Roseanne – The Complete First Season

 

Picture: C+     Sound: C+     Extras: C     Episodes: B-

 

 

In a cycle of sitcoms built around stand-up comics, Roseanne remains one of the most successful and remembered.  It was an amusing show, though its fans thought it was hilarious.  Key to its success, it was a show about people from the working class with limited money who did what they could to cope with life.  Since the 1980s, TV has tried to ignore such people, though they make up so much of their customer base.  Roseanne herself was a new face and her original stand-ups were darkly funny.

 

This had to be toned down for the show, but the Carsey-Werner team was on a hot streak and knew how to balance her talent with the needs of a situation comedy.  The series was rarely political and the result is some childishness that caught up with the series in later seasons, but the casting in the first season clicked and the episodes in this Complete First Season 4 DVD set are:

 

1)     Life & Stuff

2)     We’re In The Money

3)     D-I-V-O-R-C-E

4)     Language Lessons

5)     Radio Days

6)     Lover’s Lane

7)     The Memory Game

8)     Here’s To Good Friends

9)     Dan’s Birthday Bash

10)  Saturday

11)  Canoga Time

12)  The Monday Thru Friday Show

13)  Bridge Over Troubled Sonny

14)  Father’s Day

15)  Nightmare On Oak Street

16)  Mall Story

17)  Becky’s Story

18)  The Slice Of Life

19)  Workin’ Overtime

20)  Toto, We’re Not in Kansas Anymore

21)  Death & Stuff

22)  Dear Mom & Dad

23)  Let’s Call It Quits

 

 

So the show was nothing groundbreaking, but it did amount to a return of the repressed for prime time TV and it is certain there were many who were not happy by default.  This might be the reason in part the star became such a target of the media.  The only dysfunctional thing about the show this critic never liked is the dislike of children, which is never a joke unless you are a parent with issues.  Otherwise, the show was consistent for the kind of humor it offered and hit big.

 

The 1.33 X 1 image is soft at times, being shot on professional analog NTSC video, one of the last such hit series to ever be produced this way.  Color is as consistent as it is going to get and all looks to be close to the source tapes.  The Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo has no surrounds, but is of the expected fidelity for a series from 1987 produced like this.  The result is playback as good as you will ever see the show.  Extras include two trailers for other TV series from Anchor Bay, and very short pieces including new separate interviews with Roseanne and co-star John Goodman, bloopers, highlights and Wisdom From A Domestic Goddess.  Fans will be pleased.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo