Just Good Friends update

I thought I had posted this quite some time ago until someone requested "the" Just Good Friends disc. Origianlly it was from VHS recordings that fit onto 1 disc. This is nice crisp digital now, has been, and just barely fits onto 2 discs.....with one exception. One of the most popular sitcoms from the 80's, certainly a decade of many great ones, had been held back from commercial release for many years due to the old licensing issues. It's one thing to feature a song in the background for a television broadcast and quite another thing altogether when it comes to commercial release. The original broadcast falls under the public performance licensing pretty much the same as playing a song from a CD on the radio. Make several hundred thousand DVD's of the broadcast things get very complicated very fast.
Just Good Friends, of course, is the story of Vince and Penny finding themselves reunited 5 years after Vince stood her up at the altar. In the first 2 series we saw a continuation of their very rocky and mismatched relationship and it ended with Penny heading off to Paris and a new job. That was the end of it, but John Sullivan decided to write a prequel and it was presented as a Christmas special in 1984. It was very cleverly done in that the end of the last episode was the beginning of the prequel and the prequel ended with the start of the very first episode. The prequel version here is not the DVD release with about 8 minutes of dialogue removed due to licensing restrictions. 
When Carla Lane ended Butterflies after 3 series with Leonard going off to New York City to work, she received a lot of complaints about how the story ended so a few years later she wrote a 4th series that had Ria ending the relationship. John Sullivan went through a similar reaction with Just Good Friends and a couple years later brought Vince and Penny back for a third series in order to end the story the way people wanted it to end.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_Good_Friends

Rock & Chips

Rock & Chips, the 3-part prequel to Only Fools And Horses saw the final episode tonight, just 5 days after the death of its writer, John Sullivan.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_%26_Chips

Father, Dear Father complete

Father, Dear Father is now complete with all episodes, the movie, the Australian show and the little obscure Christmas special from the 1972 Christmas with the Stars broadcast. This sitcom began in the late 60's and starred Patrick Cargill (The Many Wives Of Patrick), Noel Dyson (Potter, original cast member of Coronation St.), Ann Holloway, Natasha Pyne, Tony Britton (And Mother Makes Five, Robin's Nest, Don't Wait Up), Donald Sinden (Never The Twain, Two's Company).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Father,_Dear_Father

The Graham Norton Show - Series 7

In these parts he's probably best known as the extremely annoying Father Noel Furlong in 3 episodes of Father Ted, but of course Graham Norton has had a long career doing stand up, as a panelist, and hosting a bunch of quiz shows and chat shows and so on. Here's the 7th series of his popular BBC program. A list of the guests can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_The_Graham_Norton_Show_episodes
I believe his show is often shown on BBC America but the programming on that channel is usually so dismal I think most people have forgotten it even exists.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Graham_Norton_Show

The Cleopatras

The Cleopatras is a 1983 BBC historical drama serial about the Egyptian ruling dynasty of the same name. It  has a similar set production as I, Claudius and lot of familiar faces, but where I, Claudius achieved success in the 70's this one has become a bit of an obscurity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cleopatras

5 Irish Films - Disc 1

5 films:

Dancing At Lughnasa takes place in Donegal around 1936. It features an international cast of "big names" like Meryl Streep, Michael Gambon, Catherine McCormack and Kathy Burke.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancing_at_Lughnasa
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancing_at_Lughnasa_%28film%29

December Bride takes place in Ulster in 1909.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/December_Bride_%28film%29

Garage stars Pat Shortt (of Killinaskully fame) but this is not a comedy.  A contemporary story that takes place in Tipperary.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garage_%28film%29

Philadelphia Here I Come is based on a 1964 play by Brian Friel (as is Dancing At Lughnasa and this also takes place in Donegal). 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphia_Here_I_Come
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0284690/
You'll see later well known faces like Niall Toibin and David Kelly appearing in this. Speaking of Kelly:

Waking Ned.....or Waking Ned Devine as it was called in the US, is a 1998 comedy (after all these drama's I thought it might be best to close the disc with a few laughs) that takes place in Ireland but was actually filmed on the Isle of Man. Starring Kelly along with Scottish actor Ian Bannen, James Nesbitt, Fionnula Flanagan and Susan Lynch.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waking_Ned

The Larkins update

Series 4 added to The Larkins, one of the earliest survivng British sitcoms. That wraps up the original run of the program. It did return for another 15 episodes a few years later, but I believe it was just Peggy Mount and David Kossoff as Ada & Alf Larkin and was in a different setting. I can't find that information but seem to recall reading that once. So Joyce and Jeff, Eddie, and neighbors Myrtle, Sam and Hetty were not in the later version.
http://www.televisionheaven.co.uk/larkins.htm

John Sullivan

For those of you outside the UK (as nearly everyone in the UK is fully aware) the writer John Sullivan passed away this weekend at age 64 after a lengthy battle with pneumonia. John wrote some of the great comedy classics such as Only Fools And Horses, Just Good Friends, Dear John, Citizen Smith, Sitting Pretty, Roger Roger, Heartburn Hotel, The Green Green Grass. The third installment of his Only Fools And Horses prequel, Rock & Chips, will be aired Thursday night. John also wrote the opening theme songs for some of his shows and even sang the openings for Only Fools and Horses and The Green Green Grass. 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13176198

