Hi,
Thanks for my first ever diamond and of course the continued rrc's. It's beginning to look a lo...
Hi,
Thanks for my first ever diamond and of course the continued rrc's. It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas! xx
Member since:08.02.2008
Reviews:278
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The Vicar of Dibley is one of my most favourite sitcoms. This is probably due to the fact that this show was being aired whilst I was young and continued to be aired as I grew up. The programme centres on a small Oxfordshire village called Dibley. After the death of their Vicar, which occurs in episode one, the village are assigned a female Vicar, Geraldine Granger, and this is were all the fun begins.
Upon her arrival Geraldine is immediately met by a certain amount of hostility in the form of Councillor David Horton who is also the chairman of the Parish council. Despite his original opinions however the rest of the village, especially the somewhat dozy Verger Alice Tinker, warm to her. This is integral to the coming storylines of show as all the characters play equally important roles in them and it is often their relationships with one another that generate the laughs rather than the actual content of the episode(s) in question.
The Seasonal Specials DVD contains all four episodes from third series of 'The Vicar of Dibley' and follows a potty year in life of the potty parishioners of Dibley. Like previous series', this one is utterly fantastic from beginning to end and provides some iconic Dibley moments that once you have seen them you will never forget.
Each of the four episodes tells a different story about the antics of the parishioners and so can be watched as a stand-alone comedy
piece. I however would highly recommend that you watch the episodes in the order they were intended as the humour generated by doing so is increased ten-fold.
Like I have said early each episode within this series truly is a fantastic piece of comedy in its own right and each one appeals to me in a different way. There is one episode however that I absolutely adore and I know that many people will be with me on this when I reveal, after the short synopses of all of the episodes, which one it is.
Episode 1 - 'Autumn' After returning from their honeymoon, slightly late, Geraldine discovers that Alice is a little more than slightly pregnant. This however somewhat takes the back-seat when her dalliances with David's brother Simon finally reaches the passionate climax she has been hoping for.
Episode 2 - 'Winter' Dibley is in trouble. More importantly Geraldine is in trouble, as with the Millennium fast approaching she has not one measly idea about what to do to celebrate it. Unbelievably it is Alice that comes to the rescue with the champion idea that they should stage a Nativity in a real farmyard using real animals. This is of course a recipe for disaster itself but it is a more than realistic birth that gives the audience the real shock of the evening.
Episode 3 - 'Spring' Maybe it's the scent of pollen in the air that is causing the strangest thing to happen in Dibley - Geraldine and David can't seem to stop agreeing with one another. Or maybe, just maybe it's the fact that love is in the air, as with the christening of Alice and Hugo's baby fast approaching David risks everything for love.
Episode 4 - 'Summer' A drought is gripping Dibley and refusing to let go but it is the Water Company's rather too radical solution that is worrying the parishioners more than the very idea that Owen might not have had a bath for nearly a month. The solution if passed means the definite end to Dibley, as they all know it. Despite early bursts of happiness due to the prospect of getting compensation money for their troubles the parishioners all rally round Geraldine and make one last mighty stand.
So can you guess which one is my favourite episode? I bet many of you can because I bet that it's your favourite episode too. The episode I am most fond of is... 'Winter'. I adore this episode and think that it is probably my favourite episode from the entire Vicar of Dibley series, if not it is certainly my favourite Christmas episode. The comedy within this episode truly is sublime and the relationships between the characters are given a priority within this episode that doesn't detract from the story but simply makes it slightly more sentimental than normal.
Like in all the previous series each episode begins with a somewhat comical antic usually including some of the parish council members and then each episode ends, after the credits have rolled, with Geraldine attempting to tell Alice a joke. The word 'attempting' is critical here because Alice is in the mental area rather challenged and therefore doesn't really understand what a joke is all about. This often leads Geraldine to despair as she tries to explain a rather simple joke to her, running the comedic effect for both her and Alice but greatly increasing it for the audience.
The Seasonal Special DVD makes fantastic viewing and is one that I find myself coming back to frequently. The relationships between the characters are developed much further within this series and for me this is what really makes the series as a whole so fantastic. We get to know the characters that have been so wonderfully created so well that by time the series final comes to a close we have grown so accustomed to them and in a strange way so attached to them that it becomes somewhat hard to see them leaving the screen forever. In my opinion this attachment and sentimentality for the characters begins its fantastic journey to permeate your heart in this series' and continues in the remaining ones.
The Seasonal Specials DVD itself contains no special feature and subtitles are not available, which is a shame if you are one of those people that likes a DVD disc to be packed with extras. However for me this isn't really a problem because the second the DVD has finished I have it ejected and the next Vicar of Dibley DVD inserted and played - yes I do find the series that addicting. This DVD itself contains 2 hrs 39 minutes of episodes.
The series can readily be purchased online. Its RRP is around the £9 mark, which is definitely money well spent.
Pictures of The Vicar of Dibley - Seasonal Specials DVD
Geraldine as Angel Gabriel
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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
Comedy - Director: Tony Dow - Original Language: English - Classification: 12 years and over - Starring: John Challis, David Jason, Nicholas Lyndhurst, Tessa Peake-Jones, Gwyneth Strong
![Vicar of Dibley, The - Seasonal Specials [VHS] [1994]](http://picnica.ciao.com/uk/71999304.jpg "Vicar of Dibley, The - Seasonal Specials [VHS] [1994]")
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