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Jeeves & Wooster - The Complete First Season

Jeeves & Wooster - The Complete First Season

List Price: $39.95
Your Price: $35.96
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: No sex, no violence, hilarious! Who'd have thought it?
Review: I have heard of the Wodehouse stories, on which this series was based, but have never read them. Wodehouse fanatics (and there are a lot of them) seem to embrace the show with enthusiasm. I'm writing to tell you that you don't have to know the canon to love the TV version.

Stephen Fry (Jeeves) and Hugh Laurie (Wooster) are well-known English comedians. They both had major roles in the Blackadder series and Laurie starred in Stuart Little. Here, Laurie plays Bertie Wooster, an air-headed young English aristocrat, a character exactly like his Blackadder roles, and Fry plays Jeeves, Bertie's valet, a man of sophistication and cunning, equally at home in the sitting room of a county manor or in a rowdy East End mission. A character completely unlike any Fry played in Blackadder.

The series is set in the 1930's, and is rich with period atmosphere. Poor addled Bertie may be rich, debauched and carefree, but he forever seems to be getting into social trouble with either his aunts or his eccentric school chums. The punch line every time is that, after Bertie has made such a pig's breakfast of things that you can't imagine he'll ever be invited to anyone's mansion for dinner again, Jeeves comes up with a simple and elegant resolution. Along the way, we are treated to crisp, witty dialog, in the best British tradition. I particularly enjoyed Jeeves's reaction to the mess jacket he finds in Bertie's clothes closet:

"I assumed it had gotten into your wardrobe by accident...or else been placed there by your enemies."

Bertie protests. "I wore this jacket at Cannes, Jeeves, and all the young ladies tried to catch my eye."

"No doubt they mistook you for a waiter, sir."

The striking thing about this series (unlike, say, Blackadder) is that it will keep you laughing without the slightest sexual innuendo or a smidgeon of violence (unless you count Bertie's golf game). You could show this whole series at a Sunday School picnic and no one would blush.

How many comedies can you say *that* about?

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A warning for the hearing impaired
Review: I love the Jeeves and Wooster series and highly recommend them to all but with a caveat.... Not for the hearing impaired! I bought my parents two of the series along with a DVD player for Christmas, my mother needs closed captioning for television viewing, imagine my surprise to find no closed captioning or a sub-title option. I was very surprised.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Let me explain only three stars...
Review: I love this series -- the acting, the timing, the comedy; some of the best British humor I've seen. It absolutely pains me to drop it to three stars from five, and it lies completely on the head of A&E for removing the already-present Closed Captioning track, so those of us with hearing disabilities cannot fully enjoy it. I was so looking forward to buying the entire DVD collection, too.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: British humor for the refined taste!
Review: I saw this series when it was orginally on PBS and bought the video set as soon as it was available. Hugh Laurie is hilarious as Bernie Wooster, the upper class bachelor who gets into all sorts of precarious and embarassing situations. Stephen Fry is the understated and much smarter Jeeves, the loyal butler who always manages to come to Wooster's rescue and save the day while making Wooster feel that he is the hero. Besides the wonderful writing of P.G. Wodehouse and the terrific acting of Fry and Laurie, there are the wonderful and authentic costumes and settings of early Twentieth Century London.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Nothing short of brilliant!! A must-have.
Review: I was a rabid Wodehouse fan before I saw any of the Jeeves and Wooster episodes, and feared disappointment. I needn't have worried. It's obvious that true love and affection for the great Plum went into these gems. If you like your British humor on the subtle side, with some absurdity bunged in without warning, you must own this set. Stephen Fry is perfect as Jeeves, and Hugh Laurie is lovable and believable as the hapless but well-intentioned Bertie, who spends his time attempting to avoid hellish aunts and horsy, corn-fed females determined to lead him to the altar. You'll love it!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Light-hearted comedy at its best
Review: If you like intellectual satire, clever plots and extremely
well-done characters and would like to have some good laughs, I really recommend Jeeves & Wooster. I'm quite sure I'll buy every single
J&W series they will release in DVD format..

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The best of British comedy
Review: It's only fitting that one of the best British comedy series out there is adapted from some of the funniest novels ever written. Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry expertly fill in the ditzy aristocrat Bertie Wooster and his stoic ultra-brain manservant Jeeves. Hilarious writing, great casting, insanely complicated storylines that make "Seinfeld" look like a walk in the part.

