Girls On Top - Set One
Picture: C
Sound: C Extras: C- Episodes: C+
A few years before the international success of Absolutely
Fabulous, creator/star Jennifer Saunders was one of the forces behind Girls
On Top, a quirky show about four unlikely women roommates brought together
by circumstances of convenience to live in on apartment. Before you think British Golden Girls
knock-off, know that none of them are related, and that they are not as
politically correct.
There’s the sexy one (Tracey Ullman, just before her
breakout in the U.S.), the depressive (Saunders), the political Leftist (Dawn
French, the lead on the show), and an American rich girl who wants to be an
actress at any cost (a riotous Ruby Wax).
This set contains seven episodes, one of which is one never before
released, which we could or could not think of as an extra.
The other regular is Joan Greenwood, as the not-all-there
landlady who thinks her stuffed dog is alive, among other delusions. Four-Play is a promising pilot episode
that sets things up well. These are
interesting characters, made more interesting by their peculiarities, and
played by some of the top comic talent around.
Shelley DuPont (Wax) actually pays most of the rent, spoiled by her
rich-but-split parents, both quite well off.
Amanda Ripley (French) does her best to be the moral center of the
group, though her ideology and suppressed desires can cloud her judgment. Candice Valentine (Ullman) is the social
girl who is always with men. That
leaves Jennifer Marsh (Saunders), who is lost in space.
The other shows, like Staying Alive, Hark, Ident.
Candy Time, and C.O.D. work well enough, though they are not always
funny all the way through, falling victim to the TV grind, but it turns out
Ullman is not in later shows, though you would not know this from the box. Who’s Ya Uncle Shelly? and Lower
The Donkey suffer badly from her absence because a) this is a show built
for all four leads, b) a new character should have been brought in to balance
the absence out, c) the show loses its tension and edge, and d) the scripts
show it. This does make for an
interesting study of how a subtle change can ruin a comedy, but the talent that
remains cannot overcome these primary problems.
The jokes about politics, money, social class structure
(more prominent over in England), womanhood, pornography, death, and other
issues make this stand out from most of the awful, sickening sitcoms produced
in both the U.K. and the U.S., which explains why this show has hardly been
seen in the U.S. to begin with.
The full-screen PAL video images are nicely transferred
and look good for their age. The colors
are especially good in the Ullman shows.
The sets are convincing enough, while they show has some nice outdoor
moments. The Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono is
all right for its time, with jokes heard pretty clearly. Though this is not as nicely transferred as
A&E’s Mr. Bean (only a few years newer), this is still better than
the norm for such a TV show. BFS, the
company releasing the DVDs, have a decent product here technically. The DVD also includes biographies,
TV/filmographies, and that extras show.
Of course, nothing hits people in more different ways than
comedy, so that genre is the one people have to see for themselves above all
others to see if they like what they see and hear. Others may even enjoy this show more than this critic, but it is
not bad and it will be fun to check out Set Two ASAP.
- Nicholas Sheffo
