Auf Wiedersehen Pet: the Complete Series 2 [DVD] [1983]

I'll put it simply: AufPet is the best British comedy-drama of all time. Nothing more needs to be said. Get it, watch it, enjoy it, love it. If you only know AufPet from the recent (and in my view, inferior) BBC series then get hold of these discs and see what you've been missing.

This is the second series and in my view the very, very best. If you thought the first series was fantastic then you'll be blown-away by this one - it's just so good! This AufPet at it's peak and even with the tragic loss of Gary Holton, during the final run-in of the production, the top-notch quality of this excellent TV series is kept up from the very first scene to the very last.

Picture: The transfer to DVD is very good given the poor-quality of the original TV video recordings. Extras: Given that this is the best British comedy-drama of all time these are merely adequate, but could - and should - have been a lot, lot better. The disks have Filmographies, Stills Galleries, Trivia, Classic Quotes and a Quiz. There is an Audio Commentary by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais for the episode 'Scoop' which is a lot more interesting than their first attempt on the series 1 DVD set.

Important 'versions' info: The two scenes cut for copyright reasons from 'Cowboys' and 'Hasta La Vista' in the original 90's VHS versions have been fully reinstated, as also has the Tim Healy tribute to Gary Holton, preceding the last episode 'Quo Vadis, Pet', which was left off this VHS release. Carlton have also restored most of the scenes around the commercial breaks that were cut or shortened in the 90's VHS release. The original Central Television pre-broadcast masters could not be found so 'fade in and out' has been used to edit out the break titles. This was the only way it could be done and the final result, while not perfect, is pretty good.

Verdict: 7 out of 10 for the DVDs; INFINITY out of 10 for content!!

I watched AWP series one and two when they first came out on telly. I watched them again when the whole shooting match was repeated on ITV. I taped both series (26 episodes) the third time they were shown, and I've watched them over and over again when they've been shown on Bravo, Granda + or any of the other satellite channels.
The first series was an exercise in character building. By the time the second series starts, you know all of the main characters. You know that Oz is a hooligan, Wayne is a cockney wide-boy with an eye for the ladies, Dennis is their hard-grafting boss, Neville is the sensitive one, Bomber is the gentle giant, Barry is the boring brummy and Moxy is Moxy. Whereas the first series was pretty much the same situation repeated over and over again, with a slightly different story (i.e. the lads wake up in their hut, Oz swears, they do a tiny bit of work, then it's the weekend, they have a daft adventure), the second story has four different locations (Birmingham, Derbyshire, Newcastle and Spain) and a host of new characters (Ally Fraser, his girlfriend Vicky, Barry's apprentice Trevor, Kenny Ames, Harry Blackburn, Arthur "Tiger" Pringle to name but a few). This is one hell of a story, and there is real continuity here. It makes sense to watch this from episode 1 to episode 13, whereas with series one you could watch any one episode out of sequence and it would still make sense.
Here's a very short summary of the plot:
Barry has invited all his old pals who he lived and worked with in Germany to help him do up his new house that he and his fiancee (soon to be wife) will live in. Dennis and Neville borrow a Jaguar belonging to Dennis's gangster boss to get down to Birmingham, and while there they crash it. Dennis's boss is none too happy, but when he finds out why Dennis took his car, he employs the seven to do up a stately home he has bought from another crooked friend who is now living in Spain. Once the house has been done up, the lads then get offered the job of building a swimming pool and patio for the same boss at his villa in Malaga.
Wherever the lads are, misfortune and comic situations follow them around. Particular highlights are when Barry and Oz get caught poaching by the gamekeeper, Arthur Pringle and Wayne battling whenever they meet, Barry attending a business conference while looking for Hazel, Oz singing in the country-and-western pub, getting caught skinny-dipping in the posh ex-patriots swimming pool, Barry slagging off criminals to Terry Leather, the biggest criminal of all, and driving down to Gibraltar for the day and getting lost.
You can also play "Spot the bits that were filmed after Gary Holton died", because the number of times that Wayne's at a disco, or Wayne's chatting up the hotel receptionist, or Wayne's gone to the casino, when the other six are all present, becomes a bit obvious towards the end.

The early 1980s saw the emergence of two television series destined to still be talked about some 20 years after their original broadcast, Boys From The Blackstuff and Auf Wiedersehen Pet. Both dealt with social issues such as unemployement and the
reality of living in Thatcher's Britain. However while Blackstuff was a bleak and harrowing portrait of a group of men desperate but unable to get out of their situation, Auf was more optimistic in its outlook, with the men deciding to go abroad to Germany too find work. The latter also contained more humour with the audience laughing at the antics of the unbearable OZ and boring Barry. The series proved to be a huge success, making overnight successes of its actors. In 1986 the programme returned, and the first half of the series is certainly as good as the previous series. The social issues mentioned above are less at the forefront in series 2 and 2 of the characters, Wayne and Barry, have done quite well for thmeselves in the 3 years since Germany. We reunite with them as the lads are invited to help decorate Barry's house prior to his impending wedding. The series then moves to Derbyshire, where the lads are recruited to
renovate a manor house owned by a Geordie gangster to whom Dennis has got himself into debt. Dennis, excellently played by
Tim Healy now has a broken marriage, no money and a drink addiction. Moxey also has many problems, as he is on the run from Prison. We see the other characters attempting to help them. The series loses its way in the last episodes set in Spain, seeing the lads in the Costa living it up takes the series too far from the gritty reality of industrial Germany, and the storyline about them being mistaken for British armed robbers is also not a good. A further problem is that in the latter episodes we are suddenly introduced to Dennis girlfriend, who has not been mentioned previously. She is middle class, and the fact that she would go out with Dennis, with all his emotional baggge does not ring true. The sad death of Gary Holton, also reduces the role of Wayne in the Spanish episodes.
However these are the only criticisms to what is a programme far superior to most drama on today.