History Series / TheGoodLife

* ChristmasEpisode: "Silly, But It's Fun"

Their actions horrify their conventional, and conventionally materialistic, next-door neighbors, Margo and Jerry Leadbetter (Penelope Keith and Creator/PaulEddington). Well, they horrify Margo. Tom's friend and former colleague Jerry is mostly just bemused. HilarityEnsues. Notable for being a sitcom about sustainability before sustainability was a common topic of discussion.

Their actions horrify their conventional, and conventionally materialistic, next-door neighbors, Margo and Jerry Leadbetter (Penelope Keith and Paul Eddington). Well, they horrify Margo. Tom's friend and former colleague Jerry is mostly just bemused. HilarityEnsues. Notable for being a sitcom about sustainability before sustainability was a common topic of discussion.

* DramaQueen: Margot. Becomes a disastrous combination with ThePrimaDonna when the amateur dramatics society does ''The Sound of Music''. She's a wreck before the show even has a chance to go wrong.

-->'''Mr Carter''': No threats, I just want to have a chat.
-->'''Tom''': That's what Hitler said at Munich.

** Margot was not kicked out of the music society, she resigned!

-->'''Tom:''' Why did Margo sing "Maria"?
-->'''Jerry:''' That's the name of her character.
-->'''Tom:''' I know, but I thought that song came from ''Theatre/WestSideStory''.
-->'''Barbara:''' It did.

* PlasticBitch: In a rare male example, a minor recurring plot point is Jerry's ongoing rivalry in the company with the smug and odious fellow executive Snetterton, who it is rumoured to have had plastic surgery, and at least a nose job. Towards the end of the show when "Sir" is planning to retire, and they are both competing to be named his successor, Jerry even tries to find evidence the rumour is true hoping it will be his ace to get the job, much to Tom and Barbara's amusement.

* RummageSaleReject: Both the Goods have run into this trope due to their need to make-do-and-mend; in Barbara's case (one example being repurposed trousers with one leg the wrong colour!) this is much to the concern of Margot; in Tom's, he had to sell his suit to buy his wife a "posh frock" and make amends, thus turning up to a little gathering in a dinner-jacket and totally inappropriate trousers.

-->'''Margo:''' They're becoming incoherent and vulgar! Jerry, ''do'' something!
-->'''Jerry:''' All right. [stands up] Good night. [leaves]

* UnresolvedSexualTension: Jerry and Barbara, which they're both aware of but never impacts on their [[HappilyMarried happy marriages]]; Tom and Margo to a lesser extent. Face it, if it wasn't for Margo's sensibilities the foursome would have been swinging like monkeys.

* NiceJobBreakingItHero: Tom wheedles Margo into buying an expensive spinning wheel so that he can borrow it for homemade cloth; he assumes that Margo simply order "chequebook, Jerry" as she always does with no problem. Back at home, Barbara is convincing Jerry that he needs to stand up to Margo when she starts overspending. (Of course, Tom and Margo ''are'' being selfish and Jerry should stand up for himself once in a while, but Barbra didn't mean to scuttle Tom's plan.)

* ModestRoyalty: Lady Georgette Truscott, who calls on Barbara to do some public speaking for a variety of charitable causes. Margo is dazzled by her title and keen to impress, but Lady Truscott gets along much better with Tom and Barbara, even when Tom drafts her into helping him carry lumber inside or she has to catch escaped chickens with Barbara. (She also prefers to go by George, as she finds Georgette to be an EmbarrassingFirstName.)

* AccidentalMisnaming: 'Sir' seems convinced that Tom's name is 'Tim', and everyone is either too polite or too obsequious to correct him. The few attempts that are made to correct him just result in confusion, as 'Sir' asks who 'Tom' is.

* AlmostFamousName: One episode revolves around Tom and Barbara being interviewed by a newspaper that turns out, after they've told everyone they know, to be a low-circulation local paper with a similar name to the famous national paper they thought they would be appearing in.

Their actions horrify their conventional, and conventionally materialistic, next-door neighbors, Margo and Jerry Leadbetter (Penelope Keith and Paul Eddington). Well, they horrify Margo. Tom's friend and former colleague Jerry is mostly just bemused. HilarityEnsues. Notable for being a sitcom about Sustainability before sustainability was a common topic of discussion.

