Release: June 20, 2006 (20th Century Fox Home Entertainment)
Color/1973-1974
MSRP: $29.98
Number of Discs: 3
Number of Episodes: 24
Running Time: 613 Minutes
Total Run Time of Special Features: N/A
Languages, Subtitles, Closed Captioning: English and
Spanish Subtitles; Closed Captioned
Special Features: None
Introduction:
Who can turn the world on with her smile? Mary Tyler
Moore, of course! And the fourth season of "The Mary
Tyler Moore Show" is now on DVD, from 20th Century Fox
Home Entertainment!
Mary Richards (Moore) was the first truly independent
woman that American audiences ever saw on television.
After a failed engagement (not a divorce, apparently
Americans would have thought that she divorced Rob
Petrie if the show started with a divorce!), Mary is
living in an apartment in Minneapolis, the same
building where her friends Rhoda (Valerie Harper,
before she became the villain that some have seen her
as since the 80s) and Phyllis (Cloris Leachman), and
working for the local news station, WJM, with Murray
(Gavin MacLeod) and the ever-so-incompetent Ted Baxter
(Ted Knight). And of course, who can forget her boss,
Lou Grant (Ed Asner)?
Memorable Episodes / Notable Guest Stars:
The fourth season begins with Betty White's first
appearance as Sue Ann Nivens, the Happy Homemaker who
might not be making Phyllis a happy homemaker when she
is having an affair with Phyllis' husband, Lars, in
"The Lars Affair." An interesting side note (I can't
take credit for this, somebody brought this up on Home
Theater Forum), Lars'last name is Lindstrom, and Rose
Nylund on "The Golden Girls" (played by Betty White,
of course) was Rose Lindstrom before she was
married--which makes this a rather interesting (though
certainly unintentional) coincidence. Rhoda is going
to New York (and taking Mary with her) for her
sister's wedding (but not Brenda, Julie Kavner isn't
in this episode!) in "Rhoda's Sister Gets Married."
Brett Somers plays Rhoda's aunt. The relationship may
be over for Mr. Grant and his wife, Edie, in "The Lou
and Edie Story." Jerry Van Dyke ("Coach") is Mary's
former boyfriend--and new coworker--in "Son of 'But
Seriously, Folks.'" Mary has to find a date for Mr.
Grant for a banquet in "Lou's First Date," and she
does just that--but the date she gets for him is old
enough to be his mother--or maybe even his
grandmother!
Mr. Grant is having dinner at Mary's house--every
night--so she is determined to try to get him and Edie
back together in "Just Friends." Lou hates birthday
parties, but Mary doesn't know that, so she throws him
a big surprise celebration in "Happy Birthday, Lou!"
Mary has a new boyfriend, a news anchor from the
top-rated station in Minneapolis--and quickly begins
to have doubts about WJM in "WJM Tries Harder."
In "Cottage for Sale," Phyllis wants Lou as her first
client after she gets her real estate license, but
does he want to let go of the memories? Mary decides
to have fun by writing a funny obituary for the file
in "Better Late... That's a Pun… Than Never," but
when the same person dies a day later and the obituary
is read on the air, will she still be having fun? Ted
Baxter meets his idol, Walter Cronkite (playing
himself) in "Ted Baxter Meets Walter Cronkite," but
Ted has the misguided Walter Cronkite wants him to be
America's next news star! I wonder if Ted Baxter would
be idolizing Katie Couric if the show took place in
2006? Probably not. Ted and Mary are going to
night-school in "Two Wrongs Don't Make a Writer," and
only one of them is going to legitimately do their
assignment! Penny Marshall ("Laverne & Shirley") guest
stars in "I Was Single for WJM."
Packaging:
The packaging is basic but functional. The set comes
in slim cases, which is always my favorite kind of
packaging. The front of the outer box is very simple,
with Mary standing in front of a big M. And on the
back, there is a picture of the entire WJM crew
sitting on the couch (why isn't Rhoda anywhere on the
packaging??). And generally speaking, we have a dark
blue color scheme going on.
The slim cases are nothing to get excited about. In
fact, the front of each slim case has the same artwork
as the front of the set. The back of each slim case
has a listing of the episodes on the disc that is in
the case, along with a brief description, original
airdate, and writer/director credits (other companies
should take note of this, Fox does great with this).
There are three discs, and are all single-sided
(somewhat surprising for Fox, because they always put
"King of the Hill" on three double-sided discs and
each season has fewer episodes), with exactly 8
episodes per disc. The disc artwork is basically not
much; just part of an M is on the disc art in a
different color for each disc (blue for Disc 1, purple
for Disc 2, and green for Disc 3).