"Jeeves Takes Charge" when Bertram Wilberforce Wooster advertises for a new valet (the old one kept stealing his socks). As Bertie becomes accustomed to Jeeves, he is also being sent to the country to (theoretically) woo Honoria Glossop, a woman so hearty and athletic that she slaps Bertie right off his feet. To make things more complicated, one of Bertie's pals is in love with Honoria, and Bertie's two crazy cousins are stealing stuff.

"Tuppy and the Terrier" includes Bertie planning to propose to the mischievous Bobbie Wickham, a move that rapidly gets him into hot water (specifically, a hot water bottle punctured by a needle) -- but not as much hot water as he'll be in when Aunt Agatha finds out that Bobbie gave away her beloved dog. Meanwhile, Bertie's pal Tuppy Glossop has fallen in love with a snooty opera singer and dumped Bertie's cousin...

"The Purity of the Turf" is soiled when Bertie's uncle falls in love with a waittress. Aunt Agatha's orders that Bertie bribe the girl away work -- and don't work -- and the resulting threat of imminent death sends Bertie and Jeeves into the countryside. There they start up a gambling syndicate at a fete where betting of all kinds is off-limits.

"Brinkley Manor"'s "Hunger Strike" goes horribly wrong when Bertie's cousin Angela breaks up with Tuppy, and newt-obsessed Gussie Fink-Nottle falls in love with the soppy Madeleine Basset (she believes the stars are God's daisy chain -- how about that?). Bertie offers advice to the lovelorn young men, only to have Madeleine assume that he is in love with her, and Tuppy assumes that he is in love with Angela. Anatole the cook also quits. And Jeeves is Bertie's last hope. before Madeleine marries him and Aunt Dahlia murders him.

P.G. Wodehouse's novels spoof the idle rich, and you may come out of it thankful that these people had too much time on their hands. Timid young men, carnivorous aunts, a guy obsessed with newts, another guy who falls in love with every girl he comes across, a stuffed moose, uncles in the throes of midlife crises, incredibly smart butlers, and young women who accept a marriage proposal that was never made -- if anything here strikes you as funny, this will be perfect. Hugh Laurie is perfect as the gangly, amiable Bertie Wooster (who's too accomodating for his own good) and Stephen Fry is quietly, dryly humorous as the opinionated valet Jeeves.

Though this season suffers from a few awkward spots that are polished out later in the series, this show is outrageously funny and definitely worth buying!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: As fun as a very, very fun thing
Review: Jeeves and Wooster may not have the production quality of a Merchant Ivory film, but it's got funnier stories and twice the laughs per minute. At 250 minutes between the five episodes that turns out to be quite a rib tickling time. Readers of the Jeeve's novels are no doubt aware of the difficulties of reproducing Wodehouse's stories verbatim, but these chaps have made a bally good show of it. The stories that inspired writers like Douglas Adams, Ben Elton, and Richard Curtis (as well as the films of Blake Edwards) are done admirable service here. Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry are every bit as funny as they are in Black Adder's tales. The scenery is authentic (since they filmed the series in England) and the supporting casts are wonderful. I enjoyed them like a very enjoyable thing with a slice of lemon.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A Real Comedy Riot
Review: Of all the seasons of Jeeves & Wooster, the first season is by far the best. Steven Fry is perfect as Jeeves. I couldn't imagine anyone else in the role, and whenever I read the books, I imagine Steven Fry in the role. As for the reason why season one is the best, I would say that the supporting cast is the best of all the seasons. Particularly satisfying is the first episode in which Wooster meets Jeeves for the first time, and Jeeves saves Wooster from the clutches of the Amazonian Honoria Glossop. You won't stop laughing during that episode.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: What Ho!
Review: P.G. Wodehouse's creations never saw a finer performance than from the comedy team of Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry. These first five episodes of Jeeves and Wooster set the tone for the series, all 23 adventures. Hysterical.

Bertie Wooster, an upperclass twit with a kind heart, is constantly subject to the whims of his evil aunts and egotistical friends. Bertie is thus perpetually embroiled in trouble, but no fear! His manservant Jeeves will surely save the day every time. Stephen Fry plays Jeeves impeccably - as the valet who is quite frankly smarter than all of the so-called educated upperclass nobs who order him around. But were it not for his sage wisdom, poor Bertie, perfectly realized by Hugh Laurie, would be long since married off to the likes of the awful Honoria Glossop!

A must buy!


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