The Couch Potato Report – October 25th, 2005
This week The Couch Potato Report features some things you never need to see twice, and some that can be watched over and over and over again!
There are only a few hour long television shows that I can watch a second, or third time. For some reason, after the drama has played out, and I know what happens, I just can’t enjoy them any more.
For instance, I have enjoyed almost every episode I have seen of “The West Wing”, “24”, “Law & Order”, “Homicide”, and “Kojack” on television, but when I sat down to watch their respective DVD sets I was,…well I was bored.
There are exceptions, notably “The X-Files”, “Miami Vice” and “Lost”, but for the most part I just can’t get into most of these hour long dramas the second time around.
And the same is true with the show ALIAS. When the show began airing new episodes for it’s fourth season in January I made a point to be home every Wednesday night to watch them.
However when I sat down this past week to watch the 6-DVD Box Set for ALIAS – THE COMPLETE FOURTH SEASON, I could barely get through it.
Now, if you didn’t make a point of being home every Wednesday from January to May of this year just so you could watch a TV show about Sydney Bristow, an international spy recruited out of college and trained for espionage and self-defense, then maybe you will enjoy this box set.
As for me, well, I got through it, and there were episodes I mildly enjoyed, but I was,…well, I was bored.
But, I am still glad I had the set to watch as it has a wide array of extras.
In addition to featuring all 22 Episodes from the fourth season, the Box Set includes an interview with star Jennifer Garner, a Director’s Diary, Blooper Reel, Deleted Scenes, commentary of four episodes, and much more!
In ALIAS – THE COMPLETE FOURTH SEASON family secrets come to light and old foes once again return. It is a season of betrayal, suspense, and one of the best season cliffhangers ever!
That is, if you have never seen it before.
I recommend this box set, because I know what it entails, but that doesn’t mean I will ever watch it again.
I also doubt I will ever watch HERBIE: FULLY LOADED again.
That isn’t because it is a bad film, it just doesn’t have anything that would make me watch it again.
And that is too bad as I have watched the original Herbie movie THE LOVE BUG, and all of it’s sequels many times since I started watching movies in the early 1970s.
I love all of these films about a Volkswagon Bug with a mind and a heart of its own.
But with HERBIE: FULLY LOADED, I guess it is time to realize that I am too old for this franchise, and just pass it on to the youth of today.
So youth, in HERBIE: FULLY LOADED, Lindsay Lohan from MEAN GIRLS stars as a woman who gets an old Volkswagen Beetle for a graduation present.
She soon ends up racing against a champion in the sport on her way to a very satisfying conclusion.
Luckily for the viewer, Lohan and the entire cast realizes that they aren’t making an Oscar winning picture so they just have fun with the material.
The result is an entertaining enough film that the whole family can enjoy.
The whole family might not ever need to see it twice, but they will enjoy it.
Now, if there are things that you never need to see again, then there must be things that must be seen a second time. Or third, or fourth…
Some of those exact things are collected on THE LOONEY TUNES – GOLDEN COLLECTION: VOLUME THREE.
If you missed my reviews of the original THE LOONEY TUNES – GOLDEN COLLECTION, or my review of THE LOONEY TUNES – GOLDEN COLLECTION: VOLUME TWO I will tell you that I called them both “incredible anthologies of classic cartoons.”
Now that THE LOONEY TUNES – GOLDEN COLLECTION: VOLUME THREE is available, I hope it doesn’t come as too big a shock when I proclaim this new 4-disc set with 60 more of the most legendary cartoons ever created to also be “an incredible anthology of classic cartoons.”
VOLUME THREE’s cartoons range from the debut of Porky Pig in 1935 to the end of the Warner Bros. animation studio in 1963.
Plus, each of the four discs has a varied lineup of cartoons so you don’t end up watching cartoon after cartoon of Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, or Road Runner. Each disc has a few of everyone!
A few of everyone, and a few for everyone!
THE LOONEY TUNES – GOLDEN COLLECTION: VOLUME THREE is a must own for all fans of animation.
And so is this week’s first “Leftover!”
The classic Disney animated film CINDERELLA was released on DVD for the first time on October 4th and the studio did a great job with their 2-disc DISNEY SPECIAL PLATINUM EDITION.
This version of the Brothers Grimm fairy tale was first produced in 1950. To this day it remains one of the most enduring animated films of all time.
As superb as the film is, the best part of this PLATINUM EDITION are the supplemental features. Those features are a wealth of archival material and they include “The Cinderella That Almost Was,” a feature that tracks the development of the project through decades of original Disney concepts, characters, and songs.
If you or your kids have been waiting for this film to come out on DVD then I guess it is as CINDERELLA’s classic song says “A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes.”
Our second “leftover” this week is SCTV – VOLUME 4.
When these shows originally aired Dave Thomas, Rick Moranis and Catherine O’Hara had departed the series, Martin Short became a superstar in their absence.
The VOLUME 4 box set does feature the SCTV parodies of “The Towering Inferno,” “Christmas Specials,” “Midnight Cowboy” and “Sweeps Week”, along with musical guests John Cougar Mellencamp, Joe Walsh, and Crystal Gayle, but the primary reason this box is a must have for comedy lovers is because it contains the episodes that parody the CBC.
In that same episode is the parody of the early seventies Canadian film “Going Down The Road”, which is just as much an integral part of Canadiana as the movie it spoofs.
SCTV – VOLUME 4 is classic Canadian comedy and it is available now at a store near you. For that matter, so are the CINDERELLA DISNEY SPECIAL PLATINUM EDITION, THE LOONEY TUNES – GOLDEN COLLECTION: VOLUME THREE, HERIE: FULLY LOADED, and ALIAS – THE COMPLETE FOURTH SEASON.
Coming up in the next Couch Potato Report
The saga concludes with STAR WARS: EPISODE III – REVENGE OF THE SITH!!
Finally, we get to see Anakin Skywalker turn to the dark side and become Darth Vader!
We will also get to see Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn starring in THE INTERPRETER; John Belushi, Gilda Radner and the Not Ready For Prime Time Players in SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE: LIVE FROM NEW YORK – THE FIRST FIVE YEARS and ALF – SEASON TWO features…Alf.
Remember him?
I’m Dan Reynish. I’ll have more on those, and some other releases, in seven days.
For now, that’s this week’s COUCH POTATO REPORT.
Enjoy the movies and I’ll see you back here next week on The Couch.
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