Info:
Release Date: September 13, 2005 (HBO Home Video)
Color/1999-00
MSRP: $44.98
Number of Discs: 5
Number of Episodes: 24
Running Time: 720 minutes
Total Run Time of Special Features: 118 Minutes
(approx).
Audio: English, French, Spanish
Subtitles: English, French, Spanish
Special Features:
*Four audio commentaries with series creator Phil
Rosental, Ray Romano, Brad Garrett, Patricia Heaton,
and writers Lew Schneider and Aaron Shure
*Deleted Scenes
*Bloopers
Introduction:
Everybody Loves Raymond is about a rather crazy
extended family in Long Island. Starring Ray, a
successful sportswriter, and husband of Debra (played
by Patricia Heaton). The couple consistently deals
with their young kids - a 6 year-old daughter and twin
sons, as well as Ray's brother, Robert (Brad Garrett),
and parents Frank (Peter Boyle) and Marie (Doris
Roberts), who are always coming over at unexpected
times or otherwise meddling in their business.
Memorable Episodes / Notable Guest Stars:
At this point in the series’ run, the show is quite
good – and on a consistent basis. A few
recommendations as far as episodes go include #10
(Left Back), #15 (Robert’s Rodeo), Episode #20 (Alone
Time), and essentially anything on disc five.
Following this mini-paragraph is a list of guest stars
for Everybody Loves Raymond’s 4th season, and what
episode to find them in.
Guest Stars for Season 4:
Robert Culp (“The Greatest American Hero”) – Episode
11 – “The Christmas Picture” - Episode 16 – “The Tenth
Anniversary”
Lew Schneider, a writer for the show – Episode 11 –
“The Christmas Picture”
Katherine Helmond (“Who’s the Boss,” “Soap”) – Episode
11 – “The Christmas Picture” - Episode 16 – “The Tenth
Anniversary”
Ja’Net DuBois (“Good Times,” [singer of “The
Jeffersons” theme]) – Episode 13 – “Bully on the Bus”
Paul Reubens (Pee-Wee Herman) – Episode 17 – “Hackidu”
Packaging:
Packaging for Raymond 4 is identical to the previous
seasons’ packaging in every way except the photos used
and the dominant color used for the box/disc/menu art
– this time orange. As always, there’s a cast picture
on top of the front cover, with a larger shot of Ray
smiling in the bottom corner. Reverse cover has
another cast picture, and another – different – shot
of Ray in the bottom right. Inside, the five ORANGE
DVDs are arranged with discs one and two seen when
opening the set. Unfolding the set further reveals a
disc index, and the other three discs. Disc one has
episodes 1-5, disc two has episodes 6-10, disc three
has episodes 11-15, disc four has episodes 16-20 and
disc five has episodes 21-24. As with last time, a
word of warning…the extended pieces of plastic on the
disc holders that help seal the case are fragile – if
you drop the case with any degree of force, the
plastic connectors WILL break – be careful. Did I
mention that the packaging was orange?
Menu Design and Navigation:
Just like every past Raymond set before, the main menu
– definitely going with the orange color scheme -
features a series of scrolling video clips playing
(with audio), over the main theme. The first thing
you might notice that’s different (wow, a difference
in something in an ELR DVD set....) is that the menu
is now in 16:9! This becomes an important
consistency later on. Option selection in the menus
is still just a simple text menu below the playing
clips. The Special Features, Episode Selection, and
Language menus each feature a row of cast pictures
with one particular picture in the foreground. With
there being several menu pages per disc, and a total
of ‘five’ discs, it's just an impossibility to list
ALL the pictures and clips used in the set. They did
change a couple of tiny things, graphically. As said
before, Menus are orange this time, to match the
overall release art for the season – also orange, and
the pictures were again swapped out for pictures from
this season. Proving that last season’s release was
no fluke…there IS a Play All option! For those of
you unfamiliar with the previous ELR sets, seasons one
and two didn’t feature the button, while season three
did. The absence of a Play All feature is viewed by
many as a hindrance which can get in the way of
playback at times – particularly if you happen to
misplace your remote. Also, Play All allows a user
to click a button, and then they can just lounge in
front of the TV watching episode after episode with no
more work involved for hours. Many thanks to HBO for
again including this bit of requested menu
functionality.
