The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin

There is no shortage of excellent sitcoms - the U.S. gave us Seinfeld, and Soap, the Brits Good Neighbors, Fawlty Towers and Butterflies. The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, rises above even these, and is a true masterpiece of television.

What makes The Fall and Rise so exceptional is its incredible depth. While other shows were content to earn certain points and then coast (e.g. Seinfeld acts as a catalog of ridiculously mutated and twisted social convention, but rarely moves beyond it) The Rise and Fall never lets up on its observations, criticisms and offering of wild and crazy solutions, providing a hero who sees everything wrong with the world and is desperate and willing to change as much as possible.

The absurdity of corporate culture, suburban monotony, flaky post-hippie child-rearing concepts, condescendingly manipulative advertising and marketing, sexism, racism, class conflict, are hung, drawn and quartered for laughs. And Leonard Rositter's posturing and snarking make it surreal. It is Voltaire, Brecht.

Of course, the hero's plans rarely turn out as he expected, and Perrin is constantly thrown off course as each of his absurd plots is met by an even more absurd response from the world. Rositter's Perrin reacts with even more absurdity, all the while stammering and mugging to underline the fact that, well, that's life.

The Rise and Fall of Reginald Perrin, is a must to television viewing as Mozart is to music, Citizen Kane to cinema, and Dickens to reading. You will probably like it, but even if you don't, it will do you great good, and be the yardstick by which you judge all other related material.

I didn't get where I am today without knowing a good show when I see it!

What average Joe suffering through the daily grind does not have a bit of Reggie Perrin hidden inside, boiling and bubbling just under the surface?

Reginald Perrin is perhaps the most thoughtful character ever seen in a comedy series. He is a deep and complex man.

Supporting characters each have an unforgettable "trademark" (for lack of a better term)... Sometimes direct, sometimes symbolic -- the creator of Reggie Perrin effortlessly distills the essence of real life oddities.

Brilliant and funny. On the whole, this is the only British comedy I put ahead of MONTY PYTHON and FAWLTY TOWERS. Reginald Perrin is worthy of such a supreme compliment. A sitcom Masterpiece. All else is just Grot.

Comedy-City, Arizona! Super! Great!

PBS aired the series in '79 and '81. I wandered into the first episode by accident and was immediately hooked. And since this was the age when VCRs still cost over a thousand bucks, I had no option but to try and memorize the series....

And then recite the lines to my friends who'd missed the two seasons that aired.

PERRIN was possibly the first series to use seemingly unconnected visuals to illustrate a character's state of mind, a trick later used in series like DREAM ON and ALLIE McBEAL.

I'm still struck by the role the surf plays in PERRIN as a place to dump old cares, worries, and lives in exchange for new lives. The final sequence of the second season has also stayed with me-- Reggie and his wife go to the beach to assume new lives, then discover an entire beach full of people doing the same thing. Reggie smiles and says "Look Elizabeth, it's catching." In the past 20 years, when things looked bleak, I'd think of finding my way to that beach....

That the series is finally on videotape is fantastic. That there is a third season I never knew about is beyond words!!!!

The late, great Leonard Rossiter will always be remembered best in the classic sitcom, Rising Damp, but the BBC's The Fall And Rise Of Reginald Perrin is also not to be missed.

Reggie was quite different to the many other TV comedies of the seventies in the fact that the programme (adapted from the writer's novels) continued the story in a 'serial' fashion which was that of middle-aged, rebel, Reginald Perrin, who suffers a breakdown with hillarious results and resorts to faking his own death. This all happens in the first series but i'm sure that many laughs beyond Reggie's original six misadventures.

Let's try to get the BBC to release Reggie on American format DVD!! Apparently, BBC America is responsible for all commercial content in the States, and I was given the following information by BBC in the UK.

Write or call:

BBC Worldwide Americas 747 3rd Avenue 6th floor NY, NY 10017 USA Tel: 001 212 705 9300 Fax: 001 212 888 0576

It's available in the UK, I just think they don't realize what a fan base there is here in the US. I just re-read both "The Fall and Rise of" and "The Return of" for the hundredth time, but I'd give anything to own the series.