It's no accident that all 3 non-Briers, virtual unknowns before this series, went on to have their own top-rated shows. Tied jointly with Fawlty and Blackadder for my favourite comedy series (I can't separate them because they're all so different), this is definitely the gentlest of the three, but no less piquant for all that. The storyline of two suburbanites opting out of the rat-race to try their hand at self-sufficiency provided a great platform for a lot of digs at the establishment, and the actors themselves did the rest.
It also contains the first scene I ever saw a in a comedy series used to make a serious point, when the 4 come in to witness the mayhem caused by vandals to the Good's home. In the couple of seconds after Margo's line "And the people who do this call the police pigs", you could have heard a pin drop; and that was 10 years before the last episode of Blackadder.
Perhaps I'm biased because I had a huge crush on Felicity Kendall, but I still reckon its the best show any of them have done - and that includes some pretty stiff competition. And don't be fooled by the feel-good factor; it was quite subversive in its way.
It also contains the first scene I ever saw a in a comedy series used to make a serious point, when the 4 come in to witness the mayhem caused by vandals to the Good's home. In the couple of seconds after Margo's line "And the people who do this call the police pigs", you could have heard a pin drop; and that was 10 years before the last episode of Blackadder.
Perhaps I'm biased because I had a huge crush on Felicity Kendall, but I still reckon its the best show any of them have done - and that includes some pretty stiff competition. And don't be fooled by the feel-good factor; it was quite subversive in its way.