As Time Goes By (Series 3)

(Amazon UK link)

We watched the first two seasons of the 1990s sitcom ‘As time goes by’ earlier in the year, and liked it so much that I ordered second-hand editions of the third and fourth seasons. We started watching Season Three in July; there are ten episodes, but we didn’t manage to see one every week, so it’s lasted us until now. We watched the final episode of the season last night.

I had wondered if it would start to feel a bit tired or samey, but that hasn’t happened yet. The first episode of this season followed on directly from the last one of Season Two, with Jean (Judi Dench) and Lionel (Jeffrey Palmer) in a hotel in Paris. It’s something they had dreamed of doing for years, but - unsurprisingly - it’s not at all what they expected, and arguments ensue.  

The second episode was one of my favourites. Lionel’s 85-year-old quirky father Rocky (Frank Middlemass) gets married to Madge (Joan Sims). Lionel, grumpy as ever, feels they’re being silly at their time of life, but eventually realises that they’re making the most of the time they have left, and that they really do love each other.  

Subsequent episodes see Lionel and Jean deciding to move in together, with the inevitable confusion as lack of communication means that they haven’t agreed WHERE they will live. This leads to them taking a break in their relationships, only to be thrown together again by Jean’s rather irritating former sister-in-law Penny and her tediously dull husband Stephen. 

Then the last few episodes involve yet more subplots: Jean’s business is so successful that she opens up a new branch, but nobody much likes the person hired to run it. And Lionel is asked to write a mini-series for American television about his romance with Jean, broken off when they lost touch, and resumed thirty years later. But during a visit to the United States, it becomes apparent that the producers want to make something that bears almost no relation to the reality…

There are many more storylines running alongside these broad outlines; Jean’s daughter Judith (Moira Brooker) and Lionel’s always-positive agent Alistair (Philip Bretherton) continue to add humour and a younger viewpoint; Jean’s secretary Sandy (Jenny Funnell) also takes a bigger role than she did in the first two series, and becomes established as close friends with Judith.  

It’s the character interactions that make this so enjoyable, particularly contrasting Jean’s mostly upbeat personality with Lionel’s perpetual grouchiness, which is partly due to lack of self-esteem. But there are some moments of deep thinking and tenderness, and the chemistry between the two is excellent.  

There were many times when we smiled and a few when we laughed. There were also moments when we felt poignancy; although some situations are caricatured, there’s a lot of realism in this sitcom from the 1990s, and the acting is impeccable. 

We’re looking forward to series 4, but although we have been liking this very much, I suspect one more series will be sufficient. At least for now.

Rated PG as there's no violence, nudity or bad language - but the theme and characters are unlikely to be of any interest to children or, indeed, teenagers. Very highly recommended if you like gentle - and genuinely amusing - sitcoms with middle-aged protagonists from the end of last century.

(Note: The Amazon link above is to the DVD of Series 3 on its own, but you can find better deals with combined series of this show, or indeed second-hand on one of the many excellent sites providing used DVDs. )

Review copyright 2023 Sue's DVD Reviews

As Time Goes By (Series 1 and 2)

(Amazon UK link)

We’ve had a boxed set of ‘As Time Goes By’, series 1 and 2, for many years. I’ve no memory of how we acquired it; but I did remember it being a good TV show when I caught a few episodes in the 1990s. We wanted something light to watch once a week, and Judi Dench is always good value. So we started watching series 1 about four months ago.

The opening couple of episodes introduce the two main protagonists: Jean (Judi Dench) and Lionel (Geoffrey Palmer), as well as Jean’s daughter Judith (Moira Brooker). Jean manages her own business, supplying editors and proof-readers, one of whom is Judith.

Lionel, meanwhile, is trying to finish a book he’s writing about his life in Kenya. Judith is allocated to help him, and finds her quite attractive despite over two decades’ worth of age difference.

It doesn’t take long to uncover a surprising coincidence: Jean and Lionel knew each other in the 1950s, during the Korean war. She was a nurse and he was a soldier; they were in love, and intimate, and hoped to spend the rest of their lives together. But each thinks the other was responsible for their having lost touch for thirty years.

The first series sees Jean and Lionel gradually getting to know each other again, with many misunderstandings that are gradually resolved. It doesn’t help that Lionel's agent Alastair (Philip Bretherton) finds Jean remarkably attractive, again despite a significant age difference, and is determined to win her. Alastair is a caricatured creation, full of enthusiasm, clichés and endless good humour as he attempts to encourage Lionel to finish what sounds like a decidedly dull book.

It could have been rather trite or predictable - and I am astonished to learn that this ran for nine seasons - but the main characters are impeccable in their timing, and there’s a great deal of humour. We found ourselves smiling regularly, even chuckling a few times as the series progressed.

I’m still not entirely sure what it is about this show that makes it so very watchable, but somehow we found it very appealing. One episode at a time was rarely enough. So we watched two episodes most weeks, and segued straight into series 2. By the time I realised that the second season had just seven episodes, I’d managed to order seasons three and four from ‘World of Books’, knowing we were going to want more.

Perhaps we wouldn’t have appreciated it so much when we were younger (I think I must only have seen two or three episodes). But now we’re older ourselves, albeit not going back as far as 1950, we can appreciate the subtleties, and the way the two principal characters resist being labelled ‘old’.

We watched the last episode of the second season last night, and since it didn’t feel like a season finale, we went straight on to the first episode of series three.

I doubt if we’ll want to see all nine seasons of this, but am very glad we decided to watch the first two, as we’ve both liked them very much indeed.  If you appreciate gentle 1990s humour, and a slow-moving mainly character-based story with middle-aged protagonists, then I would recommend these highly.

Review copyright 2023 Sue's DVD Reviews