** Barbara and Jerry each give one to Tom for his complete dismissal of Barbara's feelings in "The Last Posh Frock". After Tom gave her a big spiel about how he didn't care if she was unglamorous and then fawned all over her ''very'' glamorous school friend, she tears into him for dismissing her feelings as silly and "acting like a woman". When Tom goes to Jerry for some "women eh" sympathy he gets a sharp lecture instead and is chased home by Jerry's signature laugh.

* MobiusNeighbourhood: Other members of the neighbourhood are occasionally mentioned, but we never seem to meet the next-door neighbours on the other side of the Goods' house--in one episode the house is explicitly up for sale, then an artist named Mrs. Weaver moves in, and later moves out. Nothing is said of people who live across the street or a few doors down.

* HoYay: In-universe example. Tom and Jerry make a few jokey comments about being married to each other.

* MarketBasedTitle: As noted, it has a different name in the US.

* NoSenseOfHumor: Margo has trouble with this, though as noted above she can at least manage some DeadpanSnarker moments. In "The Windbreak War", she drunkenly admits that it's a problem she's had her whole life.

* NoSympathy: Although it doesn't come with berating, "The Last Posh Frock" is about Tom having zero sympathy for Barbara wanting to feel feminine once in a while. When she's clearly upset over being taken for a boy and tearing her last nice dress, Tom laughs and ignores her; when they get into a heated argument after Tom fawns all over Barbara's glamorous school friend (directly after saying he would only look at Barbara if he was in a roomful of supermodels) and Barbara pours gravy all over herself to complete the picture of "what Barbaras look like", he ''does not understand'' why she's upset until Jerry chews him out.

BritCom about a married couple, Tom and Barbara Good (Creator/RichardBriers and Felicity Kendal), who decide to give up the rat race and become completely self-sufficient. On his 40th birthday, Tom Good gives up his job as a draughtsman in a company that makes plastic toys for boxes of breakfast cereal. Their house is paid for, so he and his wife decide to live a sustainable, simple and self-sufficient lifestyle while staying in their home in Surbiton. They dig up their gardens and convert them into allotments, growing fruit and vegetables. They buy chickens, pigs, a goat and a rooster. The Goods generate their own electricity, attempt to make their own clothes, and barter for essentials which they cannot make themselves.

* EpunymousTitle

* TheGadfly: Tom enjoys winding up the class-conscious and soft-living Leadbeters, such as when he mock-commiserates with Margo over her housekeepr and gardener vacationing for a month and drags her into a conversation about how terrible it is that people feel financially secure these days and need a little fear of poverty to keep them in line.

** He gets it again when he instantly spends their £10 profits from the fruit crop on a loom he saw in a secondhand shop without even talking to Barbara first. This one he does understand the wrong in by himself.

* AlmostFamousName: One episode revolves around Tom and Barbara being interviewed by a newspaper that turns out, after they've told everyone they know, to be a low-circulation student paper with a similar name to the famous national paper they thought they would be appearing in.

* AnnoyingLaugh: Jerry. A heh. Heheheheh.

* AwLookTheyReallyDoLoveEachOther: For all their bickering, Jerry and Margo do genuinely care for each other, and Margo always backs Jerry to the hilt when he's in serious trouble.

* WhatTheHellHero: Barbara and Jerry each give one to Tom for his complete dismissal of Barbara's feelings in "The Last Posh Frock". After Tom gave her a big spiel about how he didn't care if she was unglamorous and then fawned all over her ''very'' glamorous school friend, she tears into him for dismissing her feelings as silly and "acting like a woman". When Tom goes to Jerry for some "women eh" sympathy he gets a sharp lecture instead and is chased home by Jerry's signature laugh.

* InsistentTerminology: Margot was not kicked out of the music society, she resigned!

* AwwLookTheyReallyDoLoveEachOther: For all their bickering, Jerry and Margo do genuinely care for each other, and Margo always backs Jerry to the hilt when he's in serious trouble.

* BlackmailIsSuchAnUglyWord: Margo says almost exactly this line (minus "such") to her choir mistress in the series 1 episode "The Pagan Rite" regarding the fact that she, not the choir mistress, is the one baking gingerbread cookies for the meetings.

** "Tom, you will take down my dress or I will call the police--and I'm aware that didn't come out right."

* RunningGag: Tom and Barbara's home-made wine and the effect it has on the drinkers. Jerry in particular learns to avoid it.