Why the sudden influx of writers with bad English/ excellent copying skills yet again!?!?!?!?
Why the sudden influx of writers with bad English/ excellent copying skills yet again!?!?!?!?
Member since:30.07.2007
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This review is of the complete first series of My Family, on DVD. Copyrighted BBC 1996, it holds the rating of Parental Guidance (PG) due to mild swearing and references to sexual activities or similar.
The main storyline is around the Harper family, who live in suburban London. They are as follows:
Ben Harper (Robert Lindsay): the dad, and a dentist. Just likes to be left alone to watch the TV, read the paper and drink beer (but in no particular order). Thinks that he is the vice of reason in the family, but is constantly being proved otherwise.
Susan Harper (Zoe Wanamaker): the mum, who is a tour guide and (she thinks) a gourmet cook. Wants to be involved in her children's lives, but is constantly reminded by their actions that she is unable to reason with them on their level.
Nick Harper (Kris Marshall): the eldest son, who never works; is constantly in the house, and is always coming up with hair brained schemes to make money. Or so he thinks, but they never materialise.
Janey Harper (Daniela Denby-Ashe): the middle child, but their only
daughter. Wants to break free from the strains of the family life, but never quites does it (until in a later series she does actually go away briefly to university). Usually only interestee in clothes, money and boys (pretty much at the same time!).
Michael 'Mikey' Harper (Gabriel Thomson): the youngest, who keeps his head in his school books for the simple reason that it is the only way he knows how to escape the cruelty of his family. Comes over as a bit too pompus at times, but loveable all the same.
Also in this series is another regular, who is Bridgit, played by Dasiy Donovan. She plays Ben's dental nurse, but her mind never quite seems to be on the job.
The DVD shows all 8 of the episodes from this series, and has a runninng time of approx 229 minutes. There now follows a brief description of the episodes:
1. The Serpent's Tooth. The family feel Ben has no time for them to see him as a dentist, so they go elsewhere. Meanwhile, Nick bets that he can get his French Internet girlfriend over - and Ben agrees to this bet. She comes, but appears to be a lesbian.
2. A Pain in the Class. Mikey is bullied, so Susan gets the parents over to talk it through. They appear to not be the sorts who would have a son who would bully another child.
3. Droigt de Seigneur Ben. Ben sets Janey up with the son of a Lord of the Manor, she hates this at first but he appears to be all she dreams of - until he won't stop... Ben and Susan go the opera, afterwards Ben nearly clobbers the wrong son for messing with his daughter.
4. The Last Resort. Ben and Susan go away to a B&B they went to before they were married, in order to celebrate her (supposed) 40th - also to rekindle the flame that is dying in their marriage, until they meet a maried couple who are a pair of 70 year old plus swingers.
5. Farewell to Alarms. The family get an alarm, owing to the increase in violence in the neighbourhood. However, it never works when it ismeant to but always does when it doesn't - resulting in many lost nights of sleeping.
6. Death and Ben take a Policy. As one of Susan's latest client dies, she makes Ben take out life insurance - but only to help out Nick's new girlfriend, who later on dumps him because whereas she is now successful he isn't.
7. The Awkward Phase. Mikey goes on his first date, with some useless advice from Nick and some even more useless information from Ben.
8. Much ado about Ben. He takes a Viagra, whichh leaves his eyes watering in more ways than one. He faints, and is told by the hospital to get fit or else. Ben then joins Susan's yoga class, but only lasts two minutes before the instructor bends him too far...
As far as first series go, this one is in fact very good in laying a good grounding for the later ones. It is just like the whole programme was written together, as you do get a very good understanding of all of the different main characters throughout this series. Of course the characters do develop in various other ways, but that is not to say that you can't already see what is going to happen to them already in this one.
I bought this DVD for around £5 years ago in Morrisons, but it can surely be found elsewhere - probably even cheaper now! The bar code number is, 5014138070724.
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
Comedy - Director: Richard Boden, Mandie Fletcher, Martin Shardlow - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over - Starring: Hugh Laurie, Miranda Richardson, Stephen Fry, Brian Blessed, Tim McInnerny, Tony Robinson, Rowan Atkinson
Comedy - Original Language: English - Classification: 12 years and over - Starring: Tessa Peake-Jones, Buster Merryfield, David Jason, Nicholas Lyndhurst
wow really good, you even got the barcode in there, thats dedication
Eazy_Rider 08.02.2009 15:50
Oops, meant to say "My Family" in my comment, sorry! :)
Eazy_Rider 08.02.2009 15:50
I love family guy, it used to be the only decent thing on a Sunday afternoon to pass the time! And well done for getting it so cheap! I might have to look into getting it myself..... Great review! :)
Put-upon dentist Ben Harper (Robert Lindsay) is long suffering husband to Susan (Zoe ... more
Wannamaker) and father to three very different and often difficult children - nice but dim Nick (Kris Marshall) shopaholic student Janey (Daniela Denby-Ashe) and prod...
Postage & Packaging: £0.00 Availability: 3-5 working days
Meet The HarpersA modern, outwardly functional family... engaged in constant psychological ... more
warfare.Ben, a dentist, and Susan, the worst cook in the world, are certainly loving, caring parents, they just have a problem showing it. Ben seems to be confus...
![My Family - Series 1 - Complete [DVD] [2000]](http://picnicb.ciao.com/uk/78510593.jpg "My Family - Series 1 - Complete [DVD] [2000]")
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