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Dom Robinson reviews
The Complete Third Series
Vision Video
- Cert:
- Cat.no: 9029939
- Running time: 180 minutes
- Year: 2001
- Pressing: 2002
- Region(s): 2, PAL
- Chapters: 54
- Sound: Dolby Digital 2.0 (Stereo)
- Languages: English
- Subtitles: None
- Widescreen: 16:9
- 16:9-enhanced: Yes
- Macrovision: Yes
- Disc Format: DVD 9
- Price: £19.99
- Extras: None
Director:
- Tristram Shapeero
Buy from 
Producer:
- Matthew Francis
Screenplay:
- Jonathan Harvey
Music:
- Philip Pope
Cast:
- Linda: Kathy Burke
Tom: James Dreyfus
Suze: Beth Goddard
Jez: Brian Bovell
Beryl: Rosalind Knight
Simon Shepherd: Himself
After the second series of Gimme Gimme Gimme, which has still to make it to DVD despite this being its follow-up, I lost faith in the programme as it stopped being quite as funny as it used to be, or maybe I just tired of it at the time.
Still, the advent of series 3 saw a return to form for the two flat-sharing male-obsessed housemates, Linda (Kathy Burke) and Tom (James Dreyfuss), the latter of which who still has fantasies aplenty about Peak Practice‘s Simon Shepherd… and now they’re about to be realised as the man features in a cameo early on. Linda has moved on from Liam Gallagher, and is now obsessed with Danny from the now-ex pop band Hear’Say.
Double-entendre is still the order of the day as Tom prepares to write his new script, “Benders”, by proclaiming to Linda, “Pass me my Pentel and click out my nib. I feel like squirting some serious ink!”
Linda confesses that she once appeared in “Keen Teens”, “opening me oven and showing me runny flan”, yet she was actually talking about a cookery class.
As ever, the rest of the principal cast is ex-prostitute landlady Beryl (Rosalind Knight) and the upstairs well-to-do eco-friendly couple Suze (Big Bad World‘s Beth Goddard) and Jez (Prospects‘ Brian Bovell), each of which give their all to their characters.
All six episodes from the third series are here and, again, it doesn’t really matter what the titles are as each one is packed with one-liners and doesn’t restrict itself to the subject matter alone. However, they are: Down & Out, Lollipop Man, Secrets & Flies, Trauma, Singing in the Drain and Decoy.
Thankfully, Universal have seen the error of their ways with Series 1 and given it to us in the correct anamorphic 16:9 widescreen ratio (any chance of a remastering for series 1?). It looks a little on the soft side, but overall is quite pleasing.
The sound is stereo, plain and simple. It’s perfectly clear but never gets stretched in any way.
When it comes to any other major additions to the disc you can forget it. No extras, and no subtitles. However, although they’re not selectable in the main menu, each episode is split into nine chapters. Also, this time the menus are animated AND have music from the theme tune, but why are we being charged £19.99 for a TV series with no extras or subtitles?
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
EXTRAS
0 OVERALL
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.