Search - Ballykissangel - Complete Series Three on DVD

How To Ruin A Great Series

Donegal Dan | Southwest United States | 02/26/2005

(3 out of 5 stars)

"I'm Irish and I know that all their wars are merry and all their songs are sad, etc., etc., but this is ridiculous. This was a wonderful series until they decided to blow it up and take a completely different tack than the one that originally attracted people to it. i.e., the story of a young English priest in a small Irish village. And until the last episode of this series, they did a great job telling that story. The characters were well-defined and well acted and the humor and quirkiness definitively Irish, but the center of the whole thing was the English--accent on English-- priest and when he disappeared, as far as I was concerned, the whole series collapsed, particularly in light of the way in which the two central characters were dispatched. If Kirwan and Tomkinson wanted to leave, surely the writers could have come up with a better, less abrupt and disappointing way to allow them to do it. At any rate, it was great while it lasted but the episodes that followed this series were an awful letdown, even with the appearance of Colin Farrell and several other interesting Irish actors here and there."

A Little Disappointing

Richard R. Harman | Elkridge, MD United States | 03/28/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I started watching Ballyk in the middle of Season 5 and was hooked though I was only able to watch the episodes haphazardly in my pre-TIVO days. When the series started being released on DVD, I picked up my copies and watched the first two seasons for the first time and became a fan. I recently picked up the third season and was a little disappointed. Overall the episodes were great. However, I felt that Stephen Tompkinson's character, Father Peter Clifford, went from being very likeable to somewhat painful to watch. His feelings for Dervla Kirwan's character, Assumpta Fitzgerald, reasonably explains some of this change. However, I wonder if he was just getting tired of the series. In the end, both Dervla and himself wanted to leave the series after Season 3 and this resulted in a very abrupt ending. I believe that adding one or two episodes may have eased the transition to Season 4 and would have produced a more satisfying ending. However, the ending was quite thought provoking which cannot be said of many series. If you are a fan of the series, you will not want to miss this collection of episodes on DVD. If you know nothing about the series, start with Season 1 and work your way through. I think you will get hooked as I was. On a technical note, I was disappointed in the lack of extras other than a cast bio. That and Tompkinson's performance on the later half of the episodes resulted in my 4 star rating."

Top Quality Television

Frank S. Kalich | Lawrence, KS United States | 12/31/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"It is interesting that I find 16 reviews for series 3, and only a few for series 1 and 2. I assume most everyone who watched season 3 had also watched the earlier seasons. This reaction appears to come from the writer killing off Asumpta in such a cruel fashion. Would I have preferred a different ending? Probably so. I don't think Peter could have lived without Asumpta, that was a done deal. However that was a pretty cruel way to deal with that situation. Still it did bring out some characters as they dealt with the tragedy. I really don't see the third season being notably of less quality than the early seasons. It just ended with the major tragedy, that is the big difference. True, the character of Fr. Clifford (Peter) changed as he was torn between his love of Asumpta and his love of being a Priest. And I certainly preferred the old Peter to the anguished one. However the third season brought other characters out, as Asumpta and Fr. Clifford were absent for a number of episodes trying to make some space between each other. Niamh became much more important, and I felt a very appealing character. Her convincing Peter to perform last rites on Asumpta demonstarted her willingness to take charge when necessary, a quality that was brought out in the third season in other ways as well. If you like PBS type stuff, such as Mystery or English dramas, you will very much enjoy this series I believe. It would not appeal to a mainstream audience. Just as PBS does not. I think that is a good yardstick, if you like watching PBS type stuff, and generally prefer that to most of what you get on mainstream TV, you should like this very much. This show is not boring, something new is always happening. I had a hard time turning it off, staying up late to watch episodes."

The downhill slide...

Carissa B. Mulder | Phoenix, AZ | 01/22/2006

(3 out of 5 stars)

"My family and I were delighted by the first 2.5 seasons of BallyK. It started out, as another reviewer pointed out, as a humorous series about the trials of a young English priest in an Irish village. It was also quite refreshing to see a Catholic priest portrayed in a sympathetic light. However, by the end of Season 3, it felt as though the writers were unable to stand any more positive portrayals of Christianity, and resorted to Father Peter losing his faith in the aftermath of Assumpta's death - a reaction I consider rather unlikely. By the end of Season 3, the series had also swapped its lighthearted feel for a prolonged grimness. This season is definitely not as enjoyable as seasons 1 & 2."