[[quoteright:350:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/GoodLife3BBC_468x426.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:This is the life...]]
BritCom about a married couple (Tom and Barbara Good) 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.

Their actions horrify their conventional, and conventionally materialistic, next-door neighbors, Margo and Jerry Leadbetter. 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 actually important.

Came ninth in ''Series/BritainsBestSitcom''.

Known as ''GoodNeighbors'' in the US because Creator/{{NBC}} had an unrelated {{Pilot}} called "The Good Life" a couple years before.

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!!This program provides examples of:
* ActingUnnatural: In one episode, Tom and Barbara think Margo is having an affair. When Jerry walks in, Tom tells Barbara to 'be natural'. They then both stand to attention and grin like idiots.
* AnnoyingLaugh: Jerry. A heh. Heheheheh.
* ArrowCam: At least one episode includes an example of 'Goat Cam': "Geraldine! Kill!"
* BilledAboveTheTitle: "Richard Briers in ''The Good Life''". Briers had been playing sitcom leads for over a decade when he was offered the role of Tom, while Felicity Kendal, Penelope Keith and Paul Eddington were primarily known for their stage work. [[note]]At the time of casting, all four cast members had just appeared in West End runs of new plays by Alan Ayckbourn - Briers and Eddington in ''Absurd Person Singular'' (not at the same time), Kendal and Keith in ''The Norman Conquests''.[[/note]]
* ButtMonkey: Margo - {{Deconstructed}} in one episode:
-->'''Margo''': I [[TheComicallySerious never understood jokes]]... so I became the butt of them.
* CatchPhrase: "Thank you very much, Jerry!"
* ChristmasEpisode: "Silly, But It's Fun"
* ContinuityNod: A few. The show has pretty good continuity, in particular in limiting Tom and Barbara's wardrobe. In "The Day Peace Broke Out", Barbara mentions Tom missing a chicken when trying to shoot it, which occurred in "Say Little Hen...".
* DeadpanSnarker: The whole cast, but Jerry in particular.
* EarthMother: Barbara Good's [[GroundForce Dimmock]]-like ability to grow things whilst radiating earthy sexuality. Her motherly nurturing of the other characters. Occasionally Margo has flashes of an EM personality too.
* EpunymousTitle
* EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep: Jerry's (and formerly Tom's) boss Andrew is often referred to as "Sir", even in the third person.
* EverythingIsMessierWithPigs: Particularly when they dig their way into Margo's garden.
* GargleBlaster: Tom's home-made "peapod burgundy"; one episode features the foursome [[IntoxicationEnsues getting plastered]] on it.
-->'''Tom''': It's hurting the back of my eyes!
* GeorgeJetsonJobSecurity: In the Series 2 episode "Mutiny" Jerry is fired by "Sir" for telling him his Dutch colleague cannot stay at his house because Margo is performing in ''The Sound of Music'' that evening. When Tom confronts "Sir" over Jerry's firing, "Sir" explains that the firing was temporary, and was intended to shake Jerry out of thinking that he is irreplaceable.
* TheGhost: A number of Margo's acquaintances, including Miss Mountshaft of the music society, are talked about regularly but are never seen.
* HappilyMarried: Both couples fight -- Jerry and Margo constantly -- but have very strong relationships.
* HenpeckedHusband: Jerry, although he doesn't hesitate to put his foot down when needs be.
* HomemadeSweaterFromHell: Traditional version in the Christmas Special (natch) but the Goods have a habit of wearing their ''own'' home-made clothes as well.
* HoYay: In-universe example. Tom and Jerry make a few jokey comments about being married to each other.
* InnocentInnuendo: Barbara's first attempts to barter to [[PizzaBoySpecialDelivery pay the window-cleaner's bill]] turn into this, partly because of the recent success of ''[[AwfulBritishSexComedy Confessions of a Window-Cleaner]]'' and similar films. In this case, [[spoiler: the milkman is so abashed by his mistake he leaves without taking payment... and ''then'' Barbara realises what he must have thought she was suggesting.]]
