I love British television. Back when I lived with my parents and was able to receive public television, I used to watch all of the Britcoms that came on Saturday Nights: Are You Being Served, Keeping Up Appearances, Red Dwarf.
One night at my parents house I caught the 1978 Royal Command Performance of a television series called The Good Life, released as Good Neighbors in the United States. I found it captivating. The show was about a suburban married couple who disavow the comfort and security of conventional employment and instead become "self-sufficient." The reality is that while they have become independent of utilities and grocery stores and the like, they remain very much dependant on the help and encouragement of their next door neighbors who remain in the usual world that is the antithesis of their own. Tom and Barbara Good, the title characters, were adorable as, in this particular episode, Tom Good tried to make provision for a retirement that loomed twenty or so years in the distance.
I found that Netflix had the complete series 1-3 available in their catalogue, and somehow convinced Michael to give the series a chance. I told him I wouldn't make him watch it with me, but he eventually saw enough episodes to agree that it was a worthwhile viewing experience. He occasionally quotes a line here and there to make me laugh. Netflix now has Series 4 available through their "Watch It Now" feature, which I was so pleased to discover a week or so ago. It includes that Royal Command Performance I mentioned, as well as the final episode of the series in which the Goods are vandalized, and tempted to give up until Barbara reminds Tom what a good, if difficult, life it is.
I love the support the characters give one another. The next door neighbors are very important in the show, but Barbara Good, played by Felicity Kendall, is absolutely adorable--she is the one who attracted me to the series in the first place. The show aired from 1975-1978, right around the time I was born.
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