Butterflies

This delightful series boasts a first-rate cast and original scripts. Principally from Ria's (the housewife) point of view, this low-key and often whistful comedy shows a mid-life crisis as it not only affects her, but those around her. The laughs come from reality-based comedy situations, and from self- or situation-recognition. I don't think there's a single disappointment here.

British comedies tend to fall into one of two main types: the quiet, introspective, usually romantic study and the farcical social satire. Settings, characters, and concepts vary but certain characteristics place the vast majority of shows into one of the two categories. Butterflies is perhaps the epitomé of the first type.

The scripts are very verbal, including long interior monologues by the main character Ria, a basically happy but unsettled housewife curious about what she might have missed out on when she embarked on a thoroughly conventional life. When she meets a successful but clumsy and emotionally accessible businessman (who makes his interest in her quite clear), she toys with the idea of finding out what the other path might have offered.

The acting and scripts are always on the money, which makes one's reaction to the show almost entirely a personal one: I was neither blown away by it nor turned off. My mother, on the other hand, adored this show. I think the degree to which one identifies with Ria's dilemma is the most important factor in determining one's reaction to Butterflies.

Once you read through all the viewers' comments, you can see that "Butterflies" had a devoted crop of followers who found this show fresh, gentle, involving and - funny. Even today I think back fondly for that show. I watched each week, and I was so grateful for each of these wonderful characters. Geoffrey Palmer was remarkable in playing what I would think a difficult role (makes me think of the husband's part in "Iris," or a couple of the husbands in "Enchanted April"). Ria's character was of course the center, and I appreciated her situation - even sympathized with her, for I was in her kind of spot when I got hooked on the series.

"Butterflies" showed real people making sense of their lives. I loved it!

This is an excellent British Comedy. Wendy Craig is amazing as Ria the bored housewife, Geoffrey Palmer is fantastic, as usual , as Ben Ria's dentist husband who just doesn't understand how she can be unhappy. The boys Russell and Adam are hilarious. This is Brit coms at their best. Dry humor and all. Try it. One of the best!

Even 20-odd years after the fact (and with it's late-70s sexual revolutionism looking humorously dated these days), Carla Lane's 'Butterflies' remains one of the freshest and funniest sitcoms Britain ever produced. The story itself is relentlessly simple -- a stifled housewife's yearning for more in her life is complicated by a distantly ironic husband, two sex-crazed still-at-home sons, and the romantic attention of a wealthy playboy whose desire revs up the more undesirable she feels. But it's not the plot that makes 'Butterflies' great so much as it is the opportunity that that plot gives Lane to explore Ria Parkinson's world as it slowly collapses around her, and it's impossible not to see a little bit of oneself in the sometimes-hilarious, sometimes-sobering struggles of Lane's memorable characters as they attempt to survive the small anguishes of day-to-day life. Smart writing and great performances all around.

A few years back, 'Butterflies' would show up in late-night rotation on PBS in the states and Canada; if it does again, catch it.