The League Of Gentlemen - Series 3 (2002) [DVD]

Boring, no sketches, too surreal, too sick, no Tubbs and Edward.

Just a few of the initial criticisms the show faced. Maybe people weren't ready, or maybe the weeklong gap between each episode was too much to notice the links and references between each story.
Either way, I half-heartedly bought it, and I'm very glad indeed. Far surpassing purely comedy, the 3rd series also scares, disgusts, confuses, and even touches you with the variety of the stories being told, more so than the previous efforts.
In summary, if you liked the first two series for their irreverant take on comedy, then you may be interested to see the direction theyve taken. If you're a sketch show person, its probably not for you.
Personally, I hadn't lived until I saw Ross and Pauline (Oh god, its true), the Debt Collectors, Charlie providing 'extras' and the oh-so-camp Keith Drop.

The idea of following one character around in each episode is an ingenious one, and I'm sure nothing like this has ever been done before in comedy. It's good to see people like ever-suffering Charlie Hull and 48 yr old ex-restart officer come lesbian, Pauline (both played by Steve Pemberton) brought out of their restrictive 'sketch' environment and into the real world (so to speak) where we can learn more about them - we find out that Pauline has always wanted to own a pen shop called 'Her Nibs' with a girl who does Saturday mornings, and that Charlie is quite the handyman when it comes to giving massages...

Overall we get a much more action-packed and gritty series that brings frighteningly REAL touches to the show. I think prior to this series you were safe in the knowledge that the characters were locked away in Royston Vasey and they couldn't really 'harm' you or anything. But now many of those old, more theatrical characters, such as Local Shop inhabitants Tubbs and Edward and toad obsessed Harvey Denton, have been replaced by people who are made THAT much creepier and realistic by the way the Gents have played them and by the way Director Steve Bendelack has shot them (more subtleties, less studio and more location filming etc.). But of course, this is the League Of Gentlemen so nothing and no-one are ever what they seem...

As for the DVD. They promised a decent one for series 3 and it looks like they've delivered (the Dean Taveloris magic tutorial should be funny). This is well worth getting. It's a piece of COMEDY HISTORY for this will be looked back on as one of the greatest series' ever committed to film.

Despite the 6 episodes being very different from one another they are all linked at the end by a bizarre accident caused by a red bag and a white van. Thus Episode 1 ends on a brilliant cliffhanger and subsequent episodes continue to shed light on the overall ending, at the ending (if that makes sense!).

The episodes concentrate much more on developing the protagonists characters and the format works well in developing compelling story lines - in the cast commentary the lads say that they split each 30 minute episode into 20 minutes of main character-led story and 2x5 minute 'asides' which were more sketch-based and humour-led.

The episodes are not as funny as Series 1 or 2 but they have more than made up for this by pure, brilliant storytelling and sublime acting. In this respect Series 3 is a natural progression from the Xmas special where the dark side of The League gets darker. I believe that in many ways the lack of a laughter track (which I personally don't mind) serves to make some of the 'gags' fall flat and may make them sound just the wrong side of tasteless - obviously we don't need a laughter track to tell us where the funny bits are but at some points you simply don't know how to react - maybe that's the point.

Despite some flaws and some dodgy gags, Series 3 works. It works because there is genuine brilliance at work. The music, the acting, the storytelling, the central ending, and the character development are all first-rate and with a Movie and Series 4 in the pipeline I can't wait to see what they do next.