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The first episode of series 2, is ‘The compassionate society’. Jim Hacker (Paul Eddington), who is still somewhat idealistic, discovers that a new hospital is fully staffed with ancillary workers and administrative staff, but has no medical staff. So there are no patients. He feels that this is a terrible waste of resources and wants to fire the people who are working there until doctors and nurses can be found. Then the unions get involved…
It doesn’t sound like a source of amusing banter, but, as with the first series, it’s very cleverly scripted. Sir Humphrey (Nigel Hawthorne) comes out with some long, convoluted explanations which must have been quite difficult to learn… and his expressions are wonderful. Bernard (Derek Fowlds) tries to balance his loyalties, and Hacker is stuck between what he believes to be right and his image with the public.
The second episode, ‘Doing the honours’ sees a threat of withholding honours from civil servants who have not reduced their budgets. Humphrey is horrified… and once again there’s a lot of fast-paced, brilliantly scripted dialogue before an eventual resolution. I find it a bit disturbing when Hacker - who has such integrity at the start - begins to compromise his views for his own satisfaction. But it’s probably not unusual. Power corrupts, as is so often said.
We usually watch two episodes at a time, as they’re only half an hour each. The third one, ‘The death list’, wasn’t one of my favourites: Jim Hacker learns that he’s on a death list, and could be assassinated at any point. So he has to accept multiple security officers and procedures, and makes rather a U-turn in his feelings about phone surveillance. Again, very cleverly done with a lot of humour despite the topic.
The fourth episode, ‘The greasy pole’, sees the minister agreeing to a factory producing something harmless which the media has, unfortunately, linked to a similar-sounding chemical that has proved dangerous. Neither he nor any of his staff know anything about chemistry, and we were very amused at their attempts to understand terminology via their knowledge of Latin.
The fifth episode, ‘The devil you know’, focuses somewhat on the UK’s role as part of Europe - something that is topical now, and with some of the same arguments for and against. Hacker is against it until he’s offered a prestigious role… and Humphrey has to change his views when he learns who might replace his minister, if he does move to Brussels.
After that, we saw the sixth episode, ‘The quality of life’. Jim gets some good TV and newspaper publicity when he visits a city farm that allows children to learn about farm animals. He promises that it won’t be closed… only to learn that he’s already signed a document turning it over to a car park. He has to renege on one of his other decisions, too, to get out of this particular problem.
There are only seven episodes on each DVD; I’m not sure why the seasons were so short. Since we usually watch two at a time, we manage to see an entire series in three or four weeks. And despite some inevitable similarities, the storylines manage to remain distinct and interesting.
The final episode of series two is ‘A question of loyalty’. The episode begins with Jim Hacker at a special meeting, where he is supposed to have been briefed on what he should say to likely questions. He does not expect to be greeted with a book, written by a former civil servant, expounding in some detail on various government waste - such as expensive orders for stationery, and an air conditioned storage warehouse. He blusters somewhat and passes the buck to Sir Humphrey…
It’s a good episode, and makes an excellent ending to the series.
Review copyright 2026 Sue's DVD Reviews
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