Reba – The Complete Third Season
Picture: C+
Sound: C+ Extras: C+ Episodes: B-
Now that the WB Network is no more, there is no doubt that
Reba will go down easily as the best comedy the network ever offered and
one of the few non-animated series with any intelligence or consideration of
its audience being smart. The 2003 –
2004 season is as surprisingly rich as the prior shows and the group has grown
closer together in a way comedy series rarely see their casts cohere anymore
for The Complete Third Season.
Unlike many other shows about the working class, this one
seems real, whereas a series like Roseanne (reviewed elsewhere on this
site) seemed as interested in one-liners and self-conscious gags that broke any
story writing as bring real and telling stories about characters. These 22 shows, time slotted for half-hour
commercial play, are on three double-sided DVDs as follows with commentaries by
Reba, Melissa Peterman, Executive Producers Kevin Abbott & Matt Berry
marked by an * then ** with Peterman and co-stars Christopher Rich, Joanna
Garcia and Steve Howey and *** the same as * minus Reba:
1)
She’s Leaving Home, Bye Bye
2)
War & Peace*
3)
The Best & The Blondest
4)
Spies Like Reba*
5)
Calling The Pot Brock
6)
Encounters
7)
The Ghost & Mrs. Hart
8)
The Cat’s Meow
9)
Regarding Henry
10)
The Great
Race
11)
All Growed
Up
12)
The United
Front
13)
To Tell The
Truth**
14)
Brock’s
Mulligan
15)
The Shirt
Off My Back
16)
Sister Act
17)
Fight Or
Flight
18)
The Big
Fix-Up
19)
The Good
Girl
20)
Happy
Pills**
21)
Girls’
Night Out
22)
Core
Focus***
The comic timing also improves, while the teleplays became
tighter. Reba McEntire just has a great
knack for quality and taste. One person
asked what was the difference between her show and something like Mama’s
Family. Simple. This is not a good idea ruined and sent down
the river. The show has energy and the
characters are about as three-dimensional as such a show can get without
becoming as daring as All In the Family. They have family enough to go around here, though.
Though the framing seems once again 1.78 X 1/16 X 9
friendly, everything this time is 1.33 X 1 throughout, looking good for a
recent taped production. The show is
broadcast in digital High Definition and it looks like it may be shot that way
from the first season, so these copies might me missing the HD sides, shown
likely in a tunnel vision it is formatted for in lower-definition presentations
like DVD. The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
has some Pro Logic surrounds, but they are limited to occasional music and sounds
as good as the previous set. Besides
the commentaries, extras include two featurettes at about 20 minutes each, one
about the season and the other behind-the-scenes by Peterman herself.
- Nicholas Sheffo
