Rescue Me

The last few years we've seen alot of new drama/comedy series displaying the life of a young female and her friends, troubles and relationships (eg Ally McBeal, Heart and Bones). Although i quite like all of those, Rescue Me is somewhat special to my regard. It has the most special ability of getting in touch with you, to get yourself in touch with your own feelings. When a television show can do that, you know you are watching something good.

This series slipped under the radar, which I think is a real shame. It was by no means perfect, but it was mostly well written and directed, and the acting was pretty solid. What made it special was Sally Phillips. She was superb, showing off the full range of her considerable acting talents. She could be touching, insecure, feisty - and hilarious: the first episode in particular, has a treasurable scene where she interviews a prominent (and none-too-impressed) feminist for a feature called "What's in my fridge" or something similar. When the subject testily enquires whose brilliant idea this was, Sally Phillips's reaction is priceless, even though she just says one word: "Guilty!" She is a huge comic talent, and I really hope we see more of her on big and small screens.

I still remember watching this - I don't think I can say that about many things from so long ago. It practically kept me going when I was having to do the lounge decorating!

It's witty, it's unpredictable, and Sally Phillips is beautiful. The mediocre old days of Smack The Pony over, her comic talent is free here to shine, and shine it does. Piquant character comedy is the best part of this series, though it has a genuinely funny 'sitcom' aspect as well; but think an ironic version of Bridget Jones, rather than Fawlty Towers.

The plot is nothing that marvellous, but it's not the main thing here; again we're talking about Bridget Jones fare here, though it is cleverer in the literary allusions, as I seem to recall. The whole thing has a lot more irony. And it does, at any rate, defy any attempt to predict from the start what is going to happen, so the whole thing stays very watchable because of that.

I know this has been said by someone else, but I really also remember that bit when she goes to see the Germaine Greer-type woman and says she's doing a feature on "What's In Your Fridge?"! It still makes me smile to think of it now.

I'd recommend this wholeheartedly to anyone on this earth, except that of course there's no way to actually get hold of the damn thing. I've been waiting from that day to this for them to release the DVD but to my knowledge it's never even been repeated. The BBC should have a better system by now; if releasing DVDs is so expensive, they could just charge people for downloading it surely.

I've always remembered this which is why I have googled it now in late 2004. I thought it was great and I took it for granted that there would be a second series but for some reason it never came. Shame, really.

I actually looked up Oliver Chris, now in Green Wing - and by a 6 degrees of kind of chain I ended up remembering he was part of this show. Stewart Wright I remember too - he's been in Coupling since and all sorts.

I can't remember there being anything wrong at all with this show - it was funny, characters were likable and it had a plot good enough to hold viewers. The BBC can be a bit daft sometimes.

Soap opera dressed up as comedy-drama. A crashing bore, and crushing disappointment, after Sally Phillips' hilarious 'Smack The Pony' sketch series. Avoid, unless you _enjoy_ watching bland 30-somethings wrestle with their extremely trivial lives.