What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Product details
|
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
40 of 43 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
First off the actual show is great, but this is a review on THIS dvd collection.
The quality is awful & as the title says, you may actually have got better results if you DID record this yourself.
This was originally shown on ITV in the UK, so therefore you had an ad break half way through each episode. Now at the time programs used intermission cards to tell you that the adverts were coming up & again when the show was returning. Ridiculously this dvd actually includes the intermission cards..... both of them!
So each episode you actually get a 15 second intermission!?!
The sound quality is terrible. For example my standard volume level on my television is 10. To hear this dvd I have to increase it to 30!!!
The lack of subtitles means that my hard of hearing father cant watch this dvd either.
To prove how poor this dvd package is I borrowed a VHS version of this program from a friend of mine & hooked up my old recorder. It was better in every way quality wise. That cant be right!!!!
So to recap, great show, terrible dvd.
The quality is awful & as the title says, you may actually have got better results if you DID record this yourself.
This was originally shown on ITV in the UK, so therefore you had an ad break half way through each episode. Now at the time programs used intermission cards to tell you that the adverts were coming up & again when the show was returning. Ridiculously this dvd actually includes the intermission cards..... both of them!
So each episode you actually get a 15 second intermission!?!
The sound quality is terrible. For example my standard volume level on my television is 10. To hear this dvd I have to increase it to 30!!!
The lack of subtitles means that my hard of hearing father cant watch this dvd either.
To prove how poor this dvd package is I borrowed a VHS version of this program from a friend of mine & hooked up my old recorder. It was better in every way quality wise. That cant be right!!!!
So to recap, great show, terrible dvd.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
The New Statesmen has aquired a sort of cult status in British comedy. It has nowhere near the recognition of other Rok Mayall productions such as the Young Ones and Bottom. Nor did it have the impact that Spitting Image had. And yet, for the most part, it is a fantastic show, which as a political nerd, I find hilarious.
The first series contains a few gems but was clearly finding its feet with a few brilliant ones alongside one or two less stronger ones. This first show features several characters who would be absent from later series such as Alan's father-in-law, the vile Roland Gidleigh-Park, Norma/Norma, Alan's confused partner in the crime and best of all, Bob Crippen, Labour MP and thorn in Alan's side.
The second series is by far the weakest with Alan's character progressing from cunning villain to cardboard cutout sadist. There are by my reckoning three good episodes with the rest hardly worth a second look. Some of the bit part charactes have gone and all of this is to the detriment of the show.
The third season is where the show really does take off with classic episodes showing Alan sabotage the career of a rival, destroy the poll ratings of all three main parties in order to pull off a stock market scam, attempts to kill his own mother to save himself a fortune, destroys the building industry to take revenge on a man attempting to de-select him and even trys international assassination for profit. All six episodes are simply brilliant.
The fourth season sees Alan trying to rebuild himself after being abandonned in Russia by Sarah and again, his stunts are ingenious as well as devious and downright evil as ever. From murdering his wife's new lover, sparking a uprising in the translation department at the EU to make a huge profit on a new motorway, posing as a Nazi to exhort money from the son of certain former dictator to having himself made Lord Protector.
These two final series alone make the boxset a worthwhile purchase, along with a strong first series and a couple of good ones from the second series. However, it has to be said that the quality of the DVDs is poor at best. The intermission cards and flashing bars that were used during and just before adverts are left in making it look as though you have recorded off the TV, stopping the VHS player during the break. There are no extras worth noting and the picture and sound quality are rather poor. Not that this should detract from three and half excellent seasons of comedy, but if a better versions comes along it would prove better than this.
The first series contains a few gems but was clearly finding its feet with a few brilliant ones alongside one or two less stronger ones. This first show features several characters who would be absent from later series such as Alan's father-in-law, the vile Roland Gidleigh-Park, Norma/Norma, Alan's confused partner in the crime and best of all, Bob Crippen, Labour MP and thorn in Alan's side.
The second series is by far the weakest with Alan's character progressing from cunning villain to cardboard cutout sadist. There are by my reckoning three good episodes with the rest hardly worth a second look. Some of the bit part charactes have gone and all of this is to the detriment of the show.
The third season is where the show really does take off with classic episodes showing Alan sabotage the career of a rival, destroy the poll ratings of all three main parties in order to pull off a stock market scam, attempts to kill his own mother to save himself a fortune, destroys the building industry to take revenge on a man attempting to de-select him and even trys international assassination for profit. All six episodes are simply brilliant.
