DVD Release Date: August 17, 2004 (Paramount Home
Video)
color/417 mins.
MSRP: $49.99
Number of discs: 3
Number of episodes: 19
Languages and subtitles: English, Closed Captioned.
Special features: None
Introduction:
Tonight, on Lateline: The Complete Series, our guests
will be: G. Gordon Liddy, Joan Lunden, Barney Frank,
Buddy Hackett, Dick Gephardt, Robert Reich, Michael
McKean, Michael Dukakis, Bob Uecker, Jerry Falwell,
Pat Schroeder, Conan O'Brien, Regis Philbin, Kathie
Lee Gifford, William F. Buckley, Max Wright, Bob
Bennett, Paul Simon (the Senator, not the singer),
Alan Simpson, Rosemary Clooney, Rob Reiner, Martin
Sheen, Vanessa Williams, Leonard Maltin and believe it
or not, 2004 presidential candidates Ralph Nader and
John Kerry!
Seriously--that is the list of guests in this rather
short-lived NBC/Showtime sitcom. Lateline is a show
that is all about spoofing late-night news programs
such as ABC's Nightline. Although Al Franken is
prominently featured on the cover art, it should be
clear that he is by no means the star of the show, but
rather it is an ensemble of mostly unknown actors and
actresses (depending upon how well you know actors and
actresses), including Catherine Lloyd Burns, Miguel
Ferrer, Robert Foxworth, Sanaa Lathan, Ajay Naidu,
Megyn Price, and of course, Al Franken. The show
focused on the production of the show and the comedy
involved the behind-the-scenes stuff of the show and
how everything always seemed to go horribly wrong
behind the scenes.
There is also a special surprise on this DVD set for
those that have actually seen the show--there are four
episodes that were never aired, at least not in the
United States. When NBC had cancelled the show, there
were still seven unaired episodes, and while Showtime
aired three of those, four were left unseen in the
United States, until NOW at least.
Packaging:
The packaging on this set is much better than the
packaging that many sitcoms come in. This set comes
with individual cases for each disc. The cover art has
a huge picture of Al Franken with smaller pictures of
the other cast members, although this is a slight bit
deceiving since Al Franken is far from being the star
of the show.
There are three discs in this set, with the Disc One
containing the first six episodes, Disc Two containing
episodes 7-12, and Disc Three containing episodes
13-19. Disc One has a picture of Franken on the disc,
Discs Two and Three have pictures of the casts members
on the discs. Incidentally, the episodes on each disc
were broken down by season as well, since Disc One
contains all of the first season episodes, Disc Two
contains all of the second season episodes, and Disc
Three contains all of the third season episodes (the
Showtime/mostly unaired season).
Menu Design and Navigation:
The menus on the disc are extremely easy to navigate.
After waiting through the Paramount DVD logo and
copyright stuff, it goes directly to a menu where you
can pick which episode you want to watch or can go to
Play All. The main menu screens each have pictures of
different cast members on each disc.
Video and Audio Quality:
The video quality and audio quality in this set were
both of the very high quality that one would come to
expect from a show that is as recent as this show.
There is nothing at all to complain about concerning
the video quality or the audio quality. The audio is
presented in Dolby Digital stereo, and the audio was
very loud and clear.
Special Features:
There are no special features... absolutely NOTHING!
Not even trailers. Certainly a show with a lot of
guest stars like this should have some good
behind-the-scenes moments, and that probably would
have been a nice extra. But since this will likely be
the only Lateline release ever (since it is the entire
series and there will be no more episodes to put on
DVD), that, along with any other extras that should
have been there, is probably something that will never
be seen.
Final Comments:
Although this show certainly does have some good
moments and good writing at times, I wouldn't dare
call this a great sitcom by any stretch of the
imagination. HOWEVER, even if the plots aren't too
exciting, this show was amazing simply for the amount
of guest stars that it contained. There probably isn't
any other show that contained this many political
figures (particularly congressmen and senators), and
even the non-political figures are impressive for a
show that only lasted 19 episodes. So in short, I
wouldn't recommend this show for somebody that is
looking for a great sitcom, but I would recommend it
for anybody that enjoys watching shows that are (or
will become) very rare, or somebody that enjoys
politics, because there is certainly no shortage of
political guest-stars here.
Final Numbers (out of 5 stars):
Video quality: 5/5
Audio quality: 5/5
Special Features: N/A
Menu Design/Navigation: 5/5
Overall: 4/5
-- Reviewed by skees53 on 07/30/04
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