LateLine: The Complete Series
Picture: B-
Sound: B Extras: D Episodes: B+
The late 1990s were a pivotal moment in Al Franken’s
career. He was stepping out of shadows
of his success on Saturday Night Live and as a stand-up comedian and into the
limelight as a liberal comedian taking jabs at right-leaning
fundamentalists. His book, Rush
Limbaugh is a Big, Fat Idiot and Other Observations, became an overnight
success, and wanting to capitalize on that, NBC gave Franken the to greenlight
to create and star in his own primetime sitcom. But rather than create a show that tackled political issues and
debated hot topics, Franken and his partner John Markus, churned out a sitcom
set behind-the-scenes at a fictitious Washington D.C.-based late night news
program. Think of it as The Larry
Sanders Show, NewsRadio, and Murphy Brown—a TV series about a
show within a show.
The show has several of the stereotypical characters one
would find on the show. The
handsome-looking, but dim-witted anchorman (Robert Foxworth), the fast-paced,
gung-ho executive producer (Miguel Ferrer), the female producer trying to prove
herself to her machismo superiors (Megyn Price), and the smart guy nobody pays
attention to because he is boring and unattractive (Al Franken). But stereotypes aside, the show is quite
good, with witty and insightful writing.
Also, the chemistry between all the characters makes this show truly
outstanding and hilarious. Perhaps the
one character that truly steals the show is Ajay Naidu (most of you remember
him from Office Space as Samir), who plays the intern for the news
program. His presence in front of the
camera is phenomenal, as he steals the scene with his physical and spoken
humor.
The brilliance and humor aside, the one thing that is really
interesting is the many changes that are seen over the course of the
series. Given the fact the show lasted
only three short seasons (two on NBC, one on Showtime) and only nineteen
episodes, the changes that happen are really noticeable. There are at least three different versions
of the opening title sequence. Looking
at Season One and then at Season Two, it is apparent NBC liked what they say
and increased the show’s budget, as the sets are much more elaborate in Seasons
Two and Three than in Season One. The
other interesting thing to see is that in the second episode, Ajay Naidu dons a
wig to cover his baldness. It is weird
to see, as he is bald in the pilot and then bald for the rest of the
series. I guess they wanted to test out
the look, but usually if changes are made, it is because they did not work in
the pilot, not the other way around.
Given other series that last a number of years, changes can be made
gradually so as not to be obtrusive and standout. But with the show being so short-lived, it is distracting to see
all the changes happening so quickly.
That being said, there are only two other things about the
show I felt did not work or were detrimental to the series. The first is that in the first season, and
even one or two in the third season, there were a few episodes that felt like
they had no closure to them.
Specifically, certain storylines in the episodes just seem to end
abruptly without the viewer feeling satisfied.
While it only happened it a few circumstances, this is a professional
sitcom where these kinds of things should not happen. The second thing involves the lighting scheme of the show. Often times, it seems like there is too much
light on the characters and sets which creates lots of shadows and gives the
actors a soap opera-ish look to them.
It is not constant either, as in some scenes, the lighting seems fine,
but then goes back to the over-lit scenes.
It is another element that is distracting.
But these are just small distractions and minute
nit-picking that really do not take away from the quality of the content and
the humor on an overall basis. The show
is smartly written, with the actors delivering great performances.
The video is presented in its original television aspect
ratio of 1.33:1 is surprisingly very good as both the colors and the picture
are sharp and bright. Occasionally, the
scenes get a bit grainy and there are hints of dust, but luckily, they are few
and far-between. There is also one
short segment in one of the episodes where the color levels bleed and rotate
between blue and orange. Each disc
contains a play all feature or you can view each episode separately, and each
episode contains chapter breaks between segments when commercials would normally
air. The sound is given in Dolby Digital
2.0 Stereo Surround, which does not make a whole bunch of sense given that it
is a sitcom and mostly dialogue driven.
That being said, it mainly utilizes the center speaker, while
occasionally using the surround for the laugh track and music. Closed captioning is also provided in
English.
As for extras, well, there are none. This is truly a shame too, as one of the
trademarks of the show is getting famous politicians to appear as themselves on
the show and often times poke fun at themselves. It would be interesting to hear their input on playing
themselves, or at least audio commentaries by the show’s producers that gave
insight into what that was like.
Overall, the show is highly funny and thoroughly
entertaining. The best guest stars
included G. Gordon Liddy playing himself with a psychotic militaristic side to
him and Allison Janney in her pre-West Wing days as a single mother
smitten by Al Franken’s character. Even
Democratic Presidential candidate for 2004 John Kerry made a guest appearance
that stole the show. All in all, it is
a great show that died too early, as is often the case with brilliant and
misunderstood shows.
- Antonio Lopez
