TITLE: Timber!
NUMBER: Series 4, Episode 3
ORIGINAL AIRDATE: September 21, 1999
[This episode is one of my all-time favorites – the final classic, perhaps. – WK]
SETTINGS:
The ladies are in “bonnie Scotland” again, and fairly far up into it this time (in the Ardnamurchan peninsula).
They pass by the seashore at one point. Continue reading
Title: On Safari
NUMBER: Series 4, Episode 2
ORIGINAL AIRDATE: September 14, 1999
SETTINGS: The ladies visit Knowsley Safari Park in Merseyside.
[From what I’ve read, “On Safari” was actually the last episode to be filmed before Jennifer took ill. This interesting timeline of Jennifer’s life claims Series 4 was to have been the final series anyway.] Continue reading
TITLE: Potatoes Galore
NUMBER: Series 4, Episode 1
ORIGINAL AIRDATE: September 7, 1999
[A note before I begin recapping these final four episodes. Jennifer died on August 10th of 1999, and the experience of watching this season now, after living with this project for some time, must be similar to what it was like for BBC viewers to watch it then, knowing she was already gone. The show can’t quite feel the same.
[The nice thing about it is, she doesn’t seem ill in any of the episodes. On the contrary, she seems vibrant and well – in “Timber!”, for instance, I would argue she’s in as good a form as we’ve seen her in. It is only in the voiceover work, which Pat Llewellyn confirmed in Enjoy! was recorded from Jennifer’s hospital bed, that you can hear a difference – her voice is thick and painful. Those moments, usually dubbed over the motorbike sequences or the introductions of the dishes at dinner, are very difficult for me to sit through.
[However, for the most part, she seems fine, and in a way, it is good that her illness took her so suddenly. There was no decline in the quality of the program or her ability to perform. As we shall see, these final four episodes are not compromises in any way.
[Anyway, not to prolong this digression, but I wasn’t too familiar with “Potatoes Galore” before – in fact, there were times when I felt I hadn’t ever seen it. However, when I said as much out loud, my girlfriend said, “Oh, that’s ridiculous, you’ve made me watch this one a hundred times.”
[Well, be that as it may, it’s a good one. Enjoy. – WK]
SETTINGS: This episode is set in (or on) Jersey, a place I didn’t know much about. [It is an island, a “possession” of the United Kingdom but closer to France and apparently overlapped with the latter in some cultural ways.]
The ladies travel to a potato farm connected with the Les Prés Manor House, [a property that apparently has gone by other names in the past]. Continue reading
Real Proper 