Good Neighbors: The Complete Series 1-3

Known as The Good Life in its native Great Britain, this wonderful 1975-78 series revolves around Tom (Richard Briers) and Barbara (Felicity Kendal) Good, a well-to-do couple living on an executive's salary in a nice neighborhood. Fed up with consumerism, Tom talks Barbara into living a life of self-sufficiency, turning their suburban home into a farm and living off their wits and a small parcel of land. This remarkable rejection of upper middle class values shocks the Goods' best friends and neighbors, Jerry (Paul Eddington) and Margot (Penelope Keith) Leadbetter, who consider the whole experiment dotty but continue to maintain close ties with the couple. The three seasons' worth of 21 episodes in this boxed set basically concern the ups and downs of the Goods' radically-altered lifestyle, but more importantly they focus on the sustaining relationships between the four principals, a perfectly-cast quartet of actors who did some of their best and most memorable work on this show. The fourth disc features the standalone "1977 Christmas Special." DVD extras include interviews with cast, crew, and celebrity fans, as well as cast biographies. A Britcom classic, this is highly recommended. Editor's Choice. (T. Keogh)