The BEST episodes of The Good Life (1975)
Every episode of The Good Life (1975) ever, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of The Good Life (1975)!
The Good Life stars Richard Briers and Felicity Kendal as Tom and Barbara Good, a middle class suburban couple who on Tom's 40th birthday decide to turn their Surbiton home into a self sufficient allotment. They grow their own food, keep farm animals and have sold or bartered all of their electrical appliances as they have no electricity. This creates friction with their best friends and next door neighbours, the Leadbetters (Jerry and Margo) played by Paul Eddington and Penelope Keith. But even though the Goods have lowered the tone of the neighbourhood in the Leadbetters eyes they still can't help but be best of friends. The show was known as Good Neighbors when it aired in the US.
#2 - The Thing in the Cellar
Season 1 - Episode 5 - Aired 5/2/1975
Tom puts the finishing touches to their own electricity generator in the cellar, which runs on their animals' waste. He then goes fishing with Jerry, and decides to store the surplus in the freezer, until the generator plays up...
#3 - Anniversary
Season 4 - Episode 7 - Aired 5/22/1977
Although troubles beset them, the Goods are still glad that they've followed the path of self-sufficiency. Jerry thinks he's failed to succeed Andy as head of JJM. Margo installs a burglar alarm system, but the Goods think they've no need of one, as they've nothing left to steal.
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#4 - The Pagan Rite
Season 1 - Episode 6 - Aired 5/9/1975
In order to pay for a treat for Barbara, Tom takes a short contract from his old firm, and tries to keep it a secret from her - but his plan is foiled when he fails to account for Margo's nosiness.
#5 - Mr Fix-It
Season 2 - Episode 3 - Aired 12/19/1975
A journalist writes a freelance article on the Goods and their way of life. Margo tries to muscle in to promote her forthcoming amateur dramatics production. Jerry obtains quantities of free merchandise for the Goods, on the grounds that the article is to appear in a national Sunday newspaper.
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#8 - Our Speaker Today
Season 4 - Episode 3 - Aired 4/24/1977
When Margo's society's guest speaker pulls out at short notice, Barbara agrees to give a talk about self-sufficiency. She's so good that Lady Truscott asks her to do several other talks, but it interferes with maintaining the animals & crops.
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#9 - Mutiny
Season 2 - Episode 5 - Aired 1/9/1976
Jerry refuses to put up a foreign businessman visiting the company, as it would interfere with Margo's performances as Maria in a local amateur production of The Sound of Music, and he is consequently sacked. The Goods try to get him reinstated.
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#11 - I Talk To The Trees
Season 3 - Episode 4 - Aired 10/1/1976
A fellow allotment holder claims that talking and playing music to his plants gives better yields, so Tom decides to do a scientific experiment, enlisting Barbara's help. Unfortunately, playing music to the crops in the back garden threatens to sour their relationship with Margo, who is standing for election as president of the local amateur operatic society.
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#12 - The Guru of Surbiton
Season 2 - Episode 2 - Aired 12/12/1975
The Goods take in a student couple for a week, to help them with the work on the smallholding. The couple rapidly become infatuated with the Goods and their way of life. When they decide to buy the other house next door, to start a commune with similar aims, Margo becomes incensed.
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#14 - Going to Pot?
Season 2 - Episode 7 - Aired 1/23/1976
Tom's inability to repair the roof decides the Goods on joining evening classes in practical subjects, Barbara taking pottery and Tom taking weaving. Both do badly and decide to swap subjects. Tom achieves outstanding results, resulting in the temptation to go commercial.
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#15 - The Weaver's Tale
Season 4 - Episode 4 - Aired 5/1/1977
When Margo buys a spinning wheel, Tom buys a loom so that the Goods can borrow the spinning wheel and make their own clothes. However, Barbara has just convinced Jerry to forbid Margo to spend any more money, and the spinning wheel purchase is canceled. It looks like the loom is a white elephant.
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#17 - The Green Door
Season 4 - Episode 2 - Aired 4/17/1977
The Goods need some fertiliser for their land in preparation for sowing the new season's crops. When they try getting it from the pony club that Margo belongs to, they find that although she pretends to, she hasn't been going recently. The Goods wonder where she's been going instead.
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#18 - Plough Your Own Furrow
Season 1 - Episode 1 - Aired 4/4/1975
After he has celebrated his 40th birthday Tom decides that he is unhappy with his life style so he packs his job in, farms his large garden and becomes self sufficient.
#19 - Pig's Lib
Season 1 - Episode 4 - Aired 4/25/1975
The Goods continue their bartering with local suppliers, but Barbara has a misunderstanding while negotiating with the window-cleaner. They then add a pair of pigs in a sty to their back garden, at which Margo is so appalled she brings in the chairman of the local residents' association to persuade them out of it, but is unsuccessful. However, when one escapes into the Leadbetter's garden, she can only be mollified by getting rid of it.
#20 - Say Little Hen...
Season 1 - Episode 2 - Aired 4/11/1975
The Goods install the first chickens in their chicken coop, but they prove slow to lay their first eggs. Incensed by the condescension of the Leadbetters when they are invited to dinner together with Tom's former boss & his wife, the Goods decide to sacrifice one of the chickens to make a show of their not being as poor as the Leadbetters think.
#21 - The Weaker Sex?
Season 1 - Episode 3 - Aired 4/18/1975
Tom buys an old-fashioned range for their kitchen from a passing rag-and-bone man, but Barbara becomes irate when she ends up doing most of the hard work to get it ready for use, while he tries to make a system for scaring the birds off their crops.
#22 - The Early Birds
Season 3 - Episode 1 - Aired 9/10/1976
The pressure of work sowing the new season's crops requires the Goods to make the most of the daylight hours. The disturbance of their early morning work sours their friendship with the Leadbetters, and their attempts to go to bed early meet with a variety of frustrations.
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#24 - The Last Posh Frock
Season 3 - Episode 7 - Aired 10/21/1976
Various people mistake Barbara for a man, causing her to doubt her femininity, and when she accidentally tears her last good dress, she becomes distraught. Tom compounds things by fawning over an elegantly dressed dinner guest, but then tries to make up by buying her another dress.
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