Black Books - The Complete Second Series [DVD]

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Product Description ------------------- The foul tempered and wildly eccentric bookshop owner Bernard Black (Dylan Moran) is back for a second season. Bernard's devotion to the twin pleasures of drunkenness and willful antagonism deepens and enriches both his life and that of Manny (Bill Bailey), his assistant. Bearded, gentle, sweet and good, Manny is everything that Bernard isn't and is punished by Bernard relentlessly just for the crime of existing. They depend on each other for meaning as Fran (Tamsin Greig), their oldest friend, depends on them for distraction. DVD Features: Audio Commentary Other Outtakes Photo gallery .com ---- How do the British make surly misanthropy so entertaining, even downright delightful? Britcom Black Books springs from a dingy London bookstore owned by Bernard Black (series creator Dylan Moran, Shaun of the Dead), a bilious, petty xenophobe whose only pleasures in life are drinking, smoking, and berating his one long-suffering employee, Manny Bianco (Bill Bailey, Saving Grace), whose bursts of competence only drive Bernard to greater heights of apoplexy. Bernard's only friend in the world is Fran Katzenjammer (Tamsin Greig, also on the equally blackhearted Green Wing), who's similarly enslaved by her appetites and dabbles in personal fads that she drops as soon as they become inconvenient. The second six-episode series of Black Books takes a series of relatively modest set-ups--Bernard wants to ask a customer out on a date; Manny tries to emulate upscale chain bookshops; Fran needs to find a job--and spins them out into deranged, surreal, and sometimes near-apocalyptic conclusions involving infestations of rat-like creatures and illiterate mob enforcers, often accompanied by spasms of slapstick comedy and arias of verbal abuse. None of these characters is "likable" in the usual sitcom sense--which is exactly why they've earned radically devoted fans, who savor every nasty, jittery moment. Black Books would give an American TV executive a heart attack; fans of similarly loopy Britcoms like Fawlty Towers and Spaced should dive right in. --Bret Fetzer