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Category:    Home > Reviews > Drama > TV Situation Comedy > Family > Horror > Action > Science Fiction > Aliens > Murder > Media > Journal > Eight Is Enough – The Complete Third Season, Volume One + Volume Two (1978 – 1979/Warner Archive DVD Sets)/Falling Skies - The Complete Second Season (2013/Warner Blu-ray Set)/The Newsroom – The Compl

Eight Is Enough – The Complete Third Season, Volume One + Volume Two (1978 – 1979/Warner Archive DVD Sets)/Falling Skies - The Complete Second Season (2013/Warner Blu-ray Set)/The Newsroom – The Complete First Season (2013/HBO Blu-ray w/DVD)

 

Picture: C+/B-/B- & C     Sound: C+/B-/B- & C+     Extras: D/C/B     Episodes: B-/C-/B

 

 

PLEASE NOTE: Both volumes of Eight Is Enough are only available from Warner Bros. through their Warner Archive series and can be ordered from the link below.

 

 

Now for the newest TV releases…

 

 

By the 1978 – 1979, ABC was still the #1 network on TV and Eight Is Enough – The Complete Third Season was one of the reasons.  Issued by Warner Archive in separate Volume One and Volume Two DVD Sets, the hit show was really the last of a cycle of a new kind of family series that began with The Dick Van Dyke Show and continued for a while afterwards of a new kind of more naturalistic, modern family.  Longtime character actor Dick Van Patten headed the household of a big group of brothers and sisters, raising them with the new woman in his life, played by the great Betty Buckley.

 

Produced by Lorimar, who gave us The Waltons and Dallas, it is the only hour-long show (maybe the first) to feature a laugh track, yet it was not a “dramedy” (terrible phrase) and one of the last family shows of any kind shot on film before the regressive 1980s.  Unfortunately, the show started to become too formulaic and trouble started to set in.

 

Each show was always bookended with what Adam Rich’s Nicholas Bradford (the youngest of all the kids) was doing, then the rest of the show was about the rest of the characters or which ones were the main focus of that particular show.  The cast had definitely become more than convincing as a real family, but when co-star Grant Goodeve was allowed to add words to the theme song and sing them (?!?), it was the beginning of the end of taking the show seriously in any way and the show started to push itself into a corner.

 

Having Jennifer Darling as Tom (Van Patten) Bradford’s secretary fresh off of both hit Bionic shows was a plus (I never thought anyone would turn Bionic at the time), but that was it.  There was nothing new going on, the 1970s became the 1980s and eventually, the show declined.  The two sets have all 28 hour-long episodes and this was a show long overdue on DVD.  Warner has now corrected that one.  As a fan of the earlier seasons, I would start with them before seeing this one, whether you have seen the show before or not.  It was still a quality show ands the cast was in good form.

 

There are no extras.

 

 

We join the Steven Spielberg-produced Falling Skies in its Complete Second Season (2013) and I was not impressed when this show debuted a few years ago, but now, I am especially bored with the show now looking like a tired spin-off-like continuation of his War Of The Worlds remake, but it is for a Spielberg production, uncharacteristically dark, angry, brittle, tired, soapy and forgettable.  We get ten more episodes of tattered humans fighting formula digital alien invaders (though it looks as bad as that Terminator TV show) and in this case, if you have any hope of enjoying what is here, you definitely should start with the first season.  I did and it was quickly forgotten.  For fans only, whoever they are.

 

Extras include a Season two animated trailer, audio commentary tracks on select episodes, Season Three preview and four Behind The Scenes featurettes including one called a Behind The Scenes featurette.

 

 

Fortunately, we get the best for last with The Newsroom – The Complete First Season (2013), created by Aaron Sorkin.  Many shows have been done about people in the media from The Mary Tyler Moore Show to Lou Grant to Sports Night and a couple of others, but they are rare and there is no guarantee they’ll work.  With ten hour-long shows, this series starts out slowly and sets up its comic side well, but then, it really picks up and turns out to be another serious winner for HBO.

 

Jeff Daniels, in one of the best roles of his career, is Will McAvoy, the big star at the 24-hour ACN News Network.  He is having personal problems, the owners of the network (including Jane Fonda) are not always fans of him and they are in the battle to choose between hard journalism and selling out for ratings and sensationalism.  He decides to renegotiate his contract to get a new producer on who happens to be an old lover (Emily Mortimer) and that sets up the loony side of the show.

 

ON the other hand, Sorkin and company also set up the serious side of the show which includes the maneuvers by McAvoy to do real work in the face of censorship and other devious tricks, which gives the makers a chance to go after the low level of lack of journalism the current media is responsible for and along with a great supporting cast of new comers and the terrific Sam Waterston, this could be on its way to becoming some kind of classic.

 

Greg Mottola (Adventureland, Superbad) not only directs three of the episodes, but Co-Produces the show and really adds fine sensibility to it, as his commentary participation further confirms.  This could also be a star-making show and HBO needs to stick with this one to the end.  We used to get shows this good on broadcast network TV, but hardly anymore.  That is why I strongly recommend The Newsroom as one of the best TV releases of the year and best new shows in years.

Extras include Ultraviolet Copy for PC, PC portable and iTunes-capable devices, the bonus DVD versions, audio commentary tracks on select shows, Deleted Scenes on select episodes, Inside The Episodes clips and Behind The Scenes featurettes in The Rundown and Mission Control.

 

 

The 1080p 1.78 X 1 digital High Definition image transfers on both Blu-rays tie for the best picture performance, but Newsroom just looks a bit better if narrowly, yet the anamorphically enhanced DVD version of Newsroom is the softest performer on the list.  The 1.33 X 1 transfers on Enough come from original 35mm elements and though they may be soft in some cases, are the best-looking of the two DVDs and the elements were apparently preserved well.

 

The DTS-HD MA 5.1 lossless mixes on The Newsroom Blu-ray episodes (which are dialogue-based) and Dolby TrueHD 5.1 lossless mixes on the Skies episodes are about even, but the Skies episodes should be the best with the kind of superior soundfields you usually get from Spielberg releases.  They are not and I was disappointed.  The lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 on The Newsroom DVD episodes and lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono on the Enough episodes are a tie for second as The Newsroom DVDs are weaker still, but Enough sounds pretty good for its age and better than Lorimar DVDs for The Waltons, Falcon Crest and Dallas,

 

 

To order both volumes of Eight Is Enough, go to this link for it and many more great web-exclusive releases at:

 

http://www.warnerarchive.com/

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo


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