Info:
DVD Release Date: January 30, 2007 (Sony Pictures Home Entertainment)
Color/1967-1968
MSRP: $39.95
Number of Discs: 4
Number of Episodes: 26
Running Time: 654 minutes
Languages, Subtitles, Closed Captioning: Spanish and
Portuguese audio and subtitles; closed-captioned
Special Features: None
Introduction:
Jeannie is ready to be released from her bottle for
the third season of I Dream of Jeannie! All 26
episodes from the 1967-1968 season of the show that
wasn't exactly a hit when it originally aired (but
made it big in syndication, and now DVD sales) are
coming to DVD from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment in
a four disc set.
There isn't much of a change at all in the third
season, and we still have the same old stuff going on.
Basically, Jeannie still wants to get Tony to marry
her one way or the other, but Tony isn't quite ready
for that. There is one new problem for Jeannie now,
though. In this season, after Tony suggests she call
up her sister (who also happens to be named Jeannie,
and is played by Barbara Eden herself, except she
wears a black wig) that she hasn't talked to in a very
long time, which is a good idea until the evil Jeannie
finds out that her sister has such a wonderful master,
and the evil Jeannie will do anything to steal Tony
away from her!
Memorable Episodes / Notable Guest Stars:
The third season begins with “Fly Me to the Moon,”
where Jeannie hears that a chimpanzee is going to the
moon and decides to help NASA by turning the
chimpanzee into a human. Parley Baer and Larry Storch
guest star. We see the first appearance of Jeannie's
evil sister, also named Jeannie, in “Jeannie or the
Tiger.” Milton Berle guest stars in “The Greatest Con
Artist in the World.” Jeannie decides to temporarily
transfer her powers to somebody else in “My Turned-On
Master,” and as the title suggests, she transfers the
powers to Tony. Don Rickles and David Soul guest star
in “My Master, the Weakling,” where Tony gets sent to
a survival boot camp and is perceived as a weakling by
the tough commander (Rickles), but leave it to Jeannie
to turn the commander into a sweet and caring person!
In “Who Are You Calling a Jeannie?,” Jeannie gets hit
in the head and is taken to the hospital, where her
head is x-rayed and (no surprise) turns up blank...
how can Tony explain this? Tony's mother might be
moving in with him after she feels he isn't being
taken care of very well in “Meet My Master's Mother,”
but how will Jeannie take this? Jeannie accidentally
robs a bank when she meets up with new friends (bank
robbers) in the park, but she just happens to use
Tony's car as the getaway car. Bob Denver guest stars
in “My Son, the Genie,” where Jeannie has to teach a
young genie new tricks, but it might not be such a
good idea when Tony finds out that the President of
the United States (Lyndon Johnson at the time) is
coming to visit!
Tony is going to Hawaii but Jeannie isn't... or is
she? Find out in the episodes “Jeannie Goes to
Honolulu” and “The Battle of Waikiki,” where Jeannie
causes quite a bit of chaos! Jeannie gets locked in a
safe that is supposed to be going to the moon, and
Tony must do everything that he can to get her out of
there in the four part episode “Genie, Genie, Who's
Got the Genie?” Tony and Roger are going on a survival
mission in “Please Don't Feed the Astronauts,” where
the only assistance that they can accept is assistance
from a village. Maybe somebody can “blink up” a
village? Paul Lynde guest stars.
Jeannie temporarily gives up her powers and proves
that she can be more dangerous without her powers than
she can be with her powers in “Divorce, Genie Style,”
but when she can't simply disappear when Mrs. Bellows
comes around and Mrs. Bellows sees how rough her life
is, she thinks Jeannie is married to Tony and he is
abusing her! Tony and Roger accidentally switch bodies
in “Haven't I Seen Me Someplace Before?,” but will
they know that they switched bodies before Dr. Bellows
finds out?
Disc 1
1. Fly Me to the Moon (25:13)
2. Jeannie or the Tiger (24:54)
3. The Greatest Con Artist in the World (25:15)
4. My Turned-On Master (25:13)
5. My Master, the Weakling (25:20)
6. Jeannie, the Hip Hippie (25:17)
Disc 2
7. Everybody's a Movie Star (25:14)
8. Who Are You Calling a Genie? (25:12)
9. Meet My Master's Mother (25:04)
10. Here Comes Bootsie Nightingale (24:56)
11. Tony's Wife (25:18)
12. Jeannie and the Great Bank Robbery (25:09)
13. My Son, the Genie (25:18)
Disc 3
14. Jeannie Goes to Honolulu (24:53)
15. The Battle of Waikiki (25:18)
16. Genie, Genie, Who's Got the Genie, Part 1 (25:17)
17. Genie, Genie, Who's Got the Genie, Part 2 (25:02)
18. Genie, Genie, Who's Got the Genie, Part 3 (25:03)
19. Genie, Genie, Who's Got the Genie, Part 4 (25:03)
20. Please Don't Feed the Astronauts (25:14)
Disc 4
21. My Master, the Ghost Breaker (25:20)
22. Divorce, Genie Style (25:20)
23. My Double-Crossing Master (25:19)
24. Have You Ever Had a Genie Hate You? (24:49)
25. Operation: First Couple on the Moon (25:20)
26. Haven't I Seen Me Someplace Before? (24:57)
Packaging:
The packaging is very similar to the first two sets,
with the outer box having a picture of Jeannie front
and center and other cast members in the smoke coming
from her bottle, except for Jeannie's evil sister who
is standing behind her as if she is about to trick the
good Jeannie into doing something. On the back, we
have the standard description of the season that we
have come to expect on most DVD sets. The general
color scheme for the set this time is a blue color
scheme.
