My fave is absolutely series 4, filmed after a break of five years. Since AbFab used to be such a big hit in the nineties, it's kinda suprising that the concept of the show obviously still worked a couple of years later. I think the characters also definitely did change: Edina used to be a hippie at heart, completely dressed like one, and has become someone with just a really horrible taste in fashion.. The fabulous Katy Grin character also first appears - I like the fact that Jen added another character, but I'd have preferred someone else playing it, cos Bubble in a way is such an important character.. I also love series 1: they were trying it out in the first episode (the pilot 'Fashion') but you can feel some chemistry going on, and it completely works in only a couple of episodes later, like the hilarious bathroom scene on Edina's 40th birthday. (''you can just have Patsy's Stone!'')

Anyone else?

I think this is really hard. Personally I don't think there really are best/weaker series per se. Every series has got its brilliant episodes and ones that you perhaps could consider as 'lesser episodes'. I do agree with you that series 4 is brilliant, and definitely a stronger series as a whole, although I have heard people saying that they didn't really care much for 4 and absolutely loved 5.
The only episode in series 4 that doesn't work really well is 'Paris' (something Jen said herself as well in the audio commentary)
It's still a fantastic episode and it has some extremely funny scenes, but it is true that it doesn't work as good as it could be when you separate the 2 characters.

When you look at series 1, it's clear that the pilot, 'Fashion', is a bit separate from the rest of the series. All the actors are still trying out their characters, but nontheless it's a great episode, and definitely a good pilot. It definitely leaves you wanting more. But you can see, if you compare series 1 to later series, that the characters definitley evolve a lot throughout the years. Patsy's habits definitely get worse, more drinking, more smoking. Edina gets a lot more obsessed with fashion and celebrities, and Bubble just gets more and more weird compared to the first episode, in which she's still quite "normal".

That's what I like about long running series, with not too many episodes (a concept the Americans don't understand at all). The actors change, they get older, the world changes a lot too, and thus the series changes too because of that. This prevents it from ever getting boring. Not that anything written by Jennifer Saunders is likely to get boring though.

I could go on for hours
Perhaps we should start separate threads for each series, so we can obsessively over-analyse them

The pilot episode, it's brilliant. You can see both Jen and Jo being slightly unconfortable, and I can certainly understand why Joanna at first thought she couldn't do Patsy. It's obvious she didn't really understand who she was (as she said it herself) but that completely changed over the years.. It always suprises me how she made a completely different character of Pats - she's nearly her alter-ego, not just 'a character'..

I do love the 'Paris' episode, and I don't agree with Jennifer at all. When you seperate the two, it becomes even more hilarious when they finally meet up afterwards. They're both just lost without each other: (Pats not knowing how to deal with the photo shoot, Edina ends up with Saffy, doing the things she'd normally do with Pats) it's brilliant. My favourite scene is the one filmed in the Eurostar, but we also got something to see from Patsy's life as a model..(which is - of course - based on Joanna's past I'm convinced...)

You're absolutely right about the brilliance of the whole thing - it's only six episodes a serie, and that makes you wanna see more. It would have been less funny if they'd done another 20 episodes, or had casted other people for the main characters.. It's the cast that created the serie, and that's why I'm so affraid the USA version is not going to work out at all...

Philippa wrote:Perhaps we should start separate threads for each series, so we can obsessively over-analyse them

We should.. We could analyse all the episodes, all the scenes, the outfits Joanna worse... Good one, I'm gonna post a topic for series 4 later, haha!

Time to vote sweeties!

Too haaaard!
I will have to think about this for a while..

My favorite series is 4 :) I think it was done to how the relationships had developed as the cast had become good friends and i just thought this helped benift the show. I watched Fish Farm today and it has become my favorite episode of the series just because I found it funny. My favorite scene is when they come back from the concert and its when Saffy is trying to help Patsy but shes just insulting her (S: My hair is nowhere near you P: Its you face hair) sorry if i got that quote wrong lol

[quote="Philippa"]I think this is really hard. Personally I don't think there really are best/weaker series per se. Every series has got its brilliant episodes and ones that you perhaps could consider as 'lesser episodes'.

I totally agree with you in that. In series 2 im not too keen on new best friend but i love all the other episodes in it.

I really, truly love every series. Since it was so hard to choose, I decided to go with the first series just based on sentimentality. I clearly remember being 12 years old and falling in love with Ab Fab at first sight. I must have watched those episodes a thousand times back then. I had never seen anything like it...I had never seen people behave that way! Coming from a very sheltered upbringing, I had never seen people who seemed to be so outrageously free. It sounds weird but this show opened up my eyes to the outside world...my global perspective was essentially nonexistent at that age. Ab Fab had a profound effect on the person who I would grow into...it taught me to not care so much about what everyone else thought and that it was okay to be different from everyone else...to be my own person. When I think about it now or when I watch those episodes now, it feels like its the summer of 1994 again when the first series started to air.

That is it I have chossen. I might have to change my mind :S Lol.