243 of 249 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Very good, sir!, January 15, 2003
This review is from: Jeeves & Wooster - The Complete Series (DVD)
P.G. Wodehouse wrote funny stories. Obscenely hilarious comedy stories about dim young aristocrats, overbearing aunts and very clever servants.
And of all his creations, the most memorable is the ill-fated and blue-blooded Bertie Wooster and his megabrained valet Jeeves, immortalized by Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry. "The Complete Jeeves & Wooster" brings together all their madcap, bizarre little adventures in England's upper echelongs, with many a disastrous engagement and stint in prison.
Bertie Wooster (Laurie) is in need of a valet, and after a wild night out, the low-key, brainy manservant Jeeves (Fry) is sent by an agency to deal with Bertie's everyday needs.
But Jeeves doesn't just fold Bertie's hankies and give him hangover tonics -- he keeps Bertie out of all kinds of trouble. Predatory young beauties, ditzy idiot pals of Bertie's, and domineering aunts trying to marry him off, Bertie is always in hot water -- and Jeeves always is on hand, with a plot cooking in his impressive brain, to haul his hapless employer out.
"The Complete Jeeves and Wooster" is quite faithful to Wodehouse's original stories -- some stories are combined and others are separated, but they draw heavily on his kooky, bizarro prose. Lots of overbearing old aunts, exploding safes, Neo-Nazis, a constant merry-go-round of oft-broken engagements, eccentric hobbies (newts!), and young women ranging from horribly hearty to airy-fairy.
The only problem is that the stories set in New York just don't have that delicious British flavour that the rest of the series does, although they're still quite funny (Bertie being chased by a berserk cop dressed in a harem outfit). That, and the cast changes continuously.
But those small flaws don't keep the series from being hilarious, from start to finish. Every plot is a hopeless tangle of infatuations, mixups, blackmail, little books of mockery, and stolen policemen's helmets -- and yet somehow Jeeves manages to untangle it by the end. And Wodehouse's dialogue is handled in a brilliant manner ("Because he is a butterfly, who toys with women's hearts and throws them away like soiled gloves!" "Do butterflies do that?").
Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry are perfectly cast as the endearing bumbler Bertie Woosterand the dryly witty Jeeves. Though Bertie's lack of clothing sense (and a trombone) often annoys Jeeves, the brainy valet clearly does have affection for Bertie, and Bertie appreciates Jeeves' ability to save him from fates worse than death (such as marriage to the horribly hearty Honoria or the wispy, fairy-loving dimbulb Madeleine).
"The Complete Jeeves and Wooster" is a simply brilliant stretch of what-ho-what-ho comedy ("You can't be a successful dictator AND design women's underclothing") and deliciously twisting storylines. Not to be missed. Ever.
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154 of 156 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent series, below average video transfer, November 20, 2006
This review is from: Jeeves & Wooster - The Complete Series (DVD)
This series was made and acted with great love for P.G. Wodehouse, his writing and his characters. Wodehouse is perhaps the great comic author of the 20th century English speaking world. And these series does Wodehouse justice to the great credit of the series' actors and writers.
But unfortunately the video to DVD transfer, in terms of picture and colour quality, leaves something to be desired. I have seen single series DVD versions of the Jeeves & Wooster and their video colour quality is superior to the reproduction in this complete set. Hopefully one of these days we will see a complete digital remastering of the series, but this box set is visually disappointing. It's a shame the excellent work of the writers, directors and actors has had below average DVD transfer. The 'standard' transfer quality we are used to these days is generally very good, not so here.
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135 of 144 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
A Puzzling New/Old Release, May 29, 2009
The eight discs that clock in at a hefty 1150 minutes of wry British wit that stars Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry is a puzzling (re)release on a pair of critical areas: there is nothing new from the complete series that was issued in 2002 and the transfer to disc remains "iffy," which plagued its initial appearance in the marketplace.
Laurie portrays Bertram Wilberforce "Bertie" Wooster - the bumbling, dimwitted aristocrat - and Fry is the witty valet, Reginald Jeeves, in the series that is based on Sir P.G. Wodehouse's "Jeeves and Wooster" stories. The 23 episodes appeared on the ITV network from April 1990 to June 1993 and feature bossy aunts, romantic scrapes and a number of friends who just can't stay out of mischief.
Hopefully there are plans for a definitive set and this repackaging of a prior release is a bridge to that end. Though the shows were outstanding, there needs to be a serious production makeover to make for a solid collectible for fans of all ages.
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