* ItsAllAboutMe: Tom strays into this occasionally, doing things without regard to Barbara's or his neighbours' feelings and causing the problem of the episode. Richard Briers has said he didn't find Tom very likable because of this.
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Margo. She may be stuck-up, but she isn't afraid to apologise when she's wrong.
* KickTheDog: In the Series 4 finale, "Anniversary", the Goods' home is burgled and instead of leaving when they couldn't find anything worth stealing they proceed to completely vandalise the interior of the house - even going as far as to rip up Tom's birthday card. The look on Barbara's face should tell you all you need to know about how pointless it was.
* LawOfInverseFertility: Subverted; both couples have active sex lives, and neither has or desires children. In one episode Jerry comments sardonically that he and Margo use so much protection they barely touch.
* LimitedWardrobe: JustifiedTrope. Tom and Barbara sold the majority of their clothes because they needed the money.
* MarketBasedTitle: As noted, it has a different name in the US.
* MayDecemberRomance: Although Jerry's actor was thirteen years older than Margo's, in-show it was Tom and Barbara who usually gave off this vibe.
** Clues given in the show make it about a ten-year split between Tom Good and Barbara. In one episode, Tom talks about how they moved into the house "a week before they were married" ten years ago. Tom and Jerry, roughly the exact same age, began at JJM at the same time at this point. In the episode with the two hippie kids, Tom asks Barbara what she was doing "when she was that age" (the hippie girl was early 20ish) and she responded that she was "waiting for some bloke [Tom] to call me back." While they may have dated a while before they married, it appears that Barbara was at least early 20s while Tom was at least 30 or very near that age.
* MistakenForCheating: Tom and Barbara think Margo is having an affair in one episode. [[spoiler:She's actually visiting a weight loss clinic.]]
* 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, despite them presumably being just as inconvenienced by their lifestyle.
* NoodleIncident: The amateur production of ''TheSoundOfMusic''. Margo prepares for it for a few episodes and eventually we see her getting ready to perform. The episode cuts directly to Tom, Barbara and Jerry discussing what transpired. It begins with Tom asking, "That was ''The Sound of Music'' we saw wasn't it?" and goes downhill from there.
-->'''Tom:''' Why did Margo sing "Maria"?
-->'''Jerry:''' That's the name of her character.
-->'''Tom:''' I know, but I thought that song came from "West Side Story".
-->'''Barbara:''' It did.
* NotSoAboveItAll: Margo (occasionally).
* PoorCommunicationKills: Averted in "The Windbreak War"; what looks very much like an EscalatingWar in the making is scotched by Jerry forcing everyone to sit down and talk through what's happened. [[HalfwayPlotSwitch Then they all get drunk and hit on each other.]]
* PrettyInMink: Margo had a white fox wrap.
* RunningGag: Tom and Barbara's home-made wine and the effect it has on the drinkers. Jerry in particular learns to avoid it.
* ScrewThisImOuttaHere
-->'''Margo:''' They're becoming incoherent and vulgar! Jerry, ''do'' something!
-->'''Jerry:''' All right. [stands up] Good night. [leaves]
* SheCleansUpNicely: Barbara, especially in "The Last Posh Frock" from Series 3.
* ShoutOutThemeNaming: WesternAnimation/TomAndJerry, natch.
* SickeninglySweethearts: Tom and Barbara have their moments.
* SitCom
* SitcomArchNemesis: Jerry's business rival, the odious Snetterton.
* StealthPun: The two male leads are called WesternAnimation/TomAndJerry. This is never mentioned in the show.
* {{Suburbia}}: It's set in Surbiton.
* TakeOurWordForIt: Margo's performance in ''The Sound of Music''.
* ThemeNaming: The '''Good'''s and the Lead'''better'''s.
* UpperClassTwit: Or rather upper-middle class twits.
* {{UST}}: 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.
* VideoInsideFilmOutside
* WrenchWench: Barbara, who was at least as mechanically capable as Tom.
* YesMan: Jerry is a cheerfully unapologetic example; in one episode as he's about to call up his boss on the phone and grovel, he whips out a comb and works over his hair.
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