The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, The Complete Series (2009, E1)
purchase from Amazon: DVD

What I love about the digital age is the opportunity for older series, obscure to most modern audiences, to be discovered and enjoyed by a new generation. One such series is The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, a BBC sitcom that aired for three seasons between 1976 and 1979. Based on a series of novels and developed into a sitcom by the books’ author, David Nobbs, the farcical, poignant, hilarious show has been released on a lovely four-DVD box set that contains all three seasons, as well as a bonus DVD that contains a Christmas Special and a loving, hourlong tribute to the series’ star, the late Leonard Rossiter.

Rossiter stars as the title character, Reginald Perrin. The first season chronicles the mid life crisis/nervous breakdown of Perrin, a middle management employee at a struggling dessert food company. Perrin loses touch with reality at crucial moments in his day, becomes disenchanted with the corporate world and his mundane existence, fakes his death, leaving behind his loving wife, Elizabeth (Pauline Yates), and adult children, then realizes that is life is empty without Elizabeth and returns to her in a new identity. (more…)