Menu Design and Navigation:
The menus are plain, but functional. The main menu on
each disc has a picture of Mary (well actually just
her head, her body is actually drawn on!) in the
newsroom (I know it is the newsroom, because there are
drawn on clocks in the background). For some reason,
the top of the main menu says "Mary Tyler Moore:
Season 4 in Broadcast Order," I don't know why they
saw a need to include the fact that the episodes are
in broadcast order on the menu screen, but it doesn't
hurt the set I guess. The main menu allows you to
select the episodes right there, or you can go to Play
All at the bottom of the main menu. When you select an
episode, you get another (again, drawn, not a photo)
picture of the newsroom, with a picture frame on the
desk with a picture from the show (these are real
pictures here, finally something not drawn!), with
options of Play Episode, Scene Selection, Language
Selection, and Home.
If you like chapters, you are going to love this
set--there are 10 chapters per episode, one after
each. That means there is one roughly every 2 minutes!
Of course, at every place where there is a chapter,
you can also start an episode there from the Scene
Selection menu for the episode. I've always felt like
scene selection is not really a necessary option for a
sitcom (I know I never watch 3 minutes of a show, then
do something else, come back a week later, and go to
the scene selection so I can watch another 3 minutes),
but it is nice to include it.
Video and Audio Quality:
The video and audio quality on this set is very
good... if you (like me) watched the show when it was
airing on Nick at Nite, you'll remember a great show
that had an audio and video quality that was, to put
it gently, horrible. But somewhere along the way, in
the past few years, they have done some work on these
episodes and that almost look, and I hesitate to say
this, perfect. There is still some grain in the
picture, but it isn't nearly as bad as the old
syndicated versions that were floating around in the
80s and 90s. They probably could have done a little
more with the audio, but it is still fine, and is
presented in Dolby Digital Mono (what else would you
expect?).
And there are English subtitles, Spanish subtitles,
and closed-captioning for those that need or want it.
The way I see it, the episodes on the set are MOSTLY
unedited, with all running their expected length.
HOWEVER, it is necessary to mention that on the Home
Theater Forum website, members of the message boards
have reported that there are a few rather minor edits.
First, the "Angels in the Snow" episode has a song
replaced in it. Second, in the episode "The
Co-Producers," there is a 10 second line of dialog
missing. Personally, I don't see these edits as being
a serious problem, but if you are an absolute
perfectionist, it may bother you. The running times
(and disc breakdown) are as follows:
Disc 1:
1. "The Lars Affair" (25:34)
2. "Angels in the Snow" (25:33)
3. "Rhoda's Sister Gets Married" (25:34)
4. "The Lou and Edie Story" (24:36)
5. "Hi There, Sports Fans" (25:35)
6. "Father's Day" (25:37)
7. "Son of 'But Seriously, Folks'" (25:36)
8. "Lou's First Date" (25:34)
Disc 2:
9. "Love Blooms at Hemple's" (25:33)
10. "The Dinner Party" (25:30)
11. "Just Friends" (25:35)
12. "We Want Baxter" (25:32)
13. "I Gave at the Office" (25:32)
14. "Almost a Nun's Story" (25:34)
15. "Happy Birthday, Lou!" (25:37)
16. "WJM Tries Harder" (25:35)
Disc 3:
17. "Cottage For Sale" (25:36)
18. "The Co-Producers" (25:25)
19. "Best of Enemies" (25:36)
20. "Better Late... That's a Pun... Than Never"
(25:34)
21. "Ted Baxter Meets Walter Cronkite" (25:39)
22. "Lou's Second Date" (25:37)
23. "Two Wrongs Don't Make a Writer" (25:36)
24. "I Was Single for WJM" (25:36)
Special Features:
Season 1 was loaded with special features. Season 2
was loaded with special features. And for season 4, we
have... nothing! There has to be SOMETHING they can
include. Commentaries? Special footage? Trivia?
Please, Fox, put something on here!
Final Comments:
This show is one of the TRUE classics of television,
in fact, I think it is a whole lot better than some of
the other supposedly big shows (yes, "The Andy
Griffith Show" and "The Cosby Show" are good shows,
but not as good as this one, and this show isn't
overplayed--or even played at all). The lyrics to the
theme song say it all: "you're gonna make it after
all." This was one of the shows that most fans had
officially come to the conclusion that it had been
abandoned for DVD after season 1 (due to slow sales),
but then mysteriously came back with a season 2
release and has been doing surprisingly well since it
returned. There is real hope that the entire series
will be released. However, I want to see "Rhoda" (and
maybe even the other spin-offs, like "Lou Grant" or
"Phyllis") on DVD as well! There is no denying that of
the Mary Tyler Moore "spin-off dynasty" that this is
the only truly classic show there, but the other shows
shouldn't be overlooked.
You can buy this season (and if you are like me and
still haven't bought the first three, those too) dirt
cheap on Amazon.com, sometimes as low as $15 (and I
don't even mean on Marketplace, I mean actually
THROUGH Amazon). Since this is such a great show, the
episodes look great (despite minor edits), and the
show is so cheap, there really isn't any reason to not
include this show in your DVD collection.
