Look Around You : Complete BBC Series 1 [2002] [DVD]

The DVD is very well presented, and allows the usual writers' and director's commentary as an alternative to the original soundtrack. From this I learned how the show was first conceived: Robert Popper and Peter Serafinowicz produced a one-off parody programme on "Calcium" basically to amuse themselves, and the BBC eventually took it up and commissioned the series we have now enjoyed. "Calcium" is included on the DVD; the interrogation of "intelligent calcium" is perhaps the highlight, though there are many other things to cherish. You also get a series of mock "Pages from CEEFAX", with news, farming, financial and sport reports which combine realism and madness very much as the programmes do; a quiz for what you have learned from each episode, with suitable punishments should you do badly; and a parody test card ending with a few seconds of animation from a cartoon that I wish went on for a whole five minutes. Until we see a complete edition of "The Hexagons", though, I just have to repeat their names - Moffaty, Gideon, Vincent, Slingsby and Wilson - to make myself laugh.

Highly recommended.

And that's about all I can say about it: it's funny Open University. It captures exactly the tone, the process, the genre of programming for schools that I remember (avoiding) as a child and teenager. And yet, it's incredibly funny, without going "hey, look at the stupid people with their hair and clothes of the 70s" that this type of comedy usually reverts to. The comedy comes from the both the set pieces and the reverence it is obviously paying to the original programming.

The DVD itself is very good, with nice extras including the Little Mouse video in its entirety, but its the commentary that gets me every time. Listening to the commentary makes me want to hear the original soundtrack and listening to the soundtrack makes me want to hear the commentary. It's a nice vicious circle.

The episodes are short but full of jokes and the odd bit of information. The programme parodies outdated school Chemistry videos, mixing the true with the absurd in an outrageously deadpan manner. The narration is true to life and brilliantly funny, the visual comedy is sometimes fantastic and the general feel of the series really captures that class of humanity, the scientist.

Every episode has many little touches of genius, from the pointlessly meticulous descriptions of experiments reminiscent of school science ('An experiment was carried out to demonstrate the cogniscient properties of Intelligent Calcium...'), to the understated but crazy statements about what we do and don't know, to the ridiculously outdated theme tune and the various glimpses into the lives of the scientists carrying out the experiments. One example is the tantalising view of a scientist's hand getting increasingly burnt as a result of reaching repeatedly into a beaker of boiling water, but where all the acting is done by the hand, with no shots of the scientist's face. Each episode begins with the same format of looking for clues about the topic of the 'module' (always impossible to guess) and various references to 'copybooks'.

This series is beautifully done - every moment seems to be perfected to the point where you can slip into believing that you're watching a genuine science programme until the narrator says something ludicrous or just funny. The menu is superbly accurate to the scienctific style, even down to the terminology (with such functions as 'view modules' and 'view specific module') and while the other special features are not particularly arresting, the double-length 'advanced module' on Calcium is great.

This insightful and seemingly polished series has many brilliant moments and is something I find myself watching again and again, and I would really recommend it to any comedy fans.