Party Of Five – The Complete Third Season (Sony DVD)
Picture:
C Sound: C+ Extras: D Episodes: C
Party Of Five was always one of those shows I
did not despise, yet was never a big fan of and thought was always an awkward
show. The idea that the children have to
raise themselves since the parents died in a car accident always seemed like a
lame excuse to have yet another young cast and when the youngest gal on the
show is just another precocious young lady like the many annoying 1980s sitcom
kids, that seems to confirm it.
Yet, the
show was a hit for six years and The
Complete Third Season (1996/97) catches the show in the middle of its run
as the melodrama continues to unfold for better and usually for worse. All 25 shows are here and though I think that
have aged badly, the one thing they have going for them is the one thing that
made the show a hit: the chemistry of its somewhat appealing lead actors
including Neve Campbell, Scott Wolf, Matthew Fox and Lacey Chabert. If anything, their casting is the only reason
this show deserved to be any kind of hit because you can believe that they are
a family, but if you start thinking of others in these roles, the teleplay
problems become painfully obvious.
Now fans
can get the show on DVD and it is selling well enough, so it looks like Sony
will get the entire series in time. And
the four stars may have yet to peak in their careers either.
The 1.33
X 1 image is soft throughout, with digititis and detail issues uniformly across
all episodes. Why is this for a show
mastered in HD and shot on film, we don’t know, but the Blu-rays will hopefully
not have this problem. The Dolby Digital
2.0 Stereo is a little weak for a resent show, yet cleaner than a cable/broadcast
version. Extras include to minisodes
(read severely “cut down” episodes) of Silver
Spoons & Facts Of Life to
promote box sets of both.
- Nicholas Sheffo
