The Darling Buds Of May is a tribute to the ephemerality of TV success. The six episodes of its first season made British television history by all getting the highest ratings in their slots, beating the sacred cows of Coronation Street and EastEnders into second place. Yet, who remembers it now?

It was lucky to have two exceptional attractions - David Jason and a certain young Welsh woman. The name, Catherine Zeta Jones, makes odd reading at fourth billing in the opening credits, though she had moved up one by the third episode on this disc. Her role is not complex - nothing is here - but she does what she has to do well enough.

The tax inspector, who arrives in the first episode, is well played by Philip Franks and Pam Ferris is the buxom, maternal, loving, carefree Ma Larkin to a tee.

It is Jason, however, as Pop Larkin, who pulls the whole thing together and is the foundation of its success. Time and again, he drags it back from the brink of a mawkish self-congratulatory death.

The narrative set-up, taken from H. E. Bates's novels, is just what TV requires - most scenes in one location, a strong core of characters and a dominant mood, with more than a whiff of national pride, well articulated by Pip Burley's title theme.

There is a Rolls-Royce, a public school, the British countryside in summer and a lazy wedge of Fifties nostalgia. But it is not as you might expect. Pop Larkin bought the Rolls off "some Earl, or summink", saves the public school by getting a maharajah to lean on its creditors and funds the happy plentiful existence of himself and his extended family by trading on the blackmarket - a more Kentish, winsome Arthur Daley.

He is a fair and independent man, mean to the government but generous to all around. The relentless cheer and anti-pessimism - the heart of the story - is very unBritish, although clearly just the thing for recession-hit audiences. What makes it all bearable is some good writing and Jason.

The realisation of what Yorkshire TV inherited from Bates is less remarkable. The first episode is a bit wobbly. It takes some acclimatisation to be able to swallow the word "perfick" 15 times an hour. Zeta Jones's costume looks ready to rock and lines such as, 'It's getting a bit warm for jodhpurs,' have their own double entendres. The direction by Rodney Bennett leaves much to be desired.

The second is some improvement, mainly because the plotting is better and the direction (Steve Goldie) more assured, although some of the acting, particularly by the children, seems barely adequate.

The third episode is a further improvement, but I can't help feeling that it's best to try reading Bates's originals than getting the diluted, partly-botched TV version. His observation of a Kentish family ("As they piled into the lorry, there was an air of gay and uninhibited abandon about it all - wild laughter rang through the village street") carries the strengths of the series with none of the weaknesses.