Fresh Fields: Set Two (Seasons 3 & 4/1985 – 6/Acorn Media)/Happy Endings – The Complete First Season
(Sony)/Kendra: Seasons Two & Three
(MPI)/Melissa & Joey – Season One,
Part Two (Shout! Factory/DVD Sets)
Picture: C+ Sound: C+ Extras: C-/C-/D/D Episodes: C+/C-/D/D
The
following TV comedy series releases show that youth has nothing to do with good
comedy, intelligence or even energy.
It is
therefore ironic that Fresh Fields: Set
Two (with Seasons 3 & 4 from 1985 and 1986) is the oldest and easily
funniest of the four titles here. We
previously covered the entertaining Anton Rodgers/Julia McKenzie series in its
debut seasons at this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/10797/Fresh+Fields+%E2%80%93+Set+One
It is
more of the same, but that is a good and entertaining thing, with two very
talented actors totally convincing as a married couple trying to hold things
together even when she wants to do new things and he wants things to stay the
same. This is smart, fun and believable,
even if it falls into the usual BritCom/sitcom patterns. Extras include filmography text on each star.
Happy Endings – The Complete First
Season is set in
Chicago and is an ensemble piece including Elisha Cuthbert and Damon Wayans
that starts silly with a wedding that is abandoned at the last minute and never
gets better, thinking its audience like adults that are perpetually infantile
and that somehow equals comedy. I blame Friends and other bad sitcoms that have
helped kill the format’s quality, but the same of it is that the 13 episodes
here stay dumbed down and never get better, yet the talent was here for a
better show that we will never get to see.
Extras include Deleted Scenes, Outtakes, Interview piece and three other
show-related clip items.
Even
worse is Kendra: Seasons Two & Three,
a reality TV show that thinks it is a sitcom with the people on it acting even
more infantile than infantile sitcom people.
Who is Kendra and should we care?
No. She is the wife of a football
player, but that certainly does not justify a TV special let alone an entire TV
show, yet this is the level to which “reality TV’ has sunk and these are the
“Uncensored” versions of the shows as if something priceless, important and
vital was being withheld from the audience in edited versions. The whole affair is phony and tired as usual
and her storyline about having a baby can only make millions of underage young
girls without money or support want to have babies as if this will be the
solution to their problems. Extras
include Deleted Scenes and Outtakes.
Finally
is the thankfully cancelled Melissa
& Joey – Season One, Part Two, as if cutting the one disastrous season
in half makes the show more successful or important. What I said about the first half at the
following link holds for the rest of it:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/10939/According+To+Jim+%E2%80%93+Th
This too
is desperate and everyone looks bored.
It is not like any of this is funny.
There are no extras, likely because the starts do not even want to talk
about this dud.
The 1.33
X 1 image on Fields is the oldest
shot on PAL analog video, but it is the equal of the anamorphically enhanced
1.78 X 1 image on the rest of the releases, all looking soft with shaky camera
work, motion blur and a watered-down look that is not fun to watch. Fields
has a solid Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono soundtrack that also holds its own against
the Dolby Digital 5.1 mix on Endings
that is too much towards the front speakers and in the center channel, the
location audio problematic Dolby Digital 2.0 on Kendra that is barely stereo and Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo on Joey that is barely stereo and also
could sound better but does not.
- Nicholas Sheffo