Children Of Fire Mountain

Children Of Fire Mountain was a "dizz-knee" type family adventure serial produced in New Zealand and carried by the BBC in 1980 and later rebroadcast in the UK on Ch. 4 9 years later. It takes place in 1900 New Zealand is about the social conflicts between the British and Maori.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_Fire_Mountain

Lewis - Disc 4

Lewis - Disc 4 / Series 5
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_%28TV_series%29

Dempsey & Makepeace

Dempsey & Makepeace was a crime drama back in the mid-80's starring Michael Brandon and Glynis Barber as a male / female detective team, but the real story is this: Brandon played a working-class detective and Barber a noblewoman detective. Oh my god! Can you imagine that? They teamed up a noblewoman detective with a working-class detective. I say! who dreams up this stuff? 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dempsey_and_Makepeace

Man Of The World

Man Of The World was another of the many crime/intrigue programs produced by ITC Entertainment in the 50's/60's. This one starred Craig Stevens (of Peter Gunn fame) as a photographer/secret agent.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_of_the_World_%28TV_series%29

Wallander (Sweden)

The 6 episodes of the British Wallander program starring Kenneth Branagh have proven to be very popular around the English-speaking world. Wallander began as a series of novels in the early 1990's by Swedish crime writer Henning Mankell. Kurt Wallander is the police detective main character of the books.
The first film adaptation appeared in 1994 starring Rolf Lassgård as Wallander and up through 2007 he has appeared in 8 other films as well. The 4 most recent films are on these discs.
In 2005 13 new stories were developed into films starring Krister Henriksson as Wallander. Those are found on these discs. In 2009/2010 another 13 stories were filmed but I don't have those.
All of these files are approximately 90 minutes long. One film runs over 2 hours and another is 2 hours and 40 minutes long.
All of these files have English subtitles and for the most part, from what I've seen, the dialogue isn't heavy enough to make viewing at all difficult. I think enthusiasts of the genre will find these enjoyable.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Wallander

Underbelly updated

Underbelly is a controversial Australian crime drama that began as a 13-part story about the crime wars in Melbourne between 1995 and 2004. That is followed by a 13-part prequel called A Tale of Two Cities that is based on the drug wars in New South Wales between 1976 and 1987. Following that is the 13-part The Golden Mile based on the nightclub scene and police corruption in a Sydney suburb from 1988 to 1999. Following that is a trilogy of feature-length films. It's been reported that Underbelly will be returning again for another 13-part story called Razor and takes place in the 1920's. These stories are based on real events and due to a number of legal issues they cannot be aired in Victoria without heavy censorship. Discs 4 & 5, The Golden Mile and Trilogy, are the updates.
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underbelly_%28TV_series%29

Grownups

Grownups (not be confused with the 1997 6-episode BBC sitcom of the same name starring Pippa Heywood among others).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grownups_%282006_TV_series%29

City Lights

I've had bits and pieces of this pioneering Scottish sitcom for a while now and am now pleased to have it all.
City Lights starred the late Gerard Kelly as Willie Melvin, a bank employee who longed to be a writer. Supposedly there was a pilot episode that aired around Christmas 1984, but I've never come across it and I once read that it was basically the same as the first episode. There is a lot of confusion about this show. Some of the early episodes were re-broadcast with different episode titles and none of the Christmas specials appear in the various on-line episode guides which also fail to list episode titles for the final series, but to the best of my knowledge these 40 episodes "are it". Unlike some Scottish programs, most people will not have a problem understanding the dialogue with this one. One of these days I'll put together a Rab C. Nesbitt collection with English subtitles because I haven't the slightest idea what the hell they're saying in that one. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_Lights_%28TV_series%29

Birds Of A Feather

For a number of years the BBC admitted that they received more requests for a DVD release of the 1990's sitcom Birds of a Feather than any other program. For better than a decade all we had available was a collection of old VHS recordings of broadcasts...and were thankful for that. I'm pleased to say that Birds is now completely here in nice crisp digital video.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birds_of_a_Feather

:30 Seconds + Bad Cop Bad Cop + Laid

3 Australian comedies, :30 Seconds and Bad Cop Bad Cop have been on here before but I have to move things around with The Jesters filling out its own disc.

What is new is the recent black-comedy Laid.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laid_%28TV_series%29

:30 Seconds
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/30_Seconds_%28TV_series%29

Bad Cop Bad Cop.......another black comedy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Cop,_Bad_Cop

The Jesters

The Jesters, an Australia comedy, came to the end of its second series this week.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jesters_%28TV_series%29

Waking The Dead update

Waking The Dead wrapped up its 9th series tonight.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waking_the_Dead_%28TV_series%29

The Almighty Johnsons

From the New Zealand team that brought you Outrageous Fortune, This Is Not My Life, The Go Girls (Rachel Lang & James Griffin) comes The Almighty Johnsons. The last episode aired today where I am, which is yesterday where it is, which makes it......it would be less confusing if the world was flat. Anyways, Wiki describes it as a fantasy comedy-drama. Each episode is about 44 minutes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Almighty_Johnsons

Pie In The Sky

Pie In The Sky was a detective light comedy-drama back in the 90's starring Richard Griffiths and Maggie Steed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pie_in_the_Sky_%28TV_series%29