The Odd Couple – The Second Season
Picture:
C+ Sound: C+ Extras: D Episodes: B
The TV
series version of The Odd Couple was
a big, much needed hit for ABC in its debut season and continued to be so in The Odd Couple – The Second Season,
where the show became tighter and more refined in finding itself. You can read more about the series and the
first season set at this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/5412/The+Odd+Couple+–+The+First+Sea
Randall
and Klugman only got better in the 1971 – 1972 season, with the 23 episodes
syndicated nicely, but something funny happens when you see them here. You can see the writers and leads slowly
making the situation tenser between the characters as they do find ways to
drive each other crazy. You have Felix
being proper and moral beyond reproach, while Oscar continues to regret hosting
his friend on and off.
Also,
they began with great chemistry and it just kept getting better and
better. This was rare for any TV show,
especially a situation comedy, but this is one of the wittiest, smartest such
series TV ever had holding its own against innovators like All In The Family. Few shows
of any kind have had its wit since.
The 1.33
X 1 image is again not bad, but despite the clean and sometimes colorful
appearance of the prints come with a bit more grain than one might like, but it
is hard to tell if this is from the original camera materials or when these
prints were struck. The Dolby Digital
2.0 Mono is still nice and clean for its age, so the combination is good, but
only HD transfers will reveal to what extent.
Despite some nice extras on the first set, there are
zero here when they should have increased
the goodies.
- Nicholas Sheffo
