Rating: 
Summary: AbFab back with a vengeance
Review: It's been seven years since Jennifer Saunders penned the third and supposedly final batch of six episodes telling the saga of Edina Monsoon, her dipsomaniac pal Patsy Stone, her long suffering daughter Saffron, and her ever patient Mother. The final outing for the AbFab crew was meant to be the 1996 two-part special "The last shout," but after a five year break from the show, Jennifer dipped her pen in the acid once more and produced this new batch of six episodes. I only wish she hadn't. It's not that these episodes are bad, or particularly less funny than what went before, they're not, it's just that I personally would have liked the series to have been left alone. A glorious memory of wonderful stuff that can be relived over and over, preserving the joy of the show just as it was (as with Fawlty Towers, BlackAdder and Dinnerladies, all of whom knew when to quit). Sadly, this return to her former glories doesn't work on the same level as the original. The characters should have moved on, but haven't. Eddie and Patsy no longer seem to live in the same world. Saffy has gone from being the straight laced voice of reason in a world of madness, to being just as nasty and unacceptable as her mother. Witness her slapping her best friend and knocking her glasses off in episode one. Eddie's mother seems to have gone completely off the rails too, slipping further into senility. Many jokes are rehashes from earlier scripts, and many more strands are pulled from the ill-fated Mirrorball, a one-off sitcom featuring the same cast, which is included here as an extra on disc 2. It's all subjective. I know many who are delighted to see the show back in production, but I'm simply not one of them. The discs are presented in letterbox, widescreen format, and the picture and sound is very good quality. For some reason episodes 1-4 are on a separate disc to 5&6, which are coupled on disc 2 with the extras. There's some early stuff with French & Saunders and Joanna Lumley, some great outtakes, and Mirrorball. I would have liked to have seen The Last Shout also included, but I guess that will have a separate release sometime in the future. The highlight is undoubtedly Jennifer Saunders' own commentary, together with Producer Jon Plowman. This does give a real insight into the thoughts behind each episode, and helps to explain some of the rather disjointed scenes. It's all fun stuff, but it just doesn't do it for me in the same way as the older episodes.
Rating: 
Summary: Took me a while to warm up to.....
Review: It's still hilarious, and the tons of extras make the DVD set a must to buy. But it took me a while to warm up to. Perhaps it was the anticipation. Comedy Central teased me for too long with the promise of new episodes and then - they weren't as cool as they were. That was the beauty of Patsy and Edwina, no matter what happened or how pathetic and silly they were, they always came out ahead, they were always cool. But in season 4 things didn't quite go that way. My world view was shattered - I mean, Patsy can always get a man - can't she? But I sure warmed up to it and I have found that I can watch this season over as many times as I can the first three (which never ever get old), because Patsy and Eddi may be more pathetic, Gran more crazy, and Saffy more uptight, but they are still so very funny. Did I mention how cool the extras are too?
Rating: 
Summary: Unfortunate
Review: Let's face it: The first two seasons were absolutely brilliant. The third was very close to the same. But the fourth....do you remember when the B-52's released "Good Stuff" and it sounded like a new group trying to act and sing like the old? The same applies here. The proverbial iron is cold.
(But I bought it anyway)
And, like everyone else, I look forward to "The Last Shout" being released on DVD. It couldn't be more appropriately titled.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful series, but not as good as the previous three
Review: Londoner Edina Monsoon was an outcast in school, which is where she met Patsy Stone, the Ivanna Trump look-alike. Edina is now a PR agent but lives primarily off of the alimony of her two ex-husbands. Patsy is a fashion editor for a top magazine ... but, well, it's been so long since she's worked that she has trouble finding her office. They are both alcoholics and recreational drug users. By Series 4, Patsy is living at Edina's house. They share the house with Saffy, Eddie's conservative and disapproving daughter (the clueless grandmother occasionally pops by). It's Eddie and Patsy against the world, feeling victimized by the world, complaining about the world, and Saffy standing there saying, "No, you're only victims of yourself." Sadly, this series does not stand up to the three original series which in my mind have attained the status of "classic." But let's keep in mind the curve on which I'm grading: I consider Absolutely Fabulous to be one of the best shows ever made. What is a 5 on an AB FAB scale would be a 10 for any other show. And, yes, amazingly, this is a comedy. There are no viewer advisory warnings, public service announcements, de-briefings to put the show in a supposedly proper context (e.g., "Drug use is wrong!"), nor sweet plots with happy endings to make you feel warm and fuzzy. Apparently the BBC has confidence that we the viewers can distinguish between reality and television. We can laugh at the trials and pains of these self-absorbed divas all the while remembering that they are, after all, fictional characters. Andrew Parodi
Rating:
Summary: The Ladies on Top Form
Review: My pompous announcement when AbFab appeared in the UK was that here, surely, was a show that would bomb in the States - if only for its bravado lack of that appalling political correctitude that has reduced so much of the world to its current humorless state. I was wrong and I still don't understand why.
The DVD is wondrous to behold: hilarious out-takes, that gem of an interview with Patsy in her model days. I remember almost arriving at fisticuffs in Muriel's with the late great Jeff Bernard for slagging her off as a Booker Prize judge. Bright ladies, both, and a show that has lost none of its lustre.
If you're a fan, you've already snapped this up. If not, thank you for keeping the faith.
Rating:
Summary: Talk about eating your own words...
Review: Now, let me just say first that I am a HUGE Ab Fab fan. When I first discovered "Patsy" and "Eddie" back in 1992 through a video clip by the "Pet Shop Boys" ironically enough, I have been enamored with those wonderfully wicked women who almost became like part of my family. I bought the DVD package of the first three seasons and still cherish them to this day. Well, when I wrote a review of this DVD for series 4, I goofed big time. And I am sorry for this but I was dead wrong on my first impression of this box set. Which is why I felt compelled to edit my review quite a long while after I posted it. About a year ago, I wrote a very harsh review about those new seasons of Ab Fab right here on amazon.com, giving it 2 stars. At that time, I wrote among other things that:
-I was startled to find out just how unfunny and even irritating the new stuff was. -I wouldn't buy the DVD package of the new season even though I have the first three seasons in my collection. -I didn't plan on watching the new episodes more than once since I didn't feel they could stand the scrutiny of repeated viewings. Well, what do you know... A year later, I have to eat those words because, not only did I buy the DVD box set of season 4 after all, but I must also admit that I have watched every episode just as many times as the ones from the first three seasons. True, I have to state that some plot lines and situations feel a bit like rehash from earlier material but overall, my earlier criticism was way too hard. Which is why I decided to give this five stars this time around. Maybe it's because I had expected so much out of the new stuff because of my deep bond with those wacky characters that my "pen" was so vicious in that first review. Or maybe it was due to the fact that I simply wasn't in the right frame of mind when I first watched them which tainted my impression for a while afterwards. But I can admit it when I'm wrong and have to say I wasn't fair in my statement that the new material didn't live up to the original. It is true that some of the dialogue sounds a bit like what we heard in the original three seasons and some of the situations seem forced. But still, even though I wouldn't qualify them as "perfect", the episodes still contain enough laugh and can hold up very well on repeated viewings. I know because I have seen them all dozens of time since then.
The strongest point in Ab Fab is without a doubt the acting. The three leads have made the roles their own and you can feel they really enjoy playing their parts. With each story told in "satire" mode and every line uttered in high camp, this series is like an ode to the art of being politically incorrect. Here, you get two aging women called Edina Monsoon and Patsy Stone, drugged and boozed out of their minds crawling through life, desperate for some fun and "fabulousness". And their antics is nicely balanced by Edina's daughter Saffron which acts like a responsible adult while dressing in drab clothes. This is all you need to know to enjoy this show and I am pretty sure you will, if you like camp comedies of course. About the DVD itself, it contains 6 episodes along with some nice special features: a nice outtakes segment (hilarious, even more funny than some of the lines from the episodes), the full "Mirroball" pilot which was a series Jennifer Saunders tried to get off the ground at BBC that wasn't picked up (and maybe it's just me but I found it quite boring honestly), along with a short interview with a very young Joanna Lumley (Patsy) from her modeling days. Therefore, I would tell you to buy this DVD package if you are a fan of the series but would recommend that you watch the first three seasons first if you've never seen them before since there is a sort of continuity to the show. It would make your experience with this new series more enjoyable if you had a sense of the history for those characters. Hope this was helpful!
Rating:
Summary: Absolutely hysterical, dahling!
Review: One of the things I loved about the first three seasons of AbFab was that it never got old. I could watch the same episodes over and over and still find myself laughing. Jennifer Saunders continues with the same formula in season 4, and it doesn't disappoint. I will watch this show over an American sitcom anyday, because it's simply not boring. Edina and Patsy are sinful yet oh so fun. The episode "Parralox" is my favorite!
Rating:
Summary: Love it but...
Review: Perhaps after a long hiatus from the show and the teaming up with Comedy Central in the US, this season of Ab Fab somehow is not quite it. SOmething is missing from the usual bawdy, unapolgetic humor. Still it is funny enough but not as memorable as the first 3 seasons.
Rating:
Summary: Good but not great
Review: The expected rude delight, but tinged with sadness. Highlight is the joke on Saffy (who has packed on a few pounds - must have inherited the tendency from her mom, Edina). Still, I had missed these two; let's hope they surface again.
Rating:
Summary: This is what it takes to be Absolutely Fabulous, daaahlink !
Review: The funniest and most original style of comedy seen in ages, Jennifer Saunders is able to continue a plot and build upon it in a complex manner without forgetting from whence she came. Viewed in succession, it makes for one of the greatest comedies ever; she intertwines all elements to bring new climaxes to even old and reviewed materials. This ability is rare, as she brings each individuals' experience into each scene, and the continuity is exemplary! One feels that one is pulled into the comedy as if one were part of the action.
Strangely, however, this didn't go over as well in England as it did here in the United States. Jennifer deserves national exposure for her brilliant work. Her work is a 10 on the comedic richter scale. In a word: genius !
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