Inside the box, we have four discs inside of two slim
cases. The slim case holding Discs 1 and 2 has a
picture of good Jeannie on it and the slim case
holding Discs 3 and 4 has evil Jeannie on it. Every
disc has the same artwork on it, with Jeannie (the
good one) sitting inside of her bottle. On the back of
each slim case, there is a listing of all of the
episodes on the discs contained in that slim case,
along with a brief description of each episode.
It is very important to note here that there is an
error on the packaging. On the back of the slim case
that contains Discs 3 and 4, it lists episode 13 as
being on Disc 3, but if you put that disc in the DVD
player, you'll find that it isn't there. Instead, that
episode is on Disc 2. I'm not sure how Sony managed to
make a mistake like that, but you should be able to
find the episode regardless.
Menu Design and Navigation:
If you've seen the previous sets (seasons 1 and 2),
you won't be surprised by the menu design on this set,
at all. In fact, I don't think the menus have changed
at all for any of the seasons, which is really just
fine, because it shows consistency in the sets, and
besides that, I really like the menus. They are very
professional looking and creative, and honestly, there
is not a single thing that I have to nitpick on as far
as the menus are concerned.
For those that have not seen the previous sets, here
is a brief overview of the menus. Basically, when you
place the disc in the player, you get a main menu with
the opening theme song playing in the background, and
you see Jeannie's bottle lying on the beach. Then you
have the options of Play All, Episode Selection,
Audio, and Subtitles. Disc 1 also has an option for
previews, but these are all older previews that, if
I'm not mistaken, were on the season 2 set as well
(Ladies Night and Bewitched TV). When you select
Episode Selections, you get to go inside of Jeannie's
bottle, where there are pictures hanging up from each
of the episodes, and you simply select the episode
that you want. It can't get any simpler. There are no
scene selection menus, but there are chapters placed
within each episode at all of the appropriate places.
Video and Audio Quality:
The video and audio on the set is fine. Honestly, and
maybe this is because I'm used to watching prints of
the show from syndication that are not of very good
quality, I have been very impressed with the quality
of these sets. You have SOME of the grain that you get
with older shows (but it doesn't seem as bad as it has
been on the previous sets), and the audio can be a bit
low sometimes, but it isn't as serious as one would
expect for a show this old. There were a few episodes
where the audio seemed a little muffled too, which was
a little bit annoying. The audio is presented in mono,
and if English isn't enough for you, you can also
watch the episodes in Spanish and Portuguese (it would
be nice to have Farsi audio on here, as that was what
Jeannie originally spoke in the first episode before
Tony wished she could speak English... but then again
there probably aren't too many fans of the show in the
United States that speak Farsi). The episodes are also
closed-captioned, and even further, there are
subtitles in both Spanish and Portuguese. I don't know
why all of these older Screen Gems shows have all of
these language options, but they do. There are some
episodes missing the Portuguese audio track once
again, and this time, that includes episodes 9, 20,
22, and 25.
The episodes all appear to be unedited (see the
Memorable Episodes/Notable Guest Stars section for
runtimes), which is somewhat surprising for DVD sets
released by Sony. Even the opening teasers on
multipart episodes are included on the I Dream of
Jeannie sets.
Special Features:
Sony included a few nice special features on the first
season, but ever since then, we've had no special
features at all, which is very disappointing. The
first season included some interviews and a commentary
track, and I don't understand why Sony can't include
more of those on the other seasons.
Final Comments:
I always felt like this show was one of those shows
that didn't really change much throughout the series.
In general, every season was great, and there wasn't
really any drop off in quality as the series
progressed. So, once again, we have another season of
great episodes (with great video and audio quality...
and this series still hasn't been hit by Sony's
problems of “oops, we accidentally slipped in a
syndicated version of an episode”) that any fan of the
show (or shows like it) would enjoy. Sony is getting
through this series faster than almost any other Sony
series out there (three seasons in less than a year is
good, and that is how fast any show should be released
really), and it seems as if this show is a big seller
on DVD too. It is just too bad that Sony can't blink
up some special features!
Final Numbers (out of 5 stars - How our point system works)
Video Quality: 4.5/5
Audio Quality: 4/5
Special Features: 0/5
Menu Design/Navigation: 5/5
Overall: 4/5
-- Reviewed by skees53 on 01/16/07
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