Taxi - The Complete Second Season

 

Picture: C+     Sound: C+     Extras: D     Episodes: B-

 

 

Taxi was a big hit for on the spot for ABC and Paramount, which would have been enough for most lesser series to coast on, but more memorable characters arrived for The Complete Second Season.  In this, Christopher Lloyd, Rhea Perlman and the late, great Carol Kane gained their biggest audiences ever and the series went from good to great and classic when all was said and done.

 

One think I noticed more, especially with the new characters, is that the series did something about the working class situation no sitcom had tried to do before.  In all TV series, especially comedies, the idea is that the unwealthy characters stay so to keep audiences hooked and the storyline interesting.  This show subverted some of those unspoken rules, including what poor people do when they suddenly get a large sum of money.  The audience appreciated this and then the show would go out of their way to subvert the idea of dream sequences and the dreams of the characters.  No one had done this before on TV, but Taxi did.  The 24 episodes of the 1979-80 season are:

 

1)     Louie & The Nice Girl

2)     Honor Thy Father

3)     Reverend Jim: A Space Odyssey

4)     Nardo Losses Her Marbles

5)     Wherefore Art Thou, Bobby?

6)     The Lighter Side Of Angela Matusa

7)     A Woman Between Friends

8)     The Great Race

9)     The Apartment

10)  Alex’s Romance

11)  Latka’s Revolting

12)  Elaine’s Secret Admirer

13)  Louie Meets The Folks

14)  Jim Gets A Pet

15)  The Reluctant Fighter

16)  Tony & Brian

17)  Guess Who’s Coming For Brenfish

18)  What Price Bobby?

19)  Shut It Down (two-parts)

20)  Alex Jumps Out Of A Plane

21)  Art Work

22)  Fantasy Borough (two-parts)

 

 

Like The Rockford Files, Taxi was deconstructing TV in the subtly hip was that was becoming popular in the late 1970s.  Unfortunately, TV never found a way to build itself up again and as clever as both shows were, cable, satellite and home video swept in to kill the era of the Big Three TV Networks.  That left both shows at the end of the last golden era of TV.  Between the writing, directing and impressive cast, even a non-fan like this critic remembered some of the best comedy bits.  This season is easily the equal of the first, something most sitcoms could not pull off.

 

The full frame 1.33 X 1 image is once again solid and colorful, maybe more than for the last set a bit.  This means a lack of color was not part of the look of the show.  Fans will be happy to know that this is the best the show has looked to date.  The Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono is reproducing the monophonic sound the show was always broadcast in and was produced in as decent a way as possible, give or take Dolby’s compression.  Once again, fans will not be happy to hear that despite the cast’s availability and who knows what is in the archive, there are no extras here.  Paramount did add extras for their first season release of The Brady Bunch, but this show has to have about the same kind of following.  Well, they’ve got a fee season left to add something, so we’ll see what they do next.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo