How this ended up on our Netflix list is something of a mystery. Having viewed it, I'm convinced that I would never have added this sober and the Missus is convinced of the same thing- whichever one of us added this British sitcom must have been drunk when they did it. My initial memory of this show is a rather vague memory of watching a Christmas special at my Aunt and Uncle's cottage near Cambridge one year. It seemed vaguely amusing then- and it remains so in the present day.
I'll be fair to this show though- they probably weren't aiming at me as their target demographic when they made it. A sitcom about a fashion obsessed PR-agent and the superficial life she chases in an attempt to feel young? Yeah, that's going to have me rolling on the floor with laughter, because as people who know me can confirm, if there's one thing that I'm about, it's fashion.
But seriously: the show revolves around the misadventures of Edwina Monsoon, the aforementioned PR-agent who is pretty much an alcoholic drug user chasing weird fads she perceives as 'hip' in a vain and foolish attempt to recapture her youth. She's played with vim, vigor and pouty petulance by Jennifer Saunders (best known to American audiences as the Fairy Godmother from Shrek 2). Her co-pilot in her many misadventures is Patsy (Joanna Lumley) who encourages her in every way possible and snipes constantly Edina's long-suffering daughter Saffron (Julie Sawalha) who seems to be the only adult in the room most of the time. Various vaguely comedic situations ensue, laughs (at least for me) were somewhat infrequent and generally this was a middling British sitcom that came nowhere close to the heights of such classics as Black Adder or Fawlty Towers.
Again, if I'm hating a little too much for people, forgive me. But this show seriously wasn't my thing. There were a few outrageous moments that made me laugh, but I found Edina annoying, Pats bitchy and felt a lot of sympathy for Saffron, who essentially had to be the adult in her life and take care of her mother- who was perfectly capable of pulling her head out of her ass and doing the job herself. I found it annoying at worst and only vaguely amusing at best- I was deeply disappointed and usually I'm better at stumbling across good television than this, but I suppose everyone is entitled to strike out now and again.
I will say this, though: Jennifer Saunders is seriously funny- if her character weren't quite so annoying, I think I would have been able to get behind this show quite a bit. But if she was going for a vicious, brutal satirical sendup of the superficiality of the fashion world and how much bullshit can be involved in it, she nailed it. Seeing her in a few more things here and there wouldn't bother me a bit. And Joanna Lumley is always going to be OK in my book, because she campaigned long and loudly to get Gurkha veterans of the British Army the right to settle in the UK- and got the job done!
Overall: ** out of 4: Please don't hate me, any fans of this show reading this. I respect the talent and the actors behind it, but I have to be honest- I just didn't find it all that funny. But I'm pretty freakish like that- I thought Seinfeld was just boring.
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