No Plot, No Good.
DVD Reviews:
Family Guy: Season 1 & 2
Always struggling for ratings during it's run on Fox, Family Guy, has found a whole new audience and much greater appreciation with its second run on Cartoon Network and its release on DVD. One of the largest selling DVD collections of 2003, Family Guy has gone from underappreciated to huge cult hit status, and is even going back into production for new episodes after a couple years off. For this reviewer, Family Guy isn't a very big hit on DVD unfortunately. I always thought this show was funny, and would try to watch it when it was airing on Fox, and I was stoked to have the opportunity to watch the first two seasons on DVD. It just didn't keep my attention, though. Watching TV shows on DVD is usually a pretty compulsive experience for me. I start watching and I can't stop. I will watch for a couple or more hours at a time and I will want to go back every day until that DVD set is complete, but The Family Guy didn't drive me to that rabid level of watching. I would watch one episode then when I started the second it felt really uninspiring. I never felt like I was learning anything new about the characters, and the jokes seemed pretty repetitive. All the jokes on the show are of the pop culture satirical tip, which is pretty good, but they are all rapid-fire reference style, and are more clever than funny, and after one episode it becomes a little tedious. I still think this show is pretty funny, and if you are a fan it would be good to one and check out an episode every once in a while, but this style of series really didn't mesh with my DVD viewing habits, and left me feeling really flat.
The Simpsons: Season 3
Nearly everyone has a history, and a well formed opinion of The Simpsons. It's been running for 15 years!! Can you believe it?? It will become the longest running television comedy ever at the end of this season. It's characters are some of the most recognizable people in the world. The Simpsons are icons. Enough of that, how is season three, you ask. It's just OK, I respond. I watched season two upon it's release about a year ago, and being surprised at how much I enjoyed it. I thought it would coincide with my memories of very early and very crude early Simpson with that much gruffer Homer voice, and just a mess of catch phrases. There was elements of that in season two but it was a really lovable series with some pretty funny moments with a heavy emphasis on moral lessons and junk, and it was nice. My surprise love for season two lead me to have really high expectations for season three expecting it to be a perfect blend of that lovable early family style Simpsons and the brilliant comedy of seasons like five and six. It was enjoyable but not great. There are a couple really great episodes, such as "Flaming Moe's" and "When Flanders Failed," but the majority are not outstanding. The best comedy in season three comes from self referential humor mocking the huge Simpsons mania and merchandising that struck America in 90 and 91. There isn't that scathing pop culture satirical streak to the show yet. It's still pretty mild. With all that said, this is still a classic series and these are good episode, definitely enjoyable and worth seeing for historical reasons. In the end, it left me a little unsatisified and waiting for seasons four and five.
Six Feet Under: Season One
Six Feet Under is a show that I was completely unfamiliar with before viewing this DVD set, and now I feel like I am a part of this wildly interesting family that Six Feet Under is based upon. Six Feet Under is an example of awesome television. It is a dramatic series that focuses on the Fisher family, who run a morturary in Southern California, immediately after the patriach of the family dies. The series was created by Alan Ball, the made who made American Beauty. The characters are so well drawn, and each deal with the death of Nathaniel (the father, husband) in different and all realistic ways. The characters have flaws and yet remain likable. The writing is such a solid mix of character devolpment and plot. The show is riveting, and somehow funny. The acting is incredible, featuring wonderful performances from Peter Krause (previously from the brilliant Sports Night series), Lauren Ambrose (previously from the awesome teen comedy, Can't Hardly Wait), and Jeremy Sisto (previously playing Jesus in the bad TV movie Jesus and Julius Caeser in a mini series). The family is dysfuctional is many ways, but not ways that we don't all recognize from our own lives. I can't say enough good things about this show, and I can't urge you to obtain a copy (rental or library preferred, the dvd set is pretty pricey) of Six Feet Under: Season 1 and bask in some seriously awesome TV.
I agree about Simpsons season 3. Kind of a let-down. In subsequent seasons it reached heights of some awesomosity that now when we look back it is impossible to remember how exciting season 3 was AT THE TIME. Me, I am waiting until season 5, and then I will PURCHASE THE ENTIRE DVD SET. That is a fucking great season.
Some people are SO into the Family Guy, and I can't feel it!
Six Feet Under ranks below Sopranos for me, but I still really love it, and have had dreams about it.
And I have never watched enough Simpsons to separate the seasons in my mind.
