Tuesday, February 16, 2010

The Mary Tyler Moore Show: The Complete Sixth Season

Any discussion of Season Six of The Mary Tyler Moore Show should probably begin with the episode “Chuckles Bites the Dust,” especially since so many conversations about the show in general start off with that episode as a reference point. It’s been hailed time and again as one of the greatest TV episodes of all time of any series. Once a piece of pop culture attains that sort of status, the only place to go is downhill, and then it’s all a matter of how far it’s going to go.

The premise of “Chuckles” is largely a one-joke affair that builds and builds to a crescendo. Chuckles the Clown, who’s sort of WJM’s version of Bozo, dies at the trunk of an elephant. He was dressed as a giant peanut at the time, you see. These events are of course played off-screen, but they’re described in detail well enough that we get the picture. At first the staff is shocked, but after some time passes, Murray (Gavin MacLeod) cracks a morbid joke, which Lou (Ed Asner) finds to be a scream. Before long, Ted (Ted Knight) and Sue Ann (Betty White) are joining in on the fun, with each offering up one lame gag after another. And the jokes are pretty lame, but the jokes aren’t why the episode is funny. No, the humor here begins with the fact that Mary doesn’t care for their attitudes and takes each of them to task for their insensitivity, which is turn just eggs them on.

Read the rest of this DVD review by clicking here and visiting Bullz-Eye.

Tuesday, February 02, 2010

Doctor Who: The Complete Specials

Some called it the best of times, others claimed it the worst of times, but when it comes right down to it, wasn’t it really just The End of Time? Yeah, the big finish which brought to a dual close the eras of David Tennant and Russell T. Davies was nothing if not a controversial conclusion to the most revolutionary period in the long history of Doctor Who. This Blu-ray set is a grand celebration of the Tennant/Davies era, and a fitting coda to the past five years of Who. Over five episodes, these stories offer up examples of everything that was glorious, right alongside everything that didn’t work quite as well. Anyone interested in this set likely already knows how they feel about this block of episodes, as this is for the folks who’ve been paying attention. If you’ve never seen Doctor Who, this is no more the right place to start than it would be to dive into the Star Wars movies with Return of the Jedi.

Read the rest of this Blu-ray review by clicking here and visiting Bullz-Eye.