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Gordon Brittas continues to dream up new schemes to promote
and improve Whitbury Leisure Centre, including a bungee jump,
staff reviews and computerisation - all with his usual diplomacy,
aplomb and mayhem. Colin has several tons of elephant manure
delivered, puts a frog in his trousers, and lets a rat take
a dip in the pool. Meanwhile, Helen Brittas is studying to
be a therapist. Uh oh...
The seventh series of The Brittas Empire is a slight
improvement on the sixth
one, thank goodness, though its first two episodes, The
Elephants' Child and Reviewing the Situation, barely
raised a smirk on the face of this reviewer. At least the
production team had the good sense to get rid of the unfunny
character of Penny Bidmead, who is casually written out by
means of a passing comment that the Sauna and Solarium franchise
is up for renewal.
The
hi-tech havoc that ensues in http://etc works rather
better, as do the truly bizarre events that unfold in Wake
Up the Lion Within, The Disappearing Act and Curse
of the Tiger Women.
Wake Up the Lion Within sees the timid Carole (Harriet
Thorpe) unleashing her assertive alter ego. She then goes
on to become deputy manager and eventually replaces Brittas
(Chris Barrie) himself! You think it's all going to turn out
to be a dream, but incredibly it doesn't - that familiar old
device is saved for a later episode. And watch out for the
Alice in Wonderland references in The Disappearing
Act.
Curiously,
the best episode in this two-disc collection isn't even one
of the main features. It's the Christmas special, Surviving
Christmas,
which originally aired a couple of weeks before the seventh
series and which is listed here among the special features.
This instalment contains some of the series' best lines, including
Gordon's: "You'll have to forgive my wife - she's a woman!"
Why it wasn't decided to list this instalment among the main
episodes on disc one - or, even better, tack it on the end
of Series Six, which runs an episode shorter than Series Seven
- I do not know.
Following
in a close second place is Gavin Featherly R.I.P.,
which, as you've probably guessed from the title, depicts
the staff's reactions when Gavin (Tim Marriott) goes missing,
presumed dead.
The
only other extra is a stills gallery, though this mainly contains
images that are used on the product's packaging anyway. The
discs' presentation is also let down by some dodgy encoding,
which causes the picture to lose resolution on several occasions,
seemingly as a result of rapidly changing light levels.
As
I have said, this series is an improvement on the previous
one, but it's still not what Brittas would describe as "ehhhhhxcellent".
Richard
McGinlay
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