Good Neighbors, The Final Season [VHS]
Here are the final seven episodes of the 1970s British comedy series,Good Neighbors(entitledThe Good Lifein England), a show that brilliantly captures the Zeitgeist of the '70s. The Goods, who quit the rat race for a life of subsistence farming, are next-door neighbors to the Ledbetters, some of the fastest rat-race runners around. At first, Margot and Jerry Ledbetter are horrified to see Tom and Barbara Good turn their tiny yard into a series of animal pens and vegetable gardens. But by the final episodes, the two couples have learned how to tolerate their differences and are the best of friends. There's an endless source of humor in this classic dichotomy of rich versus poor, snooty versus earthy. "Troglodytes!" the Ledbetters slam the Goods. "Gracious livers!" the Goods retaliate. There is also an abundant supply of silly scenes involving the Goods' suburban menagerie. The episode in which their chicken boards a passing bus goes delightfully over the edge. The British have always had a wonderful knack for poking fun at themselves, and this knack reaches a pinnacle in statuesque comedienne Penelope Keith's indelible creation of the character Margot Ledbetter. She's the quintessential status-obsessed snob, so preposterously genteel that she can wring three syllables out of the word "no." Keith's performance, especially, keepsGood Neighborsas fresh and funny as the day it was made.--Laura Mirsky