"Well thank you very much, Jerry!"

 Look, I'm going to rabbit on for a hot minute about something that's keeping me sane right now, okay? Okay.

The Good Life (alternately titled Good Neighbors) ran on the BBC for four seasons and two specials between 1975 and 1978. The show is centered around two couples, the Goods and the Leadbetters, who are neighbors with staggeringly different lifestyles. It doesn't start off that way, but Tom Good gets an itch to abandon the material and go self sufficient--in suburbia. Hilarity and heartstring-tugging ensues.

 

The Good Life opening credits, BBC 1975

For fellow aficionados of 'vintage' British television, you'll find that this show is full of familiar names and faces. The core cast consists of Richard Briers, Paul Eddington, Penelope Keith, and Felicity Kendal, and was written by Bob Larbey and John Esmonde. For anyone who looks at that list and goes, "Huh?", just know that anything written by Bob Larbey is gold, and he was writing prolifically during an era of immense acting talent, so his gold got platinum edging. 

BBC 1975

I could give you a plot synopsis or wax poetic about my deep and unyielding adoration of Felicity Kendal (1981 'Rear of the Year' for good reason!), but I'll let you decide if you want to give the show a watch and find things out for yourself. It's currently free (with ads) on IMDB TV, available on Amazon's BritBox subscription, and apparently bootlegged on Daily Motion, but you didn't hear that last part from me.

I think the thing I really want to say about this program and its sanity-retaining qualities for me in the current ::flails dramatically at everything:: is that it is one of the most wonderfully comfortable, gentle shows that has ever been produced in the history of television. Yes, it's a product of its time, and as such it has some underlying themes and a few moments that wouldn't fly today, but on the whole, it holds up. What holds it up is its heart and humanity. It's a sweet, meandering sort of program, full of silliness and honesty and characters you can identify with in one way or another. Everybody knows a Margo Leadbetter, it's just a fact. Switching on The Good Life is like inviting old friends into my living room in the evenings, and since I can't have the real thing right now I'll take what I can get, and if what I can get is Tom doing that tuneless whistling, Jerry looking martyred, Margo despairing over the most recent Music Society fiasco, and Barbara in dungarees being adorable, I'm okay with that.

Though I'm sure Margo would be blaming Jerry for the pandemic, somehow. Oh, Margo.

BBC 1975