Cheap Absolutely Fabulous - Complete Series 5 (DVD) (Jennifer Saunders, Joanna Lumley) (Dewi Humphreys, Tristram Shapeero, Bob Spiers) Price

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Customer Reviews of Absolutely Fabulous - Complete Series 5

I only gave it 4 stars, because it just seems to lack the edge that the first two seasons had. Still, if you enjoyed Ab Fab, here's more Ab Fab!

I'm chanting as we speak
I'm sure that most of us AB FAB fans agree that series 1,2 and 3 are the absolute best. Series 5 was better than series 4. As always, the bloopers are hillarious. I was disappointed that "Wheels On Fire" was instrumental in series 5. It's a great song and could have been done in a Junior Vasquez version by Bette Midler or Joan Jett. I am just thankful that Jennifer Saunders keeps AB FAB going. The woman is just brilliant. The things that come out of that mind! I hope there are many more series to come. Nothing makes me laugh as hard. Jennifer Saunder's Edina just blows me away. Her mannerisms, her facial expressions, her impatience with people. I could be in the worst mood, down and out, depressed; I pop in AB FAB and it instantly cheers me up. It almost works just as well as an antidepressant! If you have all the other series, naturally you have to have series 5!

Oh dear, oh dear...
I'll never forget the first time I saw 'Absolutely Fabulous'. I was 15 years old and Series 2 was re-running on BBC One. It was the episode 'Death' and from the second Eddie's recurring oddball Jamaican Nurse bandaged her for her mud wrap to the close with Patsy falling into an open grave, I laughed deepr and harder than I had in a very, very long time.

Sticking with the buzz, I treated myself to Series One on VHS - excellent - and was duly rewarded by Series 4 after a very lacklustre Series 3. Inbetween, the almighty 'Last Shout' tided me over, and thanks to those interminable re-runs, even Series 3 grew on me after a while.

Which brings me full-circle to this, the complete series 5.

Now, oddly enough, this isn't available here in Region 2 on DVD just yet, so I am prepared to put up with minor (yet completely unforgivable in terms of necessity) flaws like the absence of Debbie Harry's vocal on the opening credits, and the lack of the 'Chicago' scene from the 'Birthin' episode (I did catch that one on TV, and believe me, American buddies, you're missing nothing. In vulgar parlance - it SUCKED), but what I was not prepared for in the slightest is the total lack of laughter, smiles and general Humour that made the first four series such a wonderful thing to watch.

For every decent, solid joke (Bubble's New Duchess persona, Patsy's recurring collagen disasters, Eddie singing Christmas Carols) there are three or four totally humour-free incidents (Eddy and Patsy worrying Saffy about post-pregnancy womanhood, preditable and tired Liza & David jokes, Bo and Marshall's infomercial, all appearances by TitiCaca, the entire 'Huntin', Shootin', Fishin' episode, etc etc etc). Laugh-For-Laugh, it's not great, and a feeble second even to the rushed, gimmicky 'Gay' TV Special.

One reviewer here levels a criticism at the studio lighting, and he/she is completely, 100% correct on this score - the harsh, high-contrast key-lighting ratio makes for a cheap and tawdry-looking Monsoon household, and, rather than looking like their fabulous selves, Eddy and Patsy now look like scary old has-beens. Even at DVD quality it's difficult to see detail sometimes, and the whole visual quality is very amateurish - NOT the Thing, sweetie.

Worryingly, Sauders seems to be taking parts of her writing into a 'Surreal' and decidedly less funny area - what works for Britcoms like 'The League of Gentlemen' and 'The Fast Show' most certainly does not work with Eddy and Patsy - case in point, the opening 1940's sequence of 'Huntin', Shootin', Fishin', the Patsy voodoo doll and the 'Boobarella' skits, while solid surreal comedy ideas, are not well-suited to a show where the whole raison d'etre is to keep one's finger on the pulse.

For all the bad points, however, there are some classic moments - Katy Grin and the Tank, 'Big Mother', "Is he from a-Gabon?", and Patsy & the pheasant - but these moments of true Ab Fab glory are few and far between, and I, for one, can't force a smile for that length of time while waiting for them to appear.

DVD-wise all is good, the outakes are plentiful (if bog-standard, most outtakes from everything seem to be people getting the same line wrong ad nauseam) and the presentation and audio are top-notch.

Sadly I cannot recommend this DVD to anyone but the most avid of Ab Fab completists. It's rare that I consider an Amazon purchase a waste of $40, but there it is.

Not Good.