Schools Out!... (Teachers - Series 4 (DVD))

Member Name: Daniel K

Product:	Teachers - Series 4 (DVD)
Date:	03/03/06 (697 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Funny, some good storylines

Disadvantages: No Extras included, weakest series of 'Teachers' overall

'Teachers' is back for a new term, only in this fourth installment, there are quite a few changes. For those of you who haven't seen it, 'Teachers' is a comedy/drama series set in a school in Bristol, and follows the lives of a group of teachers mainly in their twenties. The cast of the show has changed slightly from each series, and in this one it is as follows:

Gillian Bevan as Clare aka Mrs Hunter - The tough headmistress.
Ursula Holden Gill as Carol Schickelgruber - Clare’s shy, whispering assistant, who has wonky eyes and wears thick glasses.
Ellen Thomas as Liz - The sassy, gossipy secretary.
Lloyd McGuire as Bob Porter - The roly-poly, middle-aged (former) head of English.
Tamzin Malleson as Penny Neville - A glamourous, manipulative blonde English teacher.
Vicky Hall as Lindsay - A big, boozy, biology teacher.
Matthew Horne as Ben Birkett, a hypochondriac atheist who teaches religious education.
Lee Williams as Ewan Doherty, a heart-throb English teacher, who replaces Bob as head of department.
Daon Broni as Damien Waller, the cynical teacher of food technology.

The main change from previous series is the location; the old school, Summerdown has closed, and the 'original' teachers have been moved to a new venue, namely Wattkins Comprehensive. This creates a 'them and us' divide between the old and new characters. Also, as they are not mentioned above, three original characters Brian, Kurt and Matt have been killed off. This also creates some problems with this series already, as some fans of the show believe they (especially Brian and Kurt) WERE the show!

The DVD for Series Four has a picture of the main cast members (Penny, Lindsay, Ewan, Ben, and Damien) stood against a brick wall. On the back of the DVD there is some info about the series as a whole. There are nine episodes, shown in 2004, that make up Series Four spread over three discs, and this includes the Christmas episode from 2004. The DVD is rated 15, the same as previous series of 'Teachers'.

The episodes of Series Four are as follows:-

Episode One: the 'old' characters move into their new school, and try to make friends with new characters Ben, Ewan and Damien; Ewan is an instant hit with the female teachers beacuse of his good looks, but as he is Bob's new boss, Bob cannot stand him, and vows to wreck his teaching career! Meanwhile, Ben and Damien resist Penny and Lindsay's attempts to be friendly while Clare tries to help the staff get to know each other better, by forcing them to talk to another person in school they do not know.

Episode Two: Penny is rejected when she tries to kiss Ewan, but gets over him by getting a new boyfriend she met in the school's library. But when the other teachers find out her new boyfriend is a student, and not a teacher, even Lindsay is reluctant to tell her. Ben's dismisive attitude of the elderly is turned around when he has to take care of a group of them visiting the school, while Bob is rejected in his bid to get a Thai bride.

Episode Three: It's Lesbian and Gay Awareness Week, and Ewan panics when a male student in his class admits he has a crush on him. Ben is attracted to the counceller sent from the Lesbian and Gay Advisory Group, while Clare becomes fascinated about what lesbians actually do. The rest of the staff have a bet on which teacher or pupil will come out as gay first.

Episode Four: It's 'Obesity Awareness' Month, and Lindsay is forced by Clare to try and lose weight, as it gives a bad impression to the pupils. Bob reveals he's had a vasectomy and needs to masturbate all the semen out of his system (some pretty disgusting mental images here!) before his mail-order bride arrives. Penny is dumped by her student boyfriend, who wants to concentrate on his work.

Episode Five: Bob is excited about the imminent arrival of his Thai bride, "Ping", but she turns out to be a complete misery, refusing to have sex (except with Ewan!). It's also 'Religious Tolerance' week at school, leading to chaos amongst the pupils, and Ben is inspired by the spiritual tone to go in search of inner peace.

Episode Six: Penny's surname is revealed to be Eichmann, and the rest of the staff accuse her of being a Nazi - she also keeps doing things that arouse their suspicions. Also, it's the Race Awareness Week at school, featuring appropriate activities to tie in with this, and Bob pretends to everyone that he's having loads of sex with Ping.

Episode Seven: Damien announces that he doesn't need a girlfriend to complete his life, but this changes the moment he sets eyes on the new supply teacher. However, his passion is cooled by an accident in school involing an icing bag that leaves him temporarily as potent as the newly-snipped Bob.

Episode Eight: Bob is planning his stag night in Dublin, but Ben insists he can't come - a Ouija board has predicted he will die the day before - so to ensure he goes to heaven, Ben converts to each religion for half a day. Meanwhile, Penny is trying to avoid getting in trouble after continuing her relationship with a student.

Episode Nine (the Christmas Special): An ofsted inspector arrives at the school with the classrooms stiil in a mess from the end of term Christmas party. Clare's plan of action, involving the dinner ladies, fake pupils and the incarceration of trouble-makers, fails to work, so Ewan is forced to seduce the inspector in order to save the day. Meanwhile, Bob prepares for his marriage ceremony, which will take place in the school playground and features and igloo, a sleigh, a reluctant best man (Ben) and an even more reluctant wife.

As with previous series of 'Teachers', there is the usual kind of stuff such as pupils messing around in the background of most scenes, the soundtrack of songs used, and also surreal things going on, like the donkey appearing in some scenes! In this series, though there's more obvious humour and jokes, such as a pupil with tourettes syndrome who keeps swearing, and the main characters are sent up regularly because of their stereotypes: e.g. Lindsay for being fat, Penny for being blonde, Bob for being middle-aged, etc.

Overall, I did like this series in places but as a whole, it doesn't really work; the new characters are okay, but maybe not as good as some of the original ones. Also, some of the episodes' plotlines are a bit stupid and not as funny as in previous series. This DVD also does not feature any extras such as behind the scenes footage or cast interviews, like in previous Teachers DVD's, which is a shame.

In a way it was a good thing that 'Teachers' was axed the following year, in 2005, as this series was a bit disappointing and doesn't work in places; the new characters are okay, but don't seem to fit in as well as previous ones. If you have not seen an episode of 'Teachers' before, I wouldn't recommend this DVD, and if you're interested in watching some, try an earlier series instead. For fans of the show, it's worth a look, but is not as good as previous series of the show.

For more info about the show, visit the following fan-site: http://www.geocities.com/weloveteachers/

Thanks for Reading! :-)

Summary: A fairly good fourth series, but only of interest to 'Teachers' fans.