Cold Feet – Complete Second Series
Picture: B-
Sound: C+ Extras: C+ Episodes: B-
Cold Feet picks up on season two (aka The
Complete Second Series) as comedy with some serious cliffhanger issues to
bring viewers back. Running six more
untitled hour time-slotted shows, the show actually picks up a bit now that
they do not have the initial introductions or any novelties to rely on. The result of Mike Bullen’s change of tone
in his teleplays is a more interesting set of shows, though still nothing
spectacular enough to do cartwheels over.
Again all in their 30s, we have David and Karen, who have
seen the passion go out of their relationship.
He the working white-collar guy, she the not-necessarily-happy
housewife. Adam and Rachel and Jenny met
after an auto collision and it turns out to be love at first sight, which leads
to the silliest of the three storylines.
The leaves Peter and Jenny, still trying to have a child, though there
have been complications. There is a
twist pregnancy with one of these couples at the end of the last season to
carry over into this one, but we will not give away anything.
The actors are as still good and believable enough, as the
slightly cartoon mentality is toned down in a welcome way. This is not like the ever-annoying “on a
special episode of Friends cycle” when that show became so extremely
desperate and greedy for ratings, that it suddenly became a soap opera
melodrama with some laughs trying to be something it was not. Friends was suddenly the first successful
“dramedy” and that was pretty condescending.
Cold Feet never gets that bad to its credit, but then that again
is the difference between British TV with some dignity left and U.S. TV in
hell. Not bad, considering this show
has three directors.
The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1/16 X 9 image is not
bad, but has some digital artifacts likely from the translation from the PAL
format. Otherwise, it is not bad,
especially for its age as an early such TV production. The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo is credited as
having Pro Logic surrounds with the “Dolby Surround” logo in the lower left
hand corner before every episode. This
is correct, but such surrounds are limited.
The performance is about what we could expect form the period, but in a
few shots where the characters are using camcorders, quality drops
further. Extras are all included on DVD
1 and include an On Location promo featurette at 1.33 X 1 running
just over a half-hour, another slide show of publicity stills and filmographies
on the six actors playing the couples.
That is similar to the previous set, but equally informative. You can read about the first part elsewhere
on this site, which includes the pilot; the best place to start in this case.
- Nicholas Sheffo
