Men Of A Certain Age – The Complete First Season (2010/Warner DVD set) + thirtysomething – The Complete Final Season (1990 – 1991/Season Four/Shout Factory DVD set)
Picture:
C/C+ Sound: C+ Extras: C/C- Episodes: C+/C
For a
short time in the 1960s and 1970s, talk about aging was not a joke, a way to
put one’s self down and the idea of healthier, more positive living put aside
negativity and a problematic sense of surrender, as if people should be
helpless and boring when they grow old.
For political reasons too long to go into here, it was reintroduced in
the 1980s with a vengeance and has not gone away. The latest show to continue this regressive
trend is the drama with comedy Men Of A
Certain Age, made by Ray Romano for the TNT network.
He plays
one of three middle-aged men trying to deal with his family life and finding
happiness in a sea of some regrets.
Romano was absolutely obnoxious on the why-was-it-a-hit TV sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond (ironically
titled since not everybody did, on or off screen), joined by Scott Bakula and
Andre Braugher as his friends through this “terrible” time in life. Though it is one of the few interesting
things the otherwise uninteresting Romano or Bakula have done, the show is
uneven, formulaic and Braugher honestly steals each scene and for that matter,
the show because he is a far superior actor, especially as compared to his
co-stars.
A
moderate hit, we’ll see how long it lasts, but I don’t expect any changes
unless Braugher leaves the show from being bored. Ten hour-long shows make up the set.
thirtysomething found a way to make the young
(read yuppies) seem older than they needed to be and after four seasons had
finally worn out its welcome and sold all the diapers, baby formula and foreign
cars for all of us. I never liked the
show, only found a little to like about it since and my toughs have not changed
since I covered the first season here:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/8927/thirtysomething+%E2%80%93+The+C
After
letting someone else cover the Third
Season, I returned to see if anything was better in the end, and if
anything the show was played out across its 23 hour-long shows. If anything, the show became even more
distant and it started that way, so this is not the season to begin on if you
must see the show. They quit while they
were ahead.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on Certain
is shot in HD and is softer throughout all the shows (even when style is
figured in) than a new series should be.
I was surprised it was so problematic, but there it is, while the 1.33 X
1 comes from new High Definition transfers and looks as good as any of the
previous seasons, but especially better than its 20-years-younger
counterpart. There are still some detail
limits and small issues, but this is an improvement over earlier sets. The Dolby Digital 5.1 mix on Certain is too much towards the center
channel and is on the quiet and weak side, so don’t expect much in the way of
surrounds, while the Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo on thirtysomething is also quiet and weak, yet is not much better or
worse than the show that is 20 years newer.
Extras on
Certain include commentary on select
shows, Deleted Scenes, a Behind The
Scenes featurette and Gag Reel, while thirtysomething
only adds a new introduction by Edward Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz.
- Nicholas Sheffo