Monty Python's Personal Best

The picture quality is as you would expect from a TV show of this vintage. Although there are some scratches on the source material, everything is still perfectly clear. During 'Blackmail' on the Michael Palin disc, a primitive flashing stopwatch is superimposed. Those that don't have epileptic seizures will notice a few split seconds of what can best be described as a video that needs the tracking button pressed. It is, I assume, how it was when first broadcast, and isn't a major problem, but it's the sort of thing that would ideally be remastered in a future release.

The audio quality is fine throughout, as is the subtitling.

The Idle, Jones, Chapman and Palin discs include Second Bests, which is to say another seven minutes of sketches on each disc. The cynic in me says they could have just made each main features seven minutes longer, but it's all funny.

John Cleese's disc features a tongue-in-cheek behind the scenes documentary, revealing him to be a monster. There aren't any belly laughs, and the jokes are a little obvious, but it does raise a smile.

Terry Gilliam's retrospective has him talking about the process of animation and the show itself. Although there's not a lot that the Pythons could say in interviews that hasn't been said before, it would have been nice if the other discs all contained a similar interview.

Each disc has a 10 question quiz. There's nothing to fault them on, but they don't grab the attention.

For a six-disc box-set, the extras feel rather light. There's nothing to get one's teeth into, there's nothing to put either the series or the personal selections in context to make the collection an interesting reference point. Wait a couple of months and get the whole series instead.