Search - Soap - The Complete First Season on DVD

Fantastic show, barely adequate release

James R. Curry | Louisville, Kentucky United States | 06/28/2004

(4 out of 5 stars)

"In today's entertainment climate, it's hard to imagine how the content of Soap was enough to warrant the flood of letters received by the network in criticism of the show, but in 1977, Soap was quite a scandal; before the first episode even aired!It's also hard to believe that Soap's quirky, off-beat premise has never been duplicated, as over 25 years later, it still stands as a completely unique take on the traditional sitcom format. That's not to say that Soap hasn't dated at all - it does show its age in a number of places, although certainly much less than many of its contemporaries in the television world; Soap remains, overall, a breath of fresh air.The formula is remarkably simple: Take two families so dysfunctional that they make The Simpsons seem like paragons of fine social behaviour, and throw them into insane soap-opera-esque situations, with each episode following on from the last and the plots gradually getting more and more exagerated, ridiculous, and labyrinthine, blatantly parodying the numerous soap operas that plague network TV, even to this day.It could have been an unmitigated disaster, as attempts to create "wacky" TV often result in an unintelligent, directionless mess that seems like nothing more than a series of failed attempts to elicit a laugh from the audience. Not so with Soap. It's partly because the writing was sharp, and often witty with some fantastic one-liners. It's partly due to strong characters that you could actually feel for, when the show took one of its more serious turns. It has a lot to do with an incredible ensemble cast who each provided perfectly timed deliveries and a neverending array facial expressions that were often as entertaining as the writing itself.Based upon the quality of the material, I won't hesitate to recommend this DVD set, particularly to those who've never experienced the show. Its very nature does, after all, require it to be viewed in order, for maximum enjoyment, and this boxed set offers the opportunity. (While TV Land insist on only purchasing the rights to a group of episodes from the second season, and airing them incessantly).So whilst fans of the show should rush out and buy this set, and those who have never seen it should pay the (very reasonable) asking price to get a first look, the set does have a number of problems.MOST forgiveable is the lack of extras. Most of us buy these things for the episodes, after all, but some decent extras can make what is a good set into an outstanding one.STILL forgiveable is the cramming of 25 episodes onto 3 disks. Ordinarily, this might provoke a little more aggrivation, but the show was shot on videotape in the 1970s. A little less compression isn't going to do much to improve the picture, which is still the best this show has looked in a long while.ANNOYING is the fact that a few episodes have been slightly edited. I understand that this isn't for time, nor content, but due to non-cleared music rights, which I can understand. These edits are small, and shouldn't disuade you from this purchase.MOST DISGUSTING, however, is the fact that syndicated versions of two of these episodes were included, instead of the original, uncut versions. There's absolutely no reason for this, and it seems wholely sloppy. Thankfully, it's limited to just two episodes, but the producers of this set should be ashamed of themselves. I seriously hope this won't happen again for the second season set.So, overall, a set with a few annoying quirks, but nevertheless the first 25 episodes of a show that would easily have been worth a five star rating should a little more care been taken with the release. At the asking price, it's a steal!"