Coupling Season 3 & Last of the Summer Wine (1 Viewer)

[AndyMcKinney]

I thought I saw an ad on BBC-A that The Kumars at No. 42 was taking Coupling's old Sunday night timeslot. I just assumed Kumars started this weekend, as Coupling just finished its second run this week. Maybe Kumars doesn't start 'til after they cycle through Coupling again...

 

[AndyMcKinney]

I hadn't seen any announcements, either. I just had a sneaky feeling that VCI would be releasing series four pretty soon.

The stated extras at sendit.com are "outtakes" and "script to screen." I wouldn't be surprised if there were at least a couple of commentary tracks, too.

As I at least got to see the fourth series on BBC-A, I think I'll wait 'til the R1 comes out after all and see which version has the best extras (I'm a big fan of outtakes, and I remember that the R1 and R2 have differed on which episodes and which cast members participate in commentary tracks).

 

[Adam_ME]

If I'm not mistaken, the extras on Season 3 were virtually identical for Regions 1 and 2. The R2 DVD did have the interviews that were included on the R1 Season 1 disc, but otherwise I think the commentaries and outtakes were the same.

 

[David Williams]

It's taking the 9pm ET timeslot, right before Coupling. All my info comes directly from BBC America's schedule page.

 

[Kevin Hewell]

andrew, are you saying that American TV has improved or Brit TV has sunk to new lows?

 

[CraigF]

I had an issue with the series 3, episode 4 that I didn't mention because I had a replacement disc on the way, but now I see both copies show the identical problem: at 18:50 I get pixellation and breaking up for most of the rest of the chapter. But this only happens with my best player, an RP82, that normally plays discs that my other players (2xPC, 2xall-region) reject...not this time, all the other players played it no probs. Anybody else notice this? Anyway, I got the discs from amazon.ca last week, same manufacturing batch I expect.

While screwing around with this, and I mean really screwing around (without even *really* mentioning the lightning strike while I was testing...), I found out one of my all-region players requires the region be set to the exact region, and this disc turned out to be region 0...correct? i.e. it didn't play the disc when set up for region 1...odd, I think.

 

[peggy]

I have seen all the seasons of Coupling and think it is a great show but I have trouble paying that price for just a few episodes. Whereas I do appreciate them keeping the seasons short to keep the quality I just can't see paying that much for just a few episodes.

Of course my problem may be that I loved hearing the words A Quinn Martin Production and would love to have more of those shows out on dvd. I would pay the money to get a full season even though I might not enjoy every episode, to me for every bad one there was probably 2 to 3 good ones.

 

[CraigF]

Yeah, nothing from the BBC is cheap. But at least each episode is almost 30 mins., and compare the price to HBO stuff, like Sex and the City lately for six shorter episodes. I certainly haven't noticed anything from the BBC dropping in price over the years, though sometimes you can save a couple (like, literally 2, big deal) bucks buying seasons packaged together.

 

[David Williams]

I had the same problem, but luckily an exchange took care of it.

 

[andrew markworthy]

Both. With respect, I think that a lot of Americans have an inflated idea of the quality of Brit programmes because you tend only to get the best of the comedies and drama series. However, Brit TV (especially the BBC) got into a state of panic with the advent of satellite TV. It's important to remember that pre-satellite, we only had 5 channels - two BBC and three commercial (with only one of these really having the power to take on the BBC). In an effort to compete with the perceived mainstream appeal of satellite, the BBC arguably dumbed down. The result was a plethora of makeover programmes (i.e. cookery porn, home decorating porn, etc) and reality TV. Out of the window went a lot of more serious contemplative thrillers, plays became a thing of the past, and money went on big budget costume dramas (varying from the excellent to the vacuous) and 'gritty' contemporary dramas (i.e. as much violence, swearing and sex as possible but with cliche plots, dialogue and characters). Occasionally, on the same principle that a group of monkeys will eventually type Hamlet, something decent came out of the mix, but for every Office or Pride and Prejudice we've had many many more hours of dross.

Of course a similar tale applies the other way round - we are well aware that we only receive the best of American TV. But the quality of it has improved dramatically. American series in the 70s and 80s were largely used as filler - there were very few series that were critically admired in the UK. In other cases, programmes were watched for the 'wrong' reasons. E.g. Dallas, though popular over here, was watched by a large proportion of Brits as a source of amusement. However, consider recent US series:

Six Feet Under
CSI
Star Trek TNG and spinoffs
The West Wing
Frasier
Friends
Simpsons
Without Trace
Dead Like Me
Sex in the City
24
Buffy

These are head and shoulders above McCloud, Ironside, Quincy, Starsky and Hutch, Streets of San Francisco, Dukes of Hazzard, et al. And all of them are far far better than any contemporary British product.

Want to know the big irony in this? Remember I said that the BBC wanted to fight off the populist appeal of satellite? Generally it's satellite that gets first run of these shows, and viewers have been deterred away from the BBC because of its lowered quality and have started watching satellite because it offers better quality TV.

 

[PaulP]

Andrew, no Sopranos in that list? Or doesn't it get shown in the UK? Probably the best show on American TV in a long time. And I feel the same about Dead Like Me, which just entered its second season, and is just as amazing.

 

[andrew markworthy]

It was meant to be illustrative, not exhaustive! Yes, we get the Sopranos, and I agree, an excellent series.

Before anyone says it, I know that we Brits have made some respectable stuff in recent years, but nothing like quality output of the USA. What's the best crime series we can offer to match CSI - Silent Witness? I mean puhleease.

 

[Daryl L]

BBC's version of Couplings is hilarious. Consistently the funniest sitcom I've seen since Cheers.

 

[Aaron_Brez]

Oh, yeah. Never fails to make me laugh. The attempted remake in the States was soooooo lame by comparison, even if it was perhaps too short-lived to judge properly...

 

[Daryl L]

Yep, I also watched all the US versions that was aired. That was my first knowledge of the show. It was ok but a bit weak. Then I discovered the BBC version and was instantly hooked. Now I own the first 3 season dvd sets.

season 4 spoiler:
And even though the character (Richard Coyle) Jeff is gone (without a doubt the funiest of the group) in season 4

I'll buy season 4 once it's available in the U.S.

 

[CraigF]

Re the spoiler: Oh no, and I thought they were building up his character in series 3 for even better stuff in 4...IMO also he is the funniest.

 

[Kevin Hewell]

spoiler for series 4:

I felt the series suffered greatly by the absence of Jeff. It just wasn't as funny as the previous three series.

 

[AndyMcKinney]

I disagree. Despite the "spoiler" mentioned above, I feel series 4 is just as funny as the others. The production team's "fix" for the spoiler seems to be working out just fine (a lot better than I had hoped). Sure, I would've preferred things the way they were, but still, the show is excellent and I hope they go back to the well for at least one more series and maybe a Christmas special this year.

 

[Daryl L]

season 4 spoiler:Athough season 4 lacked their strongest comedic character (Jeff, who IMO was the centerpiece that anchored all the charactors together), the rest of the actors as well as the wriiters still made the show contain many teary eyed laughs per episode.
So for me it's still worth a purchase.

 

[CraigF]

Thanks for the reply David. I forgot I had mentioned my disc problem here, remembered when amazon got back to me...seems there are quite a few R1 series 3 discs with a problem with ep. 4 reported.