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Adam: James Nesbitt
Rachel: Helen Baxendale
Pete: John Thomson
Jenny: Fay Ripley
David: Robert Bathurst
Karen: Hermoine Norris
Cold Feet
is a comedy-drama from Granada TV which quickly became one of my favourite programmes
on the box. It follows the lives of three couples, each at different stages in their
relationship, in the suburb of Didsbury, Manchester, how they get on within their own love
lives and what happens when social interaction between the sextet goes too far on occasion.
It's definitely more than just a British 'Friends', despite the Helen Baxendale link.
After the release of
Cold Feet: Series 1, this time
round it's another two-disc set containing the entire second series and a 31-minute featurette.
Six months on after seeing Rachel (Helen Baxendale) take the train out of his life,
possibly with his child in her belly, Adam (James Nesbitt) tries dating again after
being egged on by Pete (John Thomson) and Jenny (Fay Ripley) and they set
him up at their dinner party with Amy, a colleague of Pete's.
Rachel returns to the scene of the crime and Pete spots her in the supermarket with a baby,
but what colour is it and does that mean that Rachel didn't have an abortion, so whose
can it be?
Elsewhere in the series, Rachel gets new employment with a position of authority and then proceeds
to threaten her job prospects by bedding a member of her staff. They - and Adam and his
respective beaus - often meet unexpectedly at the Printworks 20-screen cinema in Manchester's
Exchange Square. However, it's not due to open until next month (November 2000 for those reading
this afterwards), so when they went in 'to watch a film', there was only a bar available at
the time. The forthcoming IMAX cinema is also in the vicinity too.
Pete has an affair and Jenny announces she no longer loves him, while David and Karen
decide that poncy showing-off dinners for friends-that-pretend-to-be-friends are not for
them and they scratch almost everyone out of their address book. Also, David wants to
become a house-husband and forget about executive stress after a roadside scare
which could have led to a fatal accident happening to their child.
Finally, in a bid to escape the heated emotions and mark the "meaningless moment in time",
they spend their Millennium celebrations, albeit a year early (!), at a far away location
which only David and Karen know about in advance.
Adam and Pete's ship explodes in a fit of fireworks.
Once again, Granada Media have done this series a great disservice. According
to their PR dept., Granada could acquire the international master which was
centre-cropped to 4:3 for both series and it really isn't good enough, with
people getting cut off the screen and well-composed shots being completely
ruined. I might offer the picture score at least 1/5 if it wasn't for the fact
that Granada made the damn show in the first place and so have no excuse not to
get their hands on the proper anamorphic widescreen master.
I was offered the chance to put my views towards those in charge and have
sent an email to be forwarded to them. At this point in time I have not yet
received a response, but when I do - and hopefully it'll be good news -
I shall discuss the contents on my
news page.
I still have series 2 on tape from when it was shown on ITV last year, but
as is the want of DTT (Digital Terrestrial Television) via ONdigital, there
were several moments where picture break-up occurred.
The average bitrate is approximately 6.34Mb/s over the first three episodes and
5.41Mb/s over the last three.
As with the DVD for series one, there are no major sound problems. It's in the
original Dolby Surround (Dolby Digital 2.0) and is only used for dialogue and
general ambience, so doesn't often get a chance to shine.
At the end of series two's final episode though, when it was broadcast on TV
John Lennon's Love was played with vocals, while here it's been replaced
with a new piano instrumental. I can understand there may have been problems with
obtaining the rights, but it really does take the edge off things, as if the lack of a
widescreen picture hasn't made you lose interest already.
The cast had to huddle together
to make sure they'd all fit onscreen at once.
Extras :
The main supplement is a 31-minute featurette, On Location, which includes chat
from some cast members during the first script read-through and others outside, with
shots of when certain scenes were created (eg. Adam in his underpants running away from a
giant testicle - believe me, it will make sense when you've seen the series - and the
shooting of the final episode in the series on Holy Island in Northumberland). All of the TV
clips included here are in a 14:9-cropped ratio, some of them with a slight anamorphic
squeeze (who was in charge of that?)
Also included is a 20-picture photo album, but again the images are too small and come two
to a page.
There's a decent amount of chapters - 12 to each episode, totalling 72 - but a
complete lack of subtitles in any language and the menus are static and silent.
A perfect example of the picture problems.
Cropping to 4:3 leaves half a cast on the left
and a "missing sunset" on the right!
So, here we are again, but not happy as can be. The picture's still missing 25% of the
original footage off the sides and there's the aforementioned change of music losing
Lennon's lilting vocals and original piano accompaniment.
Series 3 begins very soon and will be extended to eight episodes and the cast have
wangled a 'Friends'-style pay deal, in which they're paid per episode to the tune of
£20,000 apiece, plus the same again for repeat fees, which will net each actor
£320,000 for the whole series. It's still a bit short of the 'Friends' $1 million
per episode for each of those six, but it's better than a kick in the eye.
I can only hope now that when the third series reaches DVD too, someone will have found the
anamorphic masters for the first two series and get the Cold Feet trilogy right!
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Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
