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    Yes Minister - Series 3

    BBC/Roadshow Entertainment . R4 . COLOR . 265 mins . G . PAL

      Feature
    Contract

    It doesn’t seem like it, but it’s been over 20 years since the arrival of the honourable Jim Hacker, MP on Australian TV screens, where it was to remain for many years to come in innumerable re-runs on the ABC, eagerly indulged in again and again by a legion of fans - many of whom were real-life politicians. Created by Jonathan Lynn (who would later write and direct the superb comedy of the hit movie My Cousin Vinny, amongst others) and Antony Jay, Yes Minister’s humour is centred on the well-meaning Hacker (Paul Eddington), who has managed to get elected as the Minister for Administrative Affairs in the British government, but who really doesn’t have much of an idea about how to navigate the day-to-day machinations of the political system. Every inch the politician, he’s keen to get things done that will earn him a place in history, but at the same time he’s more than a little obsessed with how he’s perceived by his constituency. In other words, he’s an idealist without much of a clue - and that’s where Sir Humphrey Appleby (Nigel Hawthorne) and Bernard Wooley (Derek Fowlds) come in.

    Click here to enlarge and send to a friend
    Jim Hacker, MP (Paul Eddington) stands behind the men behind the, err, man.

    While Bernard is loyal and protective in his role as Hacker’s private secretary (constantly filling him in about what’s really going on), Humphrey is a different proposition altogether. A life-long civil servant with a barely-disguised contempt for politicians, he’s developed a complex network of contacts and colleagues within the establishment and unshakeably believes that he knows the best way for things to get done. The fact that he’s often right is something not entirely lost on Hacker, who is frequently rescued from the brink of political disaster by Humphrey’s behind-the-scenes machinations. But as Hacker gets better at the popularity-versus-duty juggling act of being an MP, he starts to exercise more control over his job. Or at least, he tries to.

    This third season of one of Britain’s most popular TV comedies was made when the show was at the height of its popularity, but perhaps suffers slightly in comparison to its earlier days; the passing of time hasn’t helped either, the storylines based on issues and events of the early ‘80s now seeming almost quaint at times. When it’s on fire, though, the show’s in fine form - as in the episode The Moral Dimension, where the smuggling of alcohol into an official engagement in the otherwise alcohol-free Kumran provides ample opportunity for comic cleverness.

    This third season of Yes Minister would turn out to be the last - but its successor, Yes Prime Minister, would turn out to be even funnier than the original, with Sir Humphrey increasingly at the mercy of an ever more confident Hacker. The bridge to that series was made some time after the end of series 3, with an hour-long one-off special episode called Party Games. That special episode is, admirably, included in this double-disc set - and while the ending is no surprise today, the events that lead to it are laid out with glee in some of the show’s best writing.

      Video
    Contract

    Shot in a 4:3 ratio on one inch videotape by the BBC (with the occasional use of 16mm film), Yes Minister looks surprisingly fresh on DVD despite the passing of two decades since its production. While some of the episodes’ master tapes do seem to be in slightly less-than-perfect condition, there are no major problems and it’s unlikely that they’ve ever looked better than they do here. The Party Games special, made some time later, offers the best picture quality of the lot - it’s noticeably sharper and more colour-saturated - but overall, this is archival material presented as well as could be expected; there’s some video noise, but it’s not especially disturbing (and being sourced from analogue video, it’s unavoidable). The use of two discs for this set (as opposed to the first two seasons’ single-disc squeeze) offers some breathing space in the encoding department as well; while the BBC’s MPEG encoding still has some way to go, no major problems crop up here.

    The first disc is dual layered, but fear not - unlike some other BBC offerings (such as Dad’s Army) none of the episodes are marred by an unexpected layer change.

      Audio
    Contract

    It’s mono, plain and simple. There’s really not much more to say than that; this is the original single-channel audio heard on the day of first broadcast. Give your expensive surround-sound setup a holiday. The mono audio is encoded as a Dolby Digital 2.0 stream, as is common for BBC releases.

      Extras
    Contract

    There are no extras included here at all - unless you count the Party Games special episode as an extra, which you may or may not depending on how much of a series purist you are!

      Overall  
    Contract

    A landmark BBC comedy series written by a couple of very clever men and acted to perfection by three brilliant comic talents (two of whom, sadly, are no longer with us), Yes Minister is still exceptionally funny viewing, even if this third season isn’t quite up to the standard of what came before and after it. Fans of the series, who would have seen these episodes countless times in reruns on the ABC, will be delighted.


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      And I quote...
    "Exceptionally funny viewing, even if this third season isn’t quite up to the standard of what came before and after it."
    - Anthony Horan
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