Info:
DVD Release Date: September 28, 2004 (Columbia Tri-star Home Entertainment)
color, approx. 526 minutes
MSRP: $29.95
Number of Discs: 3
Number of Episodes: 22
Language and Subtitles: English, closed captioned
Special Features: “Stories from the Stoop,” “Three
Ladies Remember 227,” “From Stage to Screen: 227,”
Bonus Previews.
Introduction:
Child, if you’ve been looking for a good sitcom on
DVD, I finally have one for you! 227: The Complete
First Season includes (as the name implies) the
complete first season of this great 1980s sitcom that
starred Marla Gibbs, Jackee Harry, and Alaina Reed
Hall. The series focused upon the friendships and the
daily occurrences that happened in the apartment
building where they all lived (which had the address
227), and despite the fact that the main cast was
completely African American, their race was usually
not even brought up as a topic in the show (which is
very uncommon for sitcoms).
Memorable Episodes / Notable Guest Stars:
The first season, although it isn’t necessarily in my
opinion the best season, is still a great season and
includes many great episodes. Besides the “Pilot”
episode (and the second part of the “Pilot” episode,
The Sidewalk Sale”), some of my personal favorite
episodes were Mary’s Brother,” “Letter to the
President,” “Pity the Poor Working Girl,” “We the
People,” “Slam Dunked,” and “Pick Six.” The first
season has many great plots, but it somewhat lacks in
regards to guest stars and special appearances. The
only somewhat notable guests in this season were Fran
Drescher, Whitman Mayo, and LaWanda Page. Of course,
whenever a show is fresh, the important thing is to
develop the regular characters, so there really isn’t
a need to reach out for guest stars.
Packaging:
The packaging on this set was done very well. Each individual disc has its
own slim case. The back of each case has a brief
description of all of the episodes on that disc, as
well as crew information for each episode such
directors and producers. The individual cases are all
yellow, and each cast has a different screenshot taken
from the show. They also have some text on each
individual case, which includes quotes and trivia that
has something to do with the character that has their
picture on the particular case (for instance, the case
for Disc One says “There’s no place like home! I mean
no place, child.” and has “Mary Jenkins” written
underneath it).
Disc One contains episodes 1-10, Disc Two contains
episodes 11-20, and Disc Three contains episodes 21
and 22, as well as the special features (which are
very good and will be described a little later in this
review). It probably would have made a lot more sense
to put fewer episodes on each disc (maybe 7 or 8
episodes per disc), but obviously, that isn’t how this
set was done. The discs themselves are just plain
black discs with the 227 logo on them.
Menu Design and Navigation:
When you put the DVD into the DVD player, you will be
greeted with a menu that allows you to Play All
episodes or to go to the Episode Selection screen. Of
course, on Disc Three, there is also a Special
Features option on the main menu. On the main menu on
each disc, there is a screenshot from the show, but
there is no music or anything. The menus are clearly
very plain, but then again, the plainer they are, the
easier it is to navigate the menus.
Video and Audio Quality:
As far as the audio and video quality of this set is
concerned, there really aren’t any major concerns. The
stereo audio is a little bit low, but it doesn’t
seem to be quite as bad as some other Columbia
Tri-star Home Entertainment releases. The video is
generally pretty good, although it isn’t the sharpest
that it could possibly be. The set is closed
captioned.
Special Features:
Unlike many other TV-on-DVD products that have been
released by Columbia Tri-star Home Entertainment, this
DVD set contains many very good special features (in
fact it is one of the better sets in comparison to
other series when it comes to special features),
including “From Stage to Screen: 227” (6:11), “Three
Ladies Remembering 227” (6:33), and “Stories from the
Stoop” (20:10). There are also previews for Classic
Comedy (1:29), Contemporary TV (2:04), and Original
Programming TV (2:05).
“From Stage to Screen: 227” is a very good featurette
in which playwright Christine Houston, Marla Gibbs,
and co-creator and producer Bill Boulware discuss the
play that 227 was based upon and how it evolved from
being a community theater play into being a sitcom.
There is a lot of interesting background information
here about the show as well, like why the address of
the building is 227, why they created the character of
Pearl, and it also discusses things that were in the
play that just weren’t quite right for a sitcom.
The “Three Ladies Remembering 227” featurette has
Marla Gibbs, Alaina Reed Hall, and Jackee Harry
sitting together in a studio (I think they should have
put them out on the stoop personally) discussing the
show in general. They discuss what their characters
were like as well as some of their favorite moments
from the show. They don’t get into any discussions
about things that the viewing audience never saw, but
this is still interesting see these three actresses on
the screen together discussing the show after not
hearing much about the show in the past fifteen years.
“Stories from the Stoop” is the third (and perhaps the
best) featurette on this set. It contains all-new
interviews with Gerren Keith, Bill Boulware, Marla
Gibbs, Christine Houston, Hal Williams (you may not
believe how old he looks), Dick Bensfield, Roxie
Wenk-Evans, Jackee Harry, Alaina Reed Hall, and
Arlando Smith. In this featurette, there are
individual interviews where each of the people
discusses various things about the show. Some of these
things include their favorite moments or what they
liked about the characters, but there is also a lot of
information here that most people that have watched
the show may be surprised to find out, such as how
Jackee original contract called for her doing only
seven episodes, as well as how she had originally
tried out to play the part of Rose. This featurette is
definitely worth watching (although all of the ones on
this set are technically).
Final Comments:
This may sound like a very good set and believe me, it
is a good set. Of course no set is perfect. There is
really only one thing (and it is relatively minor)
that bothered me about this set. The episodes are
arranged on the disc in the order that they were
produced rather than the order they aired. That
normally wouldn’t be a big deal, but with 227, if you
wish to watch the episodes in the order that they
aired, you will be changing the discs around more than
a few times. For instance, the first episode on Disc
One is the Pilot episode (which actually was not the
first episode aired on NBC). This episode has a second
part (The Sidewalk Sale) that was produced much later,
and as a result, the second part is on Disc Two.
Again, this is not a major issue, and in fact, if this
is the only real problem with the set (and it seems to
be), then there really isn’t much wrong with the set.
I would definitely recommend this set to anybody that
likes 227. In fact, even if you don’t like 227, you
should still consider purchasing this set. It is a
very good show, and this set was done very well,
almost to the point of perfection.
Final Numbers (out of 5 stars):
Video Quality: 4/5
Audio Quality: 4/5
Special Features: 4.5/5
Menu Design/Navigation: 5/5
Overall: 4.5/5
-- Reviewed by skees53 on 09/07/04
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