Info:
DVD Release Date: May 2, 2006 (Universal Studios Home Entertainment)
Color / 1984
MSRP: $29.95
Number of Discs: 1
Number of Episodes: 6 (7 including a season 2 bonus
episode)
Running time: Approx. 142 minutes
Running time of Special Features: Approx. 65 minutes
Languages, Subtitles, Closed Captioning: English;
English subtitles; Closed Captioned
Special Features: "A Conversation with Susan Saint
James and Bill Persky," "Gag Reel," "The Great 80s TV
Flashback," bonus episode from second season.
Introduction:
The 1980s brought us many family sitcoms with "new
types" of families--there were families where white
parents adopted black children, families where the
housekeeper became the "mother" of the family,
families where the housekeeper became the "father" of
the family even... while there are adoptions or
housekeepers in Kate & Allie, it presented a new type
of family, one that was brought together by two
divorced women and their kids, kind of like a female
version of The Odd Couple with kids.
Kate (Susan Saint James) and her daughter Emma (Ari
Meyers) have lived in their New York City apartment
together for a while, when "along comes a friend"
named Allie (Jane Curtin), who was just recently
divorced from her husband and moves from her cozy
Connecticut home to Kate's apartment just to get by.
Allie brings along with her both of her children, Chip
(Frederick Koehler) and Jennie (Allison Smith), who
quickly become accustomed to their "new family" (how
realistic is that??).
Episodes Included / Notable Guest Stars:
Kate & Allie premiered on March 19, 1984--and back
then, the summer was reserved more for reruns, not for
new episodes of a midseason replacement. So, obviously
there aren't many episodes in season one--just six of
them as a matter of fact. The disc begins with
"Allie's First Date," where Allie goes out on her
first date after just leaving her husband. Next, we
have "The Very Loud Family," which was already
released as a bonus feature on the Gimme a Break! DVD
set. In this episode, Emma has to do a project for
school, and her project is none other than her family
life. Jonathan Brandeis has a brief role in "Odd Boy
Out," where Chip gets teased for being the only male
in an all female household. In "The Family Business,"
Kate decides to get an unemployed Allie into the
business of baking cakes, but Kate causes the business
to grow larger than Allie can handle! The move-in
becomes totally official when Allie brings in more of
her cherished belongings in "Dear Diary." Finally,
season one ends with "A Weekend to Remember," where
everybody but Allie has plans for the weekend and she
experiences loneliness for the first time.
Packaging:
Nothing fancy here... just one disc in a typical
Amaray style case. There is a picture of Kate and
Allie on the front, a picture of them with their kids
on the back, and on the inside, there is a list of all
of the episodes on the disc, including original
airdates and what the episode is about.
Menu Design and Navigation:
The menus are very nice and simplistic, and just like
any other Universal sitcom on DVD. The main menu has
the closing theme playing in the background, with a
picture of Kate and Allie in the center and individual
mug shots of each on the side. The main menu options
are Play All, Episode Index, Languages, and Bonus
Materials. Episode Index takes you to another menu,
where you (obviously) just select an episode. There is
no scene selection, nor are there chapters placed
within each episode. The Bonus Materials menu lets you
choose from the special features, which include "A
Conversation with Susan Saint James and Bill Persky,"
"Gag Reel," "The Great '80's TV Flashback," and a
bonus episode from season 2, "Back to School."
Video and Audio Quality:
The video and audio quality isn't exactly spectacular,
but it is good enough to watch. The colors seemed
faded and the images weren't very sharp. The audio
quality is good, without any obvious flaws, and is
presented in Dolby Digital Mono. And there are English
subtitles as well as closed-captioning for those that
need it.
Here is where the real concern is: half of the
episodes on the set are syndicated versions! There are
many signs pointing to this, the most obvious being
the fact that these particular episodes are missing
teasers. These particular episodes run around 22:30, 2
minutes shorter than the others. Plus, these shorter
episodes have a “CC” logo during the opening credits.
This is just unbelievable; this disc gets released as
one of the most expensive (per episode) sitcom DVD
season sets EVER and doesn't even have complete
episodes?? Here are the run times for all episodes:
1. "First Date" (24:34)
2. "The Very Loud Family" (24:36)
3. "Odd Boy Out" (24:32)
4. "The Family Business" (22:36)
5. "Dear Diary" (22:37)
6. "A Weekend to Remember" (22:36)
Special Features:
There was a minor effort to include some special
features on this disc, but they are really lacking...
first, we have "A Conversation with Susan Saint James
and Bill Persky" (5:23), which is basically just an
interview with both of them. It sounds great, and it
is nice that they got them to do it, but the problem
is that there is no substance at all to it. All they
do is talk about what the characters are like
basically and they don't get into anything special...
very disappointing! The next special feature is "Gag
Reel," (10:46) which is just some random outtakes from
the show. I'm glad they included these, and they were
kind of interesting to see--this is probably one of
the good things about the set. Next, we have a bonus
episode of the series... an episode from season 2,
entitled "Back to School," where (as the title
suggests) Allie goes back to school--fortunately this
one is unedited, running at 24:31. Finally, there is
"The Great '80s TV Flashback" (29:01). This is the
same retrospective piece about Universal TV shows from
the 80s that has been in many other recent Universal
releases.
Final Comments:
I'm not really sure whether or not to recommend this
disc. It is hideously overpriced (I don't have
official statistics for every DVD set, but I'd be
willing to bet that this has to be one of the highest
price TV-on-DVD sets based upon amount of footage vs.
cost), has mediocre bonus features, and half of the
episodes are missing two minutes worth of footage. A
fair price for this disc would be in the $10-15
range--and that would be assuming every episode was
unedited and that the disc contained more interesting
bonus features. Originally, Universal had planned to
put this together with the second season; I wonder why
they didn't do that. Even if it would have cost $10
more, it would have been a better deal to have them
together. If you can find it deeply discounted, get it
the episodes are great, otherwise (and I almost never
say this) this disc probably not really worth it.
Final Numbers (out of 5 stars - How our point system works)
Video Quality: 4/5
Audio Quality: 4/5
Special Features: 2.5/5
Menu Design/Navigation: 4.5/5
Overall: 3.5/5
-- Reviewed by skees53 on 04/27/06
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