The Piglet Files – Set Two (Spy spoof)

 

Picture: C+     Sound: C+     Extras: C-     Episodes: B-

 

 

The Piglet Files was so amusing in the initial shows from the first DVD set that we were hoping the second set would be at least as good and it was.  There may have been a break in the DVDs, but definitely not in production. 

 

To review, Nicholas Lyndhurst is the title agent, Peter Champan, who gets his job through The Peter Principle.  He’s a good guy, but not the brightest agent MI-5 ever had.  Since he is just qualified enough to keep his job and with no one available quick enough to replace him, off he goes on high priority missions.  You can see more initial details in the first review, though he is does not dip into being sillier.

 

The episodes are as follows:

 

The Wright Stuff

Red Spy At Night

Piglet In A Trough

The Wrong Combination

Trouble With Reception (the most politically incorrect with Mid-East terrorists)

The Hunt For Red Decoder

Under Cover Authority

 

The more you watch, the better this gets and the more you realize how good these actors are together.  The consistency in tone of the stories and the tenseness of the comedy situations and their suspense is smart.  What was so good about the initial shows in the first set was no accident.  These are very entertaining TV shows.

 

The full frame, color image is shot on analog PAL video and again looks good for its age.  The shooting and editing continues to be funny.  The Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono is clear and also good for its age, including appropriate music for the shows by Rod Argent and Peter Van-Hook.  The extras include a few bio/filmographies and a solid history of MI-5 itself that seems to have also been on three boxed sets of The Sandbaggers, and the extras are the exact same minimal ones as were in the last box.  Too bad we did not get more than last time.

 

The show only loosely builds on the previous episodes, so it is not a soap opera comedy or is it going to lose an audience that joins in later.  The cast actually got better by these shows.  I had some real laughs here too, and though I am a fan of the genre, everyone can still find something funny in The Piglet Files.  I hope we get more.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo