Search - thirtysomething: The Complete First Season on DVD

Great show, but beware of audio problems!!!

R L Rodolfo-Sioson | Berkeley, CA USA | 09/28/2009

(3 out of 5 stars)

"If you're reading this, you probably don't need me to convince you just how phenomenal "thirtysomething" was. You probably remember that the TV-viewing public of the late 80s/early 90s felt like it was divided between those of us who 'got' the show and those who just didn't see the point of it. I recall being engaged with these characters, who seemed to grapple with some of the 'real-life' issues I was facing; I also recall being enraged by those who flippantly dismissed them as a bunch of 'whining yuppies'!
How marvelous it has been to revisit the first season, which has taken far too long to make its appearance on DVD (blame the music on the show with its tangled copyright issues). I've only spotted a few problems, such as EPISODE 5 having the wrong closing credits (i.e., those of EPISODE 9, where they also appear). By far the worst one, however, is the lack of any audio for all of the SPECIAL FEATURES on DISC 6. I have attempted to replace my copy, but it now appears to be a recurring manufacturer's error (hence my three-star rating). I would recommend that you check your copy of Disc 6 immediately after receiving your set...."

One of the best TV series ever finally on DVD!

J. Williams | New York, NY | 08/30/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I've been waiting for this series on DVD ever since the format (DVD, I mean!) was first announced. I, like many others, can't believe it took this long. But it was worth the wait.

I was worried that after more than 20 years, the series would now appear stale and dated. I'm happy to report that it does not. Oh, don't get me wrong - superficially, the clothing and hair styles definitely look pretty period. I'm going to throw up if I see Michael wear one more wool tie, or racquetball shoes with his suit. Maybe more damning (in that it definitely separates the show from the current era), the late 1980's were still a time when people made an effort to look their status. Men always wore suits to work; stay-at-home moms(!) wore cardigans and "mom jeans" around the house - even those only in their early 30's. Today, when everybody walks around all the time in t-shirts and jeans and "30 is the new 20", it has the effect of making all the characters look older than they're supposed to be. In this one way, the show has more in common with the 1950's than the current decade.

But the themes of family, friendship, love, sex and death are universal and timeless, and thirtysomething always tackled them better than any other show before or since. That's how I've always remembered the series, anyway, and thankfully it seems I wasn't just looking back through rose colored glasses. In fact, I'm actually getting more out of the show now than I did when I was younger, because now I actually am thirtysomething myself - and I'm going through a lot of the same issues being dealt with in realistic ways on the show.

The series was criticized by some initially as being just a bunch of yuppie whining, but I never felt that was valid and I still don't. For one thing, from the beginning, the characters are all very self-aware - they know when they're just whining and when they're dealing with real issues. And there are real issues to be dealt with here.

For another, part of the genius of thirtysomething was always that it recognizes how nuanced and complicated things like marriage are, how something simple like not cleaning up enough can turn into a major problem, or how sometimes a husband and wife can just lose each other without even knowing why. This is not whining; this is real life, and most TV dramas just don't deal with those types of issues, either because they're too difficult to fit into an hour or because they're too hard to turn into a compelling story. thirtysomething always manages to do both.

I will say that, while I love the first few episodes, for me the series really doesn't hit its stride until about midway through season 1, with the religion-themed "I'll Be Home for Christmas". This was the episode that really hooked me when it first aired, and from then on the series only gets darker and more serious as it goes along. Some people might like the lighter-toned first few episodes better, but I will say that most of the "yuppie whining" critics faded away by the start of the second season, and certainly by the time Nancy's cancer manifested.

As for the DVD itself, I haven't finished watching the entire set yet but I love the big booklet and I love that there are quite a few extras. I'm less a fan of the lack of subtitles (which are helpful to my wife, who's not a native speaker and never watched this series before) or the transfer, which I'd expected better of when I'd read they were going back to the original film. It looks fine, but really not any better than I'd expect to find on standard-def cable. I wasn't expecting a widescreen HD transfer or anything, but then again you never know - a lot of old SD shows have started appearing that way lately (look at Seinfeld), so I was hoping to be pleasantly surprised.

I will definitely be buying every season of this DVD set, even with the shortcomings of the DVD's themselves."