The fourth season sees Alan trying to rebuild himself after being abandonned in Russia by Sarah and again, his stunts are ingenious as well as devious and downright evil as ever. From murdering his wife's new lover, sparking a uprising in the translation department at the EU to make a huge profit on a new motorway, posing as a Nazi to exhort money from the son of certain former dictator to having himself made Lord Protector.
These two final series alone make the boxset a worthwhile purchase, along with a strong first series and a couple of good ones from the second series. However, it has to be said that the quality of the DVDs is poor at best. The intermission cards and flashing bars that were used during and just before adverts are left in making it look as though you have recorded off the TV, stopping the VHS player during the break. There are no extras worth noting and the picture and sound quality are rather poor. Not that this should detract from three and half excellent seasons of comedy, but if a better versions comes along it would prove better than this.
39 of 43 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
This is an *excellent* series let down only by Network's inability to properly encode a disc. Network have let us all down again with an exceedingly poor transfer indifferently encoded and packaged. I suggest you buy this set only if you cannot wait to record it from TV in what will be much better quality.
Image fidelity: 2/10
Visible under bitrate aliasing: 3/10
Colour quality: 3/10
Contrast/Brightness fidelity: 2/10
Overscan cropping: 0/10 (They just didn't do it)
So far Network have messed up every release of classic television to which they have been given the rights - with possibly the worst being Robin of Sherwood. I suggest content owners take note and stop providing priceless TV moments through a company who care little for professional pride or professional production. Alternatively, Network - I'll come to your office and show you how to correctly re-master analogue tape to DVD.
Image fidelity: 2/10
Visible under bitrate aliasing: 3/10
Colour quality: 3/10
Contrast/Brightness fidelity: 2/10
Overscan cropping: 0/10 (They just didn't do it)
So far Network have messed up every release of classic television to which they have been given the rights - with possibly the worst being Robin of Sherwood. I suggest content owners take note and stop providing priceless TV moments through a company who care little for professional pride or professional production. Alternatively, Network - I'll come to your office and show you how to correctly re-master analogue tape to DVD.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Great british classic
Rik Mayall plays Alan B'stard, a complety amoral tory back bencher who boasts he has the largest majority in the House of Commons. Read more
Published 4 months ago by C. Nielsen
A hilarious series
This is one of the finest political comedy/satire shows ever made, a kind of darker version of "Yes Minister" with much wilder storylines and more slapstick humour. Read more
Published 12 months ago by StormSworder
Poor quality, but good fun all the same
I really enjoyed watching The New Statesman when it was first run on TV back in the old days. I loved B'stard's cynicism and Piers's childish attitudes. Read more
Published 17 months ago by Blaggapar
What a B'stard!!!
What can i say that has already been written about one of the most corrupt politicians ever (present day ones excluded). Read more
Published 19 months ago by Mr. S. Cavalli
no pc so its funny
this takes me back to the 80s this was funny then and its still funny now.Its a shame pc raised its ugly head to stop genuin comedey shows like this
Published 22 months ago by welli
Fantastic walk down memory lane
Great show, glad to see it again for the first time in ages. The sound, while not the best I've ever heard, is not terrible for the time and with a decent sound system it's... Read more
Published 23 months ago by A. R. Highway
Buy 10 copies for all your friends!
I grew up on Bottom but had never seen The New Statesman until now. It is great to watch now that the Tories are back in government. Read more
Published 24 months ago by Mr. Richard Rosson
quality looks fine to me!
Just to add after the previous reviews, the picture quality looks absolutely fine to me on a 42inch plasma, the quality is better than VHS I don't know what the others are on... Read more
Published on 24 May 2010 by Jukeboxjohnnie
Utterly brilliant
Rik Mayall at his best, I laughed and gasped in horror the whole way throught this 4 dvd collection. Read more
Published on 25 Oct 2009 by A. Martin
Then and Now,
The DVD format via the menu works well, box has four discs in and contains all the episodes. When played through a PS3 and onto 40" Bravia HD screen then the limitations of the... Read more
Published on 21 Jun 2009 by Mr. Matthew N. Woodhouse
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
![[Start the discussion]](http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/02/x-locale/communities/discussion_boards/start-new-discussion-sec._V192198663_.gif){kind=small}
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
