Product Description

Join Fathers Ted, Dougal and Jack, three Irish priests exiled by the church to their own private purgatory, a twisted lump of rock called Craggy Island, as penance for indulging their daft vices. With the help of the world's most devoted housekeeper, Mrs. Doyle, they tend a demented flock of island dwellers and try to make a heaven out of their rocky piece of hell.

This five-disc DVD set includes every episode from the outrageous, award-winning comedy series, plus the hour-long holiday special "A Christmassy Ted".

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #60735 in DVD
• Released on: 2004-03-02
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Box set, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 5
• Running time: 640 minutes

Amazon.com
Father Ted is one of those rare sitcoms that defies categorization--it owes as much to Flann O'Brien and Samuel Beckett as it does to Monty Python--and its blend of satire, character comedy, and anarchic surrealism has made it a cult favorite around the world. Exiled to remote Craggy Island, Father Ted Crilley shares a house with the breathtakingly stupid Father Dougal and the constantly inebriated Father Jack, who has a small vocabulary and a taste for furniture polish. Their housekeeper, Mrs. Doyle, takes care of them with a never-ending supply of tea and sandwiches: "Go on now, Father, won't you try one? They're diagonal." Together they fight boredom by dressing up as Elvis, startling ducks at the fair, and provoking nuns. This set compiles the entire three-year series. --Simon Leake

Customer Reviews

A word about the DVDs
As other reviewers have noted, Father Ted remains one of the most consistently funny TV shows ever. Of course, there were only 25 episodes (counting the Christmas special), so it never had a chance to vary in quality as longer-running series have. Comparisons with The Simpsons are apt, but Father Ted owes more to Fawlty Towers than to any other series. If you like either of those shows, you won't be disappointed with this one.

The quality of the DVDs is surprisingly high considering the relative obscurity of the show in the U.S. The series is spread amply over five discs, and you should definitely invest in The Holy Trilogy, rather than buying the seasons separately. (If you're not sure you want to make the bigger investment, then you should go with Season 2, which was the funniest.) The transfers are as good as can be expected from a TV show, which is lower in quality than film because of differences in source quality.

The extras are quite good, though never as good as the episodes themselves. (After all, how many times is anyone going to see Father Dougal's Fundraising Speech for PBS?) But Father Ted was a writer-centered show, and the best extras are a long interview with Graham Linehan and Arthur Matthews, the show's creators, and the commentary provided by Linehan for Seasons 1 and 2. No commentary for Season 3; I suppose he ran out of stories.

My only major complaint is that, when Ardal O'Hanlon (Father Dougal) joins the commentary for five episodes on Season 2, he did not seem to be miked up properly, so he is very hard to hear. A second, minor complaint is that there is no tribute to the late Dermot Morgan (Father Ted himself), which would seem appropriate considering how keenly his loss is still felt in both Ireland and the UK. Neither of these shortcomings detracts from the collection, though. It is a great investment for anyone interested in unique sitcoms or Irish/British humor. Highly recommended!

Fecking brilliant!
The series explores the antics of a trio of priests and their loyal if insane housekeeper stranded on Craggy Island (just of the coast of Ireland, "where they dump the old glow in the dark"). When I first saw the trailers for it I thought it would not be that funny, but a friend convinced me to watch an episode. The blend of the surreal story-lines and tight scripts make it a comic masterwork. The box should include a warning that it may induce loss of bladder control.

It will change your life...
Well, sort of. It WILL make you laugh. Like the other reviewers, I was hooked almost obsessively from the first episode I stumbled upon, on BBC America, a sad many years after the series was filmed (why does it take America so LONG to get these shows, anyway?) Suffice to say, this is what a sitcom should be! Don't let the thought of Irish priests fool you, if you love shows like the Simpsons and Seinfeld, this is kind of like them combined in it's own unique way and then cranked up several notches (with perhaps some Green Acres thrown in there for the hell of it). I can't recommend it enough.

As an additional note, the HOLY TRILOGY has extensive commentary by 1/2 the writing team, Graham Linehan, and it is one of the best commentaries I've ever had the pleasure to listen to. It's chock-a-block filled with anecdotes, self-deprecating humour and truly useful information for anyone interested in the world of comedy writing. That alone is worth the price of admission.