Monty Python's Flying Circus Season 2 Blu-ray Review

Although these days shows live or die by their opening episode, let alone their opening season, with even heavy hitters like The Expanse losing audience members early on when the first season didn't set the world ablaze (if it weren't rescued by a billionaire fan, it would have been cancelled), you don't have to look that far back to find first seasons a little bit shaky to say the least (compare Season 1 of Buffy with just about any other season of the tremendous show). Monty Python was really no different, and whilst the comedy is everlasting, clearly they were still cutting their teeth with the still tremendous first season, testing the water to see what works and what doesn't. 


The second season is therefore absolutely packed with classic sketches - some of the all-time best - including the fabulous Ministry of Silly Walks, The Spanish Inquisition (a running theme in this season, for good reason), the Gumby, Live from the Grill-O-Mat, How to Recognise Different Parts of the Body, Scott of the Antarctic (and Sahara!), and the fabulous Spam song. Surreal comedy genius, with Cleese again front and centre, and Gilliam's outstanding animations defining the piece, and the whole thing made all the more sobering given the loss of Jones, this is a gold classic.

Network bring Monty Python's Flying Circus Season 2 to UK Blu-ray with a fully restored 1080p/AVC-encoded High Definition video presentation in the show's original TV aired 'fullscreen' aspect ratio of 1.33:1.

We reviewed the UK Blu-ray release of Monty Python's Flying Circus Season 2 on an LG 55B7 Dolby Vision 4K Ultra HD OLED TV with a Panasonic DP-UB450 Dolby Vision HDR10+ 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray player.


Season 2 of Monty Python fare much the same as the first season, namely something of a miracle in terms of the restoration work, but a flawed effort nonetheless, inherently limited by the relatively soft and poor quality video segments and far more impressive in terms of the 16mm footage, which is noticeably better, although, again, far from perfect. It's the animation that still stands out the best, but of course that remains easiest to polish up, and few fans will not recognise that this is easily the best that the show has ever looked and ever could look after all these decades and given the source material at play. 

The accompanying lossless Linear PCM 2.0 mono track is also a faithful presentation of the audio, similarly limited by the source limitations, and largely - but not exclusively - cleaned up with regard to any pops and crackles. There's plenty fo inherent on location background noise, but it still remains a strong and worthy effort, so much so that, a few episodes in and you barely notice the many flaws that remain present in this decades-old material.