Saturday, May 04, 2013
Digital Digest: More Eight is Enough on DVD; Private Practice - The Complete Sixth and Final Season DVD Review
DIGITAL NEWS
It was discovered this week by TVShowsOnDVD.com that a pre-order listing recently popped up on amazon.com for Perry Mason - Season 9, Volume 2. While no release date has been given yet, this set will mark the end (the 18th release, to be precise) of the long running series on DVD. We anticipate, though, that the release shouldn't be too far off.
UPCOMING WEEK PREVIEW
BLOG FEATURE REVIEW
The sixth season stars Kate Walsh as Dr. Addison Forbes Montgomery (Neonatal Surgery/Obstetrics & Gynecology), Paul Adelstein as Dr. Cooper Freedman (Pediatrics), KaDee Strickland as Dr. Charlotte King (Urology & Sexology, Chief of Staff at the nearby hospital), Caterina Scorsone as Amelia Shepherd (Neurosurgery), Brian Benben as Dr. Sheldon Wallace (Psychiatry), Taye Diggs as Dr. Sam Bennett (Internal Medicine/Cardiothoracic Surgery), with Amy Brenneman as Dr. Violet Turner (Psychiatry) and Benjamin Bratt as Dr. Jake Reilly (Obstetrics and Gynecology/Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility.
Among the recurring stars are Griffin Gluck as Mason Warner, Matt Long as James Petersen, and Justina Machado as Stephanie. Among the special guests this year are Alfre Woodard, Alex Rocco, Mackenzie Astin, Marisol Nichols, Diane Farr, and Audra McDonald.
The sixth season is unique and different from what we expect from this series. There are a lot of different style episodes this season, but I'm not sure if fans like that or not. The season was still very well written once again. Anyway, as for season six, some memorable episodes include the season premiere, "Aftershock," where Addison's choice is revealed to be Jake, while Sam has started a new relationship with a nurse, and Violet believes that Pete has skipped out on bail until she gets a phone call from Pete's phone, from a man, telling her that Pete had a fatal heart attack while he was on his run. In "Good Grief," Addison continues to grieve over Mark's death, and doesn't know if she should talk to Jake about it or not, but eventually decides to tell him everything about her past; this prompts Sam to tell everything to his new girlfriend so that he can't start of everything new. In "You Don't Know What You've Got Till It's Gone," Charlotte hires a new ER attending, Dr. James Peterson to replace Pete, promising him a quiet ER only to have a rainy night in LA, while Addison has to deal with a pregnant woman having her fourth child, and her husband who seems to always have the same symptoms as her only to find out the husband has an infection in his spinal cord, so Amelia and the new ER doctor race to save the man's life. In "The Next Episode," after Sam is asked to be shot in a reality show pilot for revolving around his life, he is followed around for days to see what his life is really about, as Sam's mom comes into town, and sees Addison with an awkward encounter as she knows everything, with her boss and his husband when he needs heart surgery, after giving him the bad news, Sam finds out that his mother and her boss have been having an affair for forty years.
In "I'm Fine," after Sheldon tells his ex-wife about his cancer and she decides to leave him, he begins going to chemotherapy and therapy to help him through the rough time, while he's going to chemo and going to therapy the search for the missing little girl is continuing and Sheldon believes that his patient has taken her and is fighting to get him to confess. In "Georgia on My Mind," after Charlotte is put on bed rest, she hopes to go two days without having any contractions so that she can get out of the Trendelenburg position, while Cooper continues to stay in the NICU to make sure that no one misses anything with the new born baby girl. In "Full Release," as Charlotte goes into labor with the other two babies everyone begins to pick out baby names that they think should be the babies names, until Charlotte comes out saying that only Mason and Cooper are picking them with her. In the series finale, "In Which We Say Goodbye," Naomi returns to stand by Addison's side on her wedding day, while Cooper struggles with the hardships of being a stay-at-home father, and Violet begins a new project close to her heart.
The episodes run usually close to 43 minutes, unedited of course with all the great music intact. There are about 7 chapter stops per episode. View the episode runtimes:
Disc 1:
1. "Aftershock" (42:59)
2. "Mourning Sickness" (43:01)
3. "Good Grief" (43:01)
4. "You Don't Know What You've Got Till It's Gone" (42:59)
5. "The Next Episode" (43:00)
Disc 2:
6. "Apron Strings" (43:01)
7. "The World According to Jake" (43:00)
8. "Life Support" (43:00)
9. "I'm Fine" (43:01)
10. "Georgia on My Mind" (43:00)
Disc 3:
11. "Good Fries Are Hard to Come By" (43:00)
13. "In Which We Say Goodbye" (43:00)
Like the last few seasons, packaging has an outer box that you can remove from the top or bottom then you'll see the keep case inside. For seasons one and two, we had a digipak, but ABC Studios changed it to a keep case starting with season three. Both the outer box and keep case have the same cover, a cast photo of them at the beach, with everyone standing but Addison and Jake. The show logo is on the top in white wording in a blue background. The back of the box and keep case has that blue background with information on the set and has head shots that feature all eight of our stars plus Mason (Griffin Gluck). There is also a section detailing the bonus features box with technical specifications also. This is very similar to the previous release. Opening the case, on the left and right panels itself we have a disc-by-disc breakdown with episode titles and bonus features and nice episodic photos. We have a little plastic holder, that we can flip like a page on a book. The holder holds disc one in the front and disc two in the back. Disc three is on the right panel itself. Each disc matches the set's color scheme, that blue background and the discs have nice character artwork. Disc one has episodes 1-5 with artwork of Sam, Addison & Jake. Disc two has episodes 6-10 and has artwork of Violet, Charlotte & Cooper. Disc three has episodes 11-13 plus bonus features and has artwork of Amelia & Sheldon.
