Adam: James Nesbitt
Rachel: Helen Baxendale
Pete: John Thomson
David: Robert Bathurst
Karen: Hermoine Norris
Jo: Kimberley Joseph
Robyn: Lucy Robinson
Jenny: Fay Ripley
Mark: Sean Pertwee
Ramona: Jacey Salles
Cold Feet
is a comedy-drama from Granada TV which quickly became one of my favourite programmes
on the box. It follows the lives of three couples, each at different stages in their
relationship, in the suburb of Didsbury, Manchester, how they get on within their own love
lives and what happens when social interaction between the sextet goes too far on occasion.
Starting off as being compared to being a British 'Friends', it has a lot more
strings to its bow, which should field off complaints that it's not as funny as
it used to be. Well that's the whole point. Life gets less funny as you get
older and responsibilities grow, but the drama in this series becomes its
strong point, and the only let down in Series 5 was that it was too short.
Being the final series, some media publications let loose with spoilers as
to what would happen at certain moments throughout. Some just specified that
a particular incident would occur, while others went on to publish full
details including pictures and naming those characters who would be affected
directly. I hate such treatment of important dramas like that.
Watching any episode of Cold Feet gives you a very comfortable feeling
and it's a shame that it's come to an end, but, then again, if writer Mike
Bullen feels he's done everything he can with the series then maybe it's
time to call it a day. Another crew member commented, on ITV's "making of"
Cold Feet: The Final Call, that maybe they'll go back to it in ten years
time when the money's run out.
Adam and Rachel get ready for a Reservoir Dogs conference.
Like I said, I won't give out spoilers, the like of which you'd expect from
downmarket publications, but then all the characters here go through
life-changing experiences. Rarely has there been a drama series which makes
you laugh one minute and feel tears welling up the next (well, that's my
explanation for the box of Kleenex) sometimes alternating between the two.
Set three months after the close of the last series, so Series Five is
technically set in February 2002, Adam and Rachel have started a family with
their first-born son Matthew. It'll require an adjustment or three in their
daily routines and there's words to be had when Adam's father, with whom he
has not spoken for many years, drops in seemingly unannounced.
David and Karen are still separated as the series begins, but since she's
hooked up again with recent old flame Mark (Sean Pertwee) and David's
made a play for his divorce lawyer Robyn (Lucy Robinson), will their
love reblossom as they try to stay apart? It will take until the end of the
series to find out.
Then there's Pete and Jo. Their marriage hasn't had the best of starts and
it gets worse when Pete inadvertently asks his mother to stay as soon as
they've set foot on British soil. However, Jo soon finds an unlikely common
ground with her new mother-in-law. Marriage isn't something to be rushed into
though, but time will tell if they can weather the storm.
A familiar face returns...
There's been some bizarre editing going on here. It's not a case of cutting
out sections of the show, but whereas on TV it was broadcast as four 90-minute
episodes (allowing for adverts), the series is presented here across six
shorter programmes - and of uneven lengths, so this does jar with what you
expect because on TV the story arced across the whole 90 minutes and on this
DVD bits of the story are split across separate episodes. Disc two, for example,
starts around ten minutes into the third broadcast episode, rather than at
the start!?!
Also, you lose the style of the opening musical montage mixed together with
the opening titles in the way the screen would go black and the names appear
sliding in from opposite sides. They still do the latter but are shown
onscreen in what looks more like an afterthought.
And it's not as if disc one contains the first two ITV episodes split into
three, since the disc ends a few minutes into the third episode that was
shown on TV. Confused? I certainly was. I'm grateful for the series being
rush-released on DVD, but I just don't understand why it was treated in this
way, and the only way it wouldn't really matter would be if you were to watch
the whole thing from end to end.
That was... until I checked where the start/end episode edits occurred.
There's something missing - incidental music. Not the generic 'Cold Feet'
drama music you expect, but opening tunes like
Jackie Wilson's "The Sweetest Feeling" (episode 1),
The Beatles' "Please Mr Postman" (episode 2),
Joe Jackson's "It's Different for Girls" (broadcast episode 3)
and
Marvin Gaye's "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" (broadcast episode 4)
- as well as other real tunes throughout - which are largely replaced by the
same drama music or something upbeat yet equally uninspiring, save for a Coldplay
track in the final episode.
One of the best things about having a series like this on DVD is that no
continuity announcer gets to talk over it.
However, while each episode of series 3 contained an individual track over
the closing credits, series 4 bottled it and just went with the sombre theme
music over which the dreadful generic ITV(1) credits would appear. Series 5
does the same, but goes with a bland blue or black background.
Pete's Mum and her friends enjoyed this series
because they got high...
Like the third and fourth series DVDs, this series is also presented in 16:9 anamorphic
widescreen as was shown on TV. You'd expect the quality to be crystal clear
but there is some blurring in a number of scenes and a slight blueish tinge
on the right-hand side of objects or people in a couple of scenes. Viewers won't notice too much
if they're only used to their VHS recordings of the series while it was on,
but it's not what we've come to expect from DVD.
As with the other DVDs, the sound in the original Dolby Surround (Dolby
Digital 2.0) and is only used for dialogue and general ambience, so doesn't
often get a chance to shine. There are slight sound problems at times when
certain SFX come into play, such as when a bunch of flowers are thrust down
into a vase. On TV the sound placing was spot-on. On the DVD, you hear the
'chink' in the glass sound just a fraction of a second earlier. Not vital,
but enough to stand out for me.
When it comes to the extras... this is a problem with the rush-releasing
of this title. There aren't any... which is a shame since it means they've
missed out on including the ITV "making of" The Final Call, which was
broadcast after the third episode and so includes spoilers of that episode.
There are nine chapters per episode, 8 for the main part and one for the
end credits - in the usual glorious ITV(1) generic crap-o-vision. How much of
an insult is that?!
Cold Feet is a programme that will be remembered for its
content, but not for the DVD extras, as most of the series contained brief
"making of"s and bitty photo galleries. Where are the outtakes, deleted
scenes, audio commentaries?
DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV
connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and
played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
