Steptoe & Son - The Christmas Specials [DVD]

One of the reasons I never review a DVD before it's release is because you never know what you are going to get. This is certainly true to the final installment in the Steptoe series. In their infinite wisdom, the BBC have decided to edit the shows. The really frustrating part is that they haven't even done a good job of it. I am baffled as to why they have done this, it just doesn't make any sense except to just to annoy the loyal fans and to save some money by producing a single-layer disc instead of a dual-layer. Shame on the BBC for treating classic comedy this way. I only hope the upcoming Dad's Army Christmas specials have not been treated so poorly. The 3 stars awarded is purely for the great shows.

As mentioned previous , one of the two shows is the 30 or so minuet version edited from the 40 minuet version that appears in the "best of compilation" which was 1st released in video in the mid 1980's.
There are 3 sequences missing from this 1973 episode , the 1st being Harold singing with jubilation when receiving his tickets for his booked holiday before being stopped by his horse "neighing" loudly has him shouting "all right , all right ..keep ya bleed'in hair on" ...the next is the closing shot of Harold agreeing to stay home after opening his Christmas gift , he holds up his gift of Y-fronts and says "if my world shrinks any smaller , I'll disappear up the back of these !!.."
yet another scene has been omitted from this show , where Harold is writing a message on his Christmas gift to his father , in which he writes several times in pencil before rubbing out each message for being too "endearing"...
It is not clear "why" the BBC removed these from what is called a "Special" ,that meaning longer the the standard 27 minuets that all sit-coms were written to back in the 1960s & 70's , I am assuming at some point in the running of rare repeats of the show a 27 minuet version was put together to fit in a time slot , and when it came to releasing this for a final DVD master , the BBC felt the quality of the shorter version made later was of higher picture quality than the original 1974 master.
That saying , there is no excuse for not making it available , and when you are buying the "Complete Steptoe" box set as I did , you are not actually getting everything ever filmed.
Whats more laughable is that it was not edited for "non P.C." reasons, as most of the now coincided racial and political incorrectness dialogue has been totally untouched in all other episodes, so to call this 1974 Christmas special "special" is a breach of trades description as its not the version that was broadcast in 1974 !
I hope this has helped any fans that might be curious to "what" is missing from this episode , and if you wish to see the full version of the classic it can be found of the Best Of Steptoe released on video some 20 years ago.
I doubt this will ever be available complete on DVD , but now anyone reading this will know what has been lost until a re-release is available..

How nice that the BBC has seen reason and decided to release these two episodes as a standalone rather than just a huge boxset as was originally intended, the above situation caused a lot of anger amongst Steptoe fans as they were furious at having to buy the entire series for a second time just for two episodes, it mirrors the situation of The Likely Lads boxset where one episode was 'accidently' left out in order to justify a re-release and we must be grateful that the BBC has, on this occasion, listened.

The episodes themselves are brilliant of course but they do follow an often repeated theme in the series, namely Harold deciding that he wants to go on holiday abroad and the old man doing everything that he can to stop him.
The Christmas episode 1972 follows series 7 of the show and the following year's festive outing has the distinction of being the final ever episode of Steptoe and Son and it is probably with this in mind that the writers allowed Harold to achieve a major victory over the old man, something that had never happened before.

The relationship between the two actors was at rock bottom by the time the last episode was filmed and in some ways it shows on screen but the two used this in their performances to perfection, if they didn't like each other in real life then it must have been very easy to despise each other on screen and the feelings and emotions come over as completely real and believable.

Steptoe and Son came to an end at just about the right time as it was obvious that it was perhaps running out of steam but these two little gems are a welcome addition to the now complete set of Steptoe and Son episodes on DVD, this is something that I have waited years for. An essential purchase.