Caroline In The City - The Complete Series Two [DVD]

First things first: the second season of "Caroline In The City" is an excellent piece of television worthy of repeated viewing.

Yes this set does not contain any extras worth the name and sadly lacks subtitles. The picture quality is just fine however.

The fact that the episodes are in the wrong order on this set is indeed very annoying. My suggestion: put a piece of paper with the correct order inside your box

2- 1 (202) Caroline and the Younger Man (1)

2- 2 (203) Caroline and the Letter (2)

2- 3 (201) Caroline and the Cat Dancer

2- 4 (204) Caroline and the Guy Who Gets There Too Soon

2- 5 (206) Caroline and the Dreamers

2- 6 (210) Caroline and the Nice Jewish Boy

2- 7 (209) Caroline and Victor/Victoria

2- 8 (211) Caroline and the Comic

2- 9 (205) Caroline and the Therapist

2-10 (208) Caroline and the Red Sauce

2-11 (207) Caroline and the Freight King

2-12 (212) Caroline and the Perfect Record

2-13 (214) Caroline and the Singer

2-14 (213) Caroline and the Kept Man

2-15 (217) Caroline and the Long Shot

2-16 (219) Caroline and the Dearly Departed

2-17 (218) Caroline and the Getaway

2-18 (216) Caroline and the Monkeys

2-19 (215) Caroline and the Buyer

2-20 (220) Caroline and the New Neighbor

2-21 (223) Caroline and the Critics

2-22 (221) Caroline and the Ombudsman

2-23 (222) Caroline and the Bad Trip (1)

2-24 (224) Caroline and Richard & Julia (2)

2-25 (225) Caroline and the Wayward Husband (3)

So in conclusion:the presentation on DVD of the second season of "Caroline In The City" is far from ideal. The quality of the shows however makes this set well worth buying.

Just like with the Season One dvds, all the episodes are completely out of chronological order, which is very annoying, and messes up the storyline arc.

And also just like Season One, the transfers are poorly executed.

There is the very same blocky distortion on the picture, ruining the image.

I have a huge collection of dvds from all over the world, and I have only experienced this kind of poor quality twice,

both times the Caroline series from this production house.

First of all, yes! Once again, the episodes are shown out of order. And yes, the packaging is quite cheap. But moving on to the actual point of my review...

There comes a point in any film or TV series when the 'Will They, Won't They' romantic subplot REALLY begins to irritate me.

It's called, 'The Beginning!'

As much as I might love 'Caroline in the City,' I honestly don't believe that the second, third and forth series should ever have been made. Because in the end, they were all based on one single, infuriating premise.

Richard loved Caroline and Caroline loved Richard, but they were both too spineless and emotionally crippled to ever do anything about it.

The moment that these two confessed their love, became a couple and lived happily ever after, everyone knew that the series would be over and done with...full stop. So when push came to shove, the last three seasons of this programme did little more than simply kill time.

Of course, my favourite episode of 'Caroline in the City' is shown out of sequence at the beginning of the first DVD.

To be frank, I would almost say that 'Caroline and the Cat Dancer' is worth the price of the whole series on its own. But there then followed the two-part conclusion to the cliffhanger at the end of season 1, and you can almost hear the sound of the writers stretching the programme as far as it will go.

For the next nine episodes, Caroline dates a 23 year old vet/animal rights activist, constantly doubting herself for going out with someone who's seven years younger than her. (Cue dozens of puerile jokes about the vet still being a 'Boy.')

After that, the following episodes are almost 100% pure filler. And then, obviously scraping the bottom of the barrel to keep the series going, they create another character as if by magic; a beautiful woman who Richard (supposedly) loves, but has never even mentioned before.

At the end of series 1, Richard tried to tell Caroline how he felt. And now we see exactly the same plot twist in reverse.

Having set the scene for the third series, the second then ended on another obvious cliffhanger. But just as everyone already knew that the Titanic was going to sink, everyone can see that Richard and Caroline WILL get together...eventually.