Info:
DVD Release Date: November 2, 2004 (Rhino Home Video)
color, approx. 420 minutes
MSRP: $39.95
Number of Discs: 3
Number of Episodes: 19
Language and Subtitles: English, no subtitles.
Special Features: None
Review (out of 5 stars):
Video Quality: 4/5
Audio Quality: 4.5/5
Special Features: N/A
Menu Navigation: 4.5/5
Overall: 4/5
Thoughts:
Too Close for Comfort is now on DVD! The Complete
First Season is being offered on DVD by Rhino, and if
you've never seen the show (or maybe never even heard
of the show); this is your chance to see it! It is
probably one of the more obscure shows from the 80s,
which explains why it isn't shown in syndication
anywhere in the United States, but just because a show
isn't widely syndicated doesn't mean it isn't a great
show--and Too Close for Comfort IS a great show!
Just for a brief introduction for those that have
never seen the show... Ted Knight plays a cartoonist
named Henry Rush that lives in an apartment building
in San Francisco with his wife, Muriel Rush (played by
Nancy Dussault). In the first episode of the show,
their two grown daughters, Jackie and Sara, live in
the same apartment with Henry and Muriel, as the show
title implies is "too close for comfort." But when a
downstairs apartment in the building (which is also
owned by Henry) becomes available, Jackie and Sara
move into the apartment... but even though they have
their own apartment, they are STILL finding themselves
"too close for comfort." They also have a quirky
neighbor named Monroe (played by J.M. J. Bullock) that
always manages to provide comedy. The show, kind of
like other shows from the same era, was never really
shy on dealing with touchy issues, but it always dealt
with the issues with humor. The show began on ABC in
1980, and eventually moved into syndication and was
re-titled "The Ted Knight Show" and underwent many
changes. The changes were (in my opinion, at least)
for the worse, but fortunately, this set contains the
first season, which was a very good season.
The first season of Too Close for Comfort included
many episodes that I thought were great. Some of the
ones that I thought were the best on this set include
"It Didn't Happen One Night" (where Henry, while
searching through Jackie and Sara's apartment, finds
birth control pills), "A Friend in Need" (where Monroe
admits he is a virgin and mistakes the elderly Mrs.
Rafkin as a "sexual surrogate"), and "Cosmic Cow vs.
The Oval Office" (where Henry gets fired for refusing
to apologize for drawing a comic strip that makes fun
of Ronald Reagan). There really weren't any guest
stars worth mentioning in the first season, but Selma
Diamond did make a few appearances as Mrs. Rafkin.
The packaging for this set was done very nicely. Like
many other recent boxed sets for other sitcoms, each
disc (there are three of them) is packaged in its own
slim case inside of a box. The individual cases did
seem a little strange due to the fact that if you were
looking at the front of each case, the case would open
from the left-hand side of the case rather than the
right-hand side, but that is just a minor issue that
is not difficult to adjust to. On the back of each
individual case, there are descriptions of each
episode on that disc. These aren't just general
descriptions like the ones you would find on a
television listings website, but instead rather
detailed descriptions that sometimes give away the
ending. Maybe that is a good thing or a bad thing...
but if you've seen the episodes before, it doesn't
matter anyway. You can't really "spoil" a sitcom
anyway; every sitcom fan knows that there are only a
handful of sitcom plots. The great thing to see is how
each individual show handles that particular plot,
which is where the enjoyment of the sitcom comes in.
The episodes are divided (almost) evenly among the
discs. Episodes 1-7 are on Disc One, episodes 8-14 are
on Disc Two, and episodes 15-19 are on Disc Three. The
menus on the discs are very well done. The initial
menu screen that comes up is a screen where you can
choose from Play All or Episode Selection. While this
menu is up, the Too Close for Comfort theme song plays
in the background. Obviously, if you select Play All,
every episode (starting with the first one on the
Disc) will play. If you choose the Episode Selection
option, you will be taken to a menu where you can
choose which episode you want to watch. However, when
you select an episode from the menu, you go to yet
another screen where you can choose to start from a
particular scene or to play the episode from the
beginning. Personally, I didn't like this arrangement.
I think that it would have been better if the main
Episode Selection screen allowed you to play it
directly from there and perhaps had a separate menu
for somebody that wants to start at a particular
scene. Basically, I feel like there are too many menu
screens to go through just to play a selected episode
from the beginning.
The video quality of this set is fairly adequate. The
video quality does show some age, but it isn't
horrible. One odd thing that I noticed from time to
time, though, was that the picture would occasionally
jump around. It doesn't seem to occur often enough to
notice though unless you are watching it very
carefully and probably shouldn't annoy the typical
viewer. The audio quality was very good considering
the age of the show. It is a mono audio track (which
isn't unexpected for a show from 1980), but the audio
is very loud and clear.
There were absolutely no special features at all. The
press releases had suggested that there would be some
special features, but I couldn't find any on the set,
unless they were hidden as "Easter eggs" (which I
doubt that they would have been). It seems that the
cast of the show (except for Ted Knight, of course,
who is deceased) is not the type that has chosen to
ignore the show. In fact, they are going to be
involved in the cast reunion to celebrate the release
of the DVD. It would have made sense to me if they had
had the cast do some sort of extras for the set, like
a reunion for the DVD set or maybe some audio
commentaries. Or if the cast did not want to be
involved in actual extras for the DVD set, they
probably could have gotten some bloopers or something
together. But none of that is on this set. It is a
shame, but there are NO special features on this set.
There were a few things with this set that I would
consider to be "problems." First of all, although I
can't really prove it, I believe that the set offers
syndication copies of the episodes rather than the
original uncut episodes. Unfortunately, it seems like
many (though certainly not MOST) TV-on-DVD releases
are becoming this way lately. Also, there was no
closed captioning on this set. It is a pretty standard
practice to include closed captioning on DVDs these
days, but this set does not have closed captioning. I
also tried to see if perhaps there were subtitles in
lieu of closed captioning, but they were not available
either.
In general, I would say that this is a very good set
and worth purchasing. Too Close for Comfort may not a
memorable show to many people, but it is still a very
good show. If you've never seen the show, this is
probably the only way you will be able to see it
anytime soon. You may be surprised at how great this
show is!
-- Reviewed by skees53 on 11/04/04
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