Disclaimer: I’m not moonlighting as cheapjack movie critic here, I just really think your money will be spent on a good product. We all have bills to pay and a life to manage; £11.48 (through Amazon) is a lot of money for many of us, so I feel decent information before you buy is nothing but fair. If I thought otherwise, I wouldn’t recommend the DVD, no matter who’s on the show.
Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, Martin Jarvis, Joanna Brookes, Doon Mackichan and Damian O'Hare in "Taking the Flak".
Don’t judge this DVD by its cover! If you like your DVD to come with printed information of any kind, then you’ll be disappointed. I’d at least expected a list of the episodes and their titles. All you get is a blurb which once again mentions “irritably-bowelled” Margaret, an “aspect” of the character that only turned up in the pilot, was annoying to the ninth and luckily got dropped for all future episodes. Jane is described as hard-nosed, which is rubbish and gives a wrong impression of the character. The way this DVD looks, it will be difficult for anybody to tell the difference between the real thing and a pirated copy…
But it’s the content that counts, and here, the “Taking the Flak” DVD is definitely not on the cheap side.
EPISODES
On two DVDs, you will find all seven episodes of the series, including the one-hour pilot. Due to the unrests that broke out in Kenya after production of the first episode, the work on the series was interrupted for many months and production was moved to Tanzania. It shows; not only does the 30 minute format suit the series better than the 60 minutes it was waltzed out to for the pilot, the first episode also suffers from some awkward scenes and jokes which are simply not funny. The series improved from episode to episode, and those who gave it a chance after the pilot were not disappointed.
