The Vicar of Dibley - 10th Anniversary Specials
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Actor: Dawn French, Emma Chambers, James Fleet, Roger Lloyd PackBrand: Warner Brothers
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo; English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.78:1
Running Time: 100 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2005-09-27
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Model: E2386
Studio: BBC Worldwide
DVD Reviews of The Vicar of Dibley - 10th Anniversary Specials
DVD Review: Christmas rap, Unhappy New Year
Summary: 2 Stars
If this is your first venture into Dibley, stop now and go to the regular series. If you have seen the series and are thinking to see this one my best advice is read all these reviews first. Nice to say, but let me do the more important thing and give some reasons.
First a little context. Having watched the regular series several times over on TV, I bought the DVD versions and have enjoyed them immensely. With this in mind I eagerly bought the "Specials" disk. On first viewing one can easily wonder what the writers and cast could have been thinking when they put these shows together? Overall one is left with a feeling of sadness with what has been done to an otherwise superb series. A less friendly reviewer would simply call it bad art.
The characterization is disappointing to say the least. Geraldine seems angry and bitter and appears to be playing the part of the vicar as opposed to being the vicar. Perhaps the most shocking scene is the supposed comic scene where she plunges into the chocolate fountain. This, for someone who has followed the series, is a disturbing departure from 'reality' and what one understands as the basics of her character. With the appearance of the Archbishop what comic sense there might have been evaporates into disappointment and perhaps even mild disgust. Her language in both specials has gone right over the top. Even allowing for some pretended 'British' sophistication there is little to offer here beyond shock value and that wears thin VERY quickly. The physical abuse delivered to Owen is gratuitous at best.
Alice fails. One might reasonably ask how a person, even in comedy, can raise 10 children and still try to carry off the inanity presented. Sure one expects it, but again the sense is a person playing the character rather than acting. At one point Alice gives away David's favorite picture worth a small fortune after we, and she, learn both its value and worth to David. This goes beyond folly into the cruel. Chambers is a great actress. One senses the writers have let her down terribly.
The David, Hugo, and Jim, still have a sense of who they are, and Owen is as weird as ever. That's the good news.
Jim's 'carol' is simply in bad taste and not a song he would ever have entertained in the series. For her part Geraldine would never have allowed it. This sort of departure becomes an embarassment. It isn't funny, it is just gross. To think either this or the chocolate scene funny suggests a serious inability to grasp what made this series great.
Decorating David's house pink was meretricious foolishness and not a thing either David or Hugo would have accepted even from Alice.
Overall the dialog was out of sync with what the characters were like before the specials. If they were actually like that now, Geraldine would be out of a job, David's economic interests would have failed, and the rest would be fringe elements in Dibley. While this stuff may work for rap music, it does not fit with the characters in the show. Equally, Geraldine's about how she wants to rip out Alice's throat verges on producing disgust rather than a laugh.
The 'defrocked' extra is interesting from the behind the cameras viewpoint. As has been observed it is a pity the funny bits there didn't make it into the show. The 'Comic relief' part had, perhaps, the most humor on the disk. The David character here is, however, the most shallow and least 'david-like'. Geraldine's sacrifice of her ring and TV for Alice was very O'Henry-ish, but rather lost in the mess.
The 'Drunk' sequence was, again, out of character and mean rather than funny or appropos of the story. Equally, Alice would hardly have been the character to carry off the level of explanation presented. All in all it just didn't work.
The serious ending of the New Years episode was intended to be meaningful, but at the end of a show that was fairly wretched the social point was rather lost.
There were some funny bits, but not enough (and not nearly the story) to justify the making of this disk.
At the end we sat there trying to think of reasons why we shouldn't simply trash this one in spite of having bought it new. I am still having difficulty convincing myself with the phrase: "Well, it was worth seeing once." It will sit on the shelf with the promise of a long time before another possible viewing.
Sadly, if this is the best they could come up with one sincerely hopes they do no more. That said, I sincerely hope they can come up with something, somehow, somewhere, that can redeem the damage done here.
Let us pray.
Description of The Vicar of Dibley - 10th Anniversary Specials
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