Dude, Six Feet!!! I like it so much more than The Sopranos. I feel it so much deeper. HITS ME! HARD!!
Wait, so you don't like The Simpsons?? Never got in?? There are so many different very distinct phases of the Simpsons, and it was very different shows at different times.
I'm glad you're further exploring this recent phenomenon of DVD sets of TV shows selling millions and millions of copies.
I, like you, am typically very engaged by TV series on box set DVD. I mean, for me it is "no commericals." That is for me.
Fox has always been shady about the Family Guy, and I never knew why. Literally every single person I knew when the show was first airing saw and loved the show. It is very funny, and a great weekly "fix" kind of show.
That having been said, I have also been disappointed by repeated viewings of the show. I, and others it seems.
Frankly, the show was never given time to fully develop and flesh out the characters. The plots are all based on the same types of running gags, and the shows themselves feel much more like a series of sketches than full fledged narrative episodes.
I think, given time to develop, there is a goldmine of satirical and comedic splendour to be found in the Family Guy, but, like seasons one through three of the Simpsons, we're only at the "catch phrases and crude humor" level.
well, RE: Simpsons, I only watch reruns and stuff.
Not everybody can watch all the tv they want to at any time regardless of schedule. (I'm glaring at you!)
I like it a lot. If I'm sitting down and an episode is coming on, I'll totally watch it. I think I go for Seinfeld over Simpsons though. (And yes! the social commentary is so brilliant!)
RE: Six Feet Under (Or 6.F.U. as Lisa and I called it during our addict-like bingey Netflix voracious devouring of the first season... and then later X.F.U.)
It's a great show. Some of it was a little bit melodramatic for me, particularly the mother. That's my problem with it, it is just a tad "stagey". I think that happens to me whenever a dramatic tv show has an imposed structure that comes back every week (AKA the person dies, the death relates to the happenings in the household somehow, the funeral happens at the end of the episode), it takes me out of disbelief suspension mode, making me aware of the structure. I definitely like the structure though, I think it's a great way to stage each episode, and it adds greatly to the creepy dark humor I love about it.
No Joke. Michael Jackson wrote "The Bartman" song.
The Simpsons were crucial to my early humor development. We would watch it every single thursday at my friend dave's house. the seasons are very segmented in my brain--5 and 6 was when shit hit the fan. Then 9 started to get bad. 10 became truly shitty. By mid college I never watched it. Now, I have not seen a new episode in years and never shall I. However, much like Robert DeNiro and Jack Nicholson, no amount of shittiness later in its life can ever sully the true gleaming brilliance of those middle seasons.
Yeah, David, wasn't ripping you at all. I just thought everyone near my age has The Simpsons as a part of adolesence (i like ritchey would watch every week, and we would talk about it at school). It's totally legit. Ritchey, a lot of people claim that these last couple seasons are really good and brilliant just in a different sort of way. I haven't seen a new episode in years, but I will probably see them on DVD eventually.
Seinfeld is the greatest television series ever. I have every episode on a hard drive. I know them all too well. Even though, Curb Your Enthusiasm is seriously challenging.
6FU kicks SOPRANOS butt.
Good call on "Six Feet Under," Steve. Gene and I recently binged on the first season, and I am hooked. Now there's something to look forward to after the demise of "Sex and the City"!
Thanks Tara.
Second Season of Six Feet Under comes out on DVD June 8th!
SO GOOD!
I was really into Sopranos. My friend and I watched the entire second season in one night. Really good. I've only seen the first few episodes of Season Four, but I could tell it had changed. I recently watched the first two episodes of season one, and they still blew me away, even though I'd already seen them. Six Feet Under is also top notch. I'm not sure if I'd rank it above Sopranos, but i've only seen the first few episodes. It definitely has the potential to take the number one seed.
Don't get me wrong, Sopranos is really really solid. I was just being controversial. HBO makes hot TV. Sopranos is definitely one of the best shows on TV.
I am deep in Sopranos right now. I am in the middle of season three, and I think about it so much. I think it is such a good show. I haven't seen 6 feet under, but if it is even close to as good as The Sopranos, then count me IN. Steve: I had not heard this about recent Simpsons. I just got so burned by season 9 and stuff that I feel weird about watching a new episode. I could see myself getting back in. Also, yes, very into the muppets. I once cried when an episode of it ended and then my mother laughed at me.