Video and Audio Quality:
Episodes are presented in 4:3 Aspect Ratio, wait…hold
the phone: EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND SEASON 4 IS IN
WIDESCREEN! Actually, the few fans of the show that
had HDTV’s and a HD-capable signal in 1999 already
knew the show was shown in 16:9 starting in season 4,
but for most of us, this is the first chance we get to
see the earlier seasons of the show with the extra
room. Video looks exceptionally nice. HBO did a
nice job with the video transfer and cleanup, the
episodes look great, more or less…there’s a minor flaw
here and there, but overall the video looks pretty
good – no noticeable artifacting on any of the
episodes. Audio’s the same ole Dolby 2.0 Stereo,
available in English, Spanish, and French, and sounds
good enough – it’s not the awe-inspiring 5.1 used in
other arenas, and on newer shows, but it’s decent
enough. Audio’s a bit soft – I did have to turn my
speakers up to hear it. The chapter setup is the same
as the third season’s release--Opening Teaser +
Opening Credits / Each Scene / Closing Credits. I
complained about the lack of a split between the
Teaser and Credits last season, but, honestly, it’s no
big deal.
Due to the recent practice by some outfits of
releasing syndicated episodes of a series onto DVD as
opposed to the much-preferred master copies, from here
onward in all my reviews I will be listing the
runtimes of every episode in the DVD set next to the
episode title. As I don’t always have the resources
to judge every show versus the original or syndicated
copies, I may be unable to state with certainty
whether a set is original broadcast-length or if it’s
syndication-edited in some cases, therefore I’m
including runtimes, and you can make up your own mind.
1) Boob Job: 22:31
2) The Can Opener: 22:17
3) You Bet 22:31
4) Sex Talk: 22:28
5) The Will: 22:28
6) The Sister: 22:22
7) Cousin Gerard: 22:35
8) Debra's Workouts: 22:33
9) No Thanks: 22:33
10)Left Back: 22:31
11)The Christmas Picture: 22:28
12)What's with Robert?: 22:33
13)Bully on the Bus: 22:15
14)Prodigal Son: 22:17
15)Robert's Rodeo: 22:33
16)The Tenth Anniversary: 22:30
17)Hackidu: 22:33
18)Debra Makes Something Good: 22:21
19)Marie & Frank's New Friends: 22:32
20)Alone Time: 22:32
21)Someone's Cranky: 22:08
22)Bad Moon Rising: 22:25
23)Confronting the Attacker: 22:14
24)Robert's Divorce 22:28
Special Features:
Commentary:
Boob Job: Ray Romano, Phil Rosenthal, and Lew
Schneider. This is an interesting track - the story
behind this episode is *quite* interesting; I won't
spoil anything interesting. Warning to anyone
expecting to gather research material for a Masters'
Thesis on Writing for Television, this isn't the most
intelligent commentary in the world. After all, you've
got three guys doing commentary on an episode about
boobs. Actually, scratch that, this is a great
episode to learn to write sitcoms from :) (22:31)
Robert's Rodeo: Ray Romano, Phil Rosenthal, and guest
commentator Brad Garrett comment. Considering this is
a Robert episode - not to mention an episode where
something comedically bad happens to Robert, Brad's a
great guest commentator to have. (22:33)
The Tenth Anniversary: Ray Romano, Phil Rosenthal, and
writer Aaron Shure. Continuing the trend in The
Orange Season of Phil and Ray + Guest Commentator,
this episode has commentary by Aaron Shure. This is
just your average Raymond commentary track, even with
the addition of a third person. (22:30)
Bad Moon Rising: Ray Romano, Phil Rosental...and
Patricia Heaton, who finally joins in on the
commentary fun as well. It's mentioned Doris actually
felt uncomfortable smacking Raymond in this episode.
Patricia submitted this episode for her for her
eventual Emmy win...Ray submitted this episode as
well, and lost. (22:25)
Total Runtime of Commentary: 90 Minutes.
Deleted Scenes – now split by episode! (You can find
each episode’s deleted scenes on the disc
corresponding to that episode, including as an option
from that episode’s menu)
Boob Job: 1:50
You Bet: 1:28
Sex Talk: 2 Scenes: Total 2:10
The Sister: 0:31
Cousin Gerard: 1:44
No Thanks: 1:42
Left Back: 2 Scenes: Total 2:44
The Tenth Anniversary: 0:47
Alone Time: 0:51
Bad Moon Rising: 1:52
Confronting the Attacker: 0:34
Total Deleted Scenes runtime: 15 minutes, 14 seconds (approximately)
Bloopers: 12 minutes, 34 seconds. Just various
screw-ups and flubs from the show. Found on disc
five.
Total runtime of Special Features: 117:48
Final Comments:
I’m going to say this again, as it’s something that I,
and others, would REALLY like to see. For future
releases, perhaps include appearances by Ray and/or
other cast members on Letterman for the next set (both
shows ARE Worldwide Pants productions, so licensing
can’t be THAT hard.). Heck, even other shows where
the licensing fees would be minimal-at-best. Nice to
see that my suggestion about commentary on more than
two episodes, and with people other than Ray/Phil were
taken – there were FOUR commentary tracks this time,
and in addition to Phil and Ray, there was always a
third guest commentator relevant to the episode.
Nice. Great set overall – this is definitely a set
I’d want to pick up….well, if I weren’t already
reviewing it at least.