The menu screen has clips playing in the background with the closing music from the series playing audio wise, similar to previous sets. It's a nice sunny style menu. The options on the main menu are Play All, Episode Selection, Set Up, Bonus Features (disc three), and Sneak Peeks (disc three). But before the main menu screen comes on disc one, we get some auto sneak peeks: Once Upon a Time Season 2 and the classic The Muppet Movie on Blu-ray. Sneak Peeks option is only found on disc three on the main menu and has the same previews as the ones popping up before disc one's menu. Set Up section has the option of subtitles in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese or Thai and how you can register your DVD. The Episodes option gives us the episode number, title and a screenshot. Bonus Features option is only on disc three and it has all the extras listed. All of the sub-menus have different background music once again. Consistent with its previous releases, but that is good!
The video is digitally mastered and is in widescreen and looks very good! It is just as good as the previous releases, if not better. The audio is also great and sounds very good, as it is in Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound. This is from the just completed 2012-13 season, so it had better be good and it is. Crystal clear. The series is over and will be missed.
Moving on the bonus features. All of the extras are on the final disc again, this season that is disc three. However, we don't have much this time. Only Deleted Scenes and Bloopers. If my counting skills are correct, we have about 21 deleted scenes, up nine from the previous DVD! There are five episodes that have deleted scenes. "Mourning Sickness" (1:35, 0:45, and 1:20), "Good Grief" (0:59 and 0:38), "The Next Episode" (0:38, 1:13, 0:52, 0:52, and 0:46), "Full Release" (0:25, 1:09, 1:06 and 1:18) and "In Which We Say Goodbye" (0:56, 1:10, 0:49, 1:18, 1:20, 1:16 and 0:31). Finally, we have some "Bloopers" (3:00)...yes, always great to see bloopers! See all the goofs and play on the set! The timing is down less than a minute from the last set, but that's fine. Wish we had more extra, but this is better than nothing at all.
And the show is now over. It's a good set with less bonus material and episodes, but everything else is similar to previous sets. There was supposed to be a featurette on this set, but not sure what happened? It's certainly not on here. The packaging is good and consistent to some of the previous sets. This season was unique and different, where we had a lot of character centric episodes. Shonda Rhimes always likes to freshen things up and usually it always works. All fans should definitely buy this set. I mean if you have the previous five sets, why wouldn't you get this one? See how the show ends and continue your collection with the last piece of the puzzle!
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That's all for this week. Until next time, keep it digital!
Sitcoms Airing Tonight / Sitcom Stars on Talk Shows
Friday, April 26
none scheduled
Sitcom Stars on Talk Shows (Week of April 22)
Friday, April 26
- Ernie Hudson (Grace and Frankie/The Last Precinct/Highcliffe Manor) - Ernie and Bill Murray are guests on a repeat of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon at 11:35pm on NBC.
- Steve Buscemi (Miracle Workers) - Steve appears on a repeat of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert at 11:35pm on CBS.
- Jerrod Carmichael (The Carmichael Show) - Jerrod is a guest on a repeat of Late Night with Seth Meyers at 12:36am on NBC.
- Fred Armisen (Los Espookys/Forever/Final Space) - Fred sits in with The 8G Band on a repeat of Late Night with Seth Meyers at 12:36am on NBC.
- Retta (Parks and Recreation) - Retta talks about HGTV's Ugliest House in America on Access Daily with Mario & Kit, so check your local listings.
- Janet Jackson (Diff'rent Strokes/Good Times) - Drew and Ross are surprised by Janet whose telling them all about her new tour, some of her most iconic moments and fashion looks and more on The Drew Barrymore Show, so check your local listings.
- Jessica Capshaw (Odd Man Out) and Camilla Luddington (Californication) - Jessica and Camilla are guests on The Talk on CBS at 2pm ET/1pm CT-PT.
New on DVD/Blu-ray
12/05 - Father Knows Best - The Complete Series
12/05 - The Odd Couple - The Complete Series (Blu-ray)
12/12 - The Dick Van Dyke Show - The Complete Series
12/12 - Looney Tunes Collector's Choice - Volume 2 (Blu-ray)
12/12 - That Girl - The Complete Series
12/15 - Letterkenny - Season 11
12/19 - The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet - The Official Restored Complete Series
12/22 - Three's Company - The Official 40th Anniversary Collection (includes The Ropers and Three's a Crowd)
01/09 - South Park - Seasons 11-15 (Blu-ray)
01/16 - Ghosts (UK) - Season Five
02/13 - Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. - The Complete Series (Blu-ray)
02/27 - The Really Loud House - Season One
03/12 - Ghosts (UK) - The Complete Series
03/12 - Looney Tunes Collector's Choice - Volume 3 (Blu-ray)
03/12 - Rick and Morty - Season 7 (Blu-ray Steelbook) (Blu-ray) (DVD)
04/03 - Too Close for Comfort - The Complete Series (VEI)
04/08 - Check It Out! - The Complete Series (VEI)
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