two one hour shows which were shown over the Christmas/New Year period in 2006/7 by the BBC. Specifically they are: 

1. Handsome Stranger (53:17) - The village is being inundated with London residents buying cottages which they are only using at the weekends. Geraldine & Alice set off to give the latest one a piece of their mind, when they discover that he is the good looking and available Harry (Richard Armitage). Harry and Geraldine are immediately attracted to each other but things do not go smoothly.
2. The Vicar in White (55:30) - The villagers take on the organisation of the wedding with hilarious consequences.

    Comedically, this disc is a return to form for the show with many side splitting laughs. All your favourite characters are back and in great form. My only real criticism would be that the character of Harry is not particularly well written and the speed of the romance is not overly believable. Richard Armitage does not look entirely comfortable in comedy compared to his excellent performances in Robin Hood & North & South. This disc is available separately or as part of the new Immaculate Collection. Recommended.

Video

    The video quality is good but not without issues. 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 local releases of this show have been formatted in this way and it seems to be an issue with rights.

    The picture was reasonably sharp and clear, with no evidence of low level noise.The shadow detail was quite decent. There was a bit of shimmering about especially on camera pans. There was grain throughout which descended into macro-blocking on occasion especially in backgrounds.

    The colour was quite decent, certainly much better than the third series although there was some colour bleeding especially from reds, which seemed a little oversaturated. There was also bleeding from light colours such as white.

    Some aliasing especially in the opening credits was noticeable.

    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 good.

    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, including some animation and dialogue.

The Vicar of Dibley Story (59:07)

    An excellent hour long documentary about the show including interview snippets with all of the main cast members and important crew such as Richard Curtis, other writers and more. Topics covered include inspiration for the series, response from the clergy, the female vicar who helped develop the character, the tone of the various characters, celebrity guests and the decision to make these specials. Good stuff!

Cast Biographies

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

    This release is identical to the Region 1 release. The Region 2 release is very similar but at least is in PAL.

    On this basis I would buy the Region 2 product.

    The video quality is good but not without issue, including that it is still in NTSC.

    The audio quality is good.

    The disc includes a one hour documentary as its main extra.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall