Review(s): DVD Jeeves & Wooster - The Complete Fourth Season
Perfect or not, it's hilarious
Okay, I agree. I don't remember reading about Bertie and Jeeves in a lifeboat rowing across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, but at that point in the episode ("Bridegroom Wanted"), who cares? It's worth it just for the Jeeves's line: "If you will remember sir, that narrow passage of water that you insisted was the Serpentine turned out to be the Panama Canal." So like them.
And, of course, the classic moment in which Bertie is trying to explain a supposedly hypothetical example involving characters A and B and "some other fellow, what shall we call him?" Jeeves: "C, sir?" Bertie: "Well, all right, I suppose Caesar is as good a name as any."
Unlike the previous episodes, this series seems to have much more slapstick humor, all pushed politely to the background. It's an attempt (and, I think, a successful one) to convey the physical stuff that Wodehouse alludes to, such as Stinker Pinker being reminded "Try not to fall over the furniture." It could be just me, but I thought it worked well.
There's a slight disappointment in losing some of the actors who had played characters in the earlier series, but the new ones certainly do just as well. All in all, deliciously Wodehousian. Highly recommended.
J & W Fourth Season
The last disk in Volumn two titled: "the ties that bind" , I feel was the best of the whole 4th season! That awful
Mr. Brinkly was in it and he stole the private and cherished "book" from Jeeves's Ganymedes club. And of course Bertie got himself engaged again... to two women at the same time! Bertie and Jeeves's antics on this particular disk are quite funny. It shows how far they've come as friends as well as loyal employer/employee. Other than that disk, I can't recall the other ones in that 4th series off hand.
Beth
Don't fix what isn't broken
The first three seasons were great. Clive Exton did a superb job of adapting the original Wodehouse stories for television, weaving separate tales together so seamlessly that if you hadn't read them first, you'd have a hard time telling what had been changed. Inexplicably, the fourth season is a complete departure from what came before. The first three episodes are, for some reason, set in America, but are very loosely based on stories set in England. I watched them all, hoping they would get better, but it was not to be. There was a great deal of scene padding (multiple scenes of Bertie frolicking at the Hotsy Totsy Club, for instance), as well as the genuinely uninspired comic creations of Mr. Exton. I will grant that, due to the sheer number of Wodehouse's writings, I may well have missed a few Jeeves tales along the way, but if turns out that Wodehouse actually put Bertie and Jeeves in a lifeboat and sent them on an eight month long voyage around the globe, well, I'm dashed.
After watching the first DVD, I hesitated with the second. Eventually I did break down, however, and I'm glad I did. The last three episodes find young Bertram back in his native land, and the result is enjoyable. Again, the stories were based on old favorites intermixed with ones I did not recognise. Again, it could simply be that I have missed a few over the years. Whatever the case, I did enjoy the last three shows. So to sum up, if you buy this one, set your drink on the first disc and pop the second in your player, put your feet up, and enjoy.
If you want more Wodehouse for your money, however, order "Wodehouse Playhouse" Season One. It's from 1975, is made up mostly of Mr. Mulliner stories, and for ...(at present) it's a much better value.
Related DVD's Jeeves & Wooster - The Complete Fourth Season
Pelham Grenville Wodehouse's immortal characters are brought to glorious life in this hilarious series starring Hugh Laurie as the chinless but charming Bertie Wooster and Stephen Fry as his valet and frequent savior, Jeeves. Superb period detail, performers who seem to have been born for these roles, and a hearty helping of Wodehouse wit make these shows essential viewing for anyone in search of a sophisticated chuckle.
This collection comprises the second season of this delightful show, including the following six episodes: "Jeeves Saves the Cow-Creamer," "A Plan for Gussie," "Pearls Mean Tears," "Jeeves in the Country," "Kidnapped!," and "Jeeves the Matchmaker." --Simon LeakeMore Info about this DVD Actor(s): Stephen Fry - Hugh Laurie Director(s): Ferdinand Fairfax - Robert Young (III) - Simon Langton DVD Release Date: Released the 27 March 2001 Usually ships in 24 hours
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P.G. Wodehouse's much-loved stories about Bertie Wooster and his brilliantly clever valet, Jeeves, were brought faithfully to life in Jeeves and Wooster, starring Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry as master and servant. The scripts of this perfectly cast production retain all the sparkling wit of Wodehouse's prose, and it's hard to see how any future adaptation of his work could surpass this wonderfully funny series.
This boxed set contains the entire first season of Jeeves and Wooster. In "Jeeves Takes Charge," young man-about-town Bertie Wooster employs a new valet called Jeeves, and not a moment too soon. Thanks to his Aunt Agatha, Bertie faces the terrible prospect of marriage to the statuesque Honoria Glossop, and only Jeeves can save the day. "Tuppy and the Terrier" finds... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Stephen Fry - Hugh Laurie Director(s): Ferdinand Fairfax - Robert Young (III) - Simon Langton DVD Release Date: Released the 27 March 2001 Usually ships in 24 hours
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P.G. Wodehouse himself introduces each episode of Wodehouse Playhouse; a ringing endorsement, eh, what? This much-loved 1975 series, a sparkling jewel in the BBC crown, brings to the screen several of Wodehouse's most delightful stories and eccentric characters, as embodied by John Alderton and Pauline Collins, the real-life couple perhaps best known stateside for their endearing series No, Honestly, as well as their stints on Upstairs, Downstairs. Sadly, Jeeves and Wooster are absent in these tales, but the daft Mulliner family is here, in "The Truth About George," "Romance at Droitgate Spa," "Portrait of a Disciplinarian," "Unpleasantness at Bludleigh Court," and "A Voice from the Past." "Rodney Fails to Qualify," one of Wodehouse's famed golf stories, is... More Info about this DVD DVD Release Date: Released the 11 February 2003 Usually ships within